What is Cold Calling?

Definition

Cold calling is a traditional sales prospecting technique where a salesperson contacts a potential customer by phone without any prior interaction or expressed interest from the prospect. In modern sales, this approach has evolved from being completely « cold » to « cool » or « warm, » where the salesperson conducts research beforehand to ensure the prospect fits their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) and to personalize the conversation.

Examples

• Traditional Cold Call: A BDR gets a list of phone numbers and calls them sequentially with a generic script to introduce their product. This method has a very low success rate.
• Modern « Cool » Call: A salesperson researches a company on LinkedIn, identifies the Head of Operations as the likely decision-maker, and notes that the company recently hired 20 new staff. They call and open with, « Hi [Prospect Name], I saw you’re rapidly expanding your team, and companies in your position often face challenges with X. I’m calling to share how we help with that. »
• Follow-up Call: An SDR calls a prospect who downloaded an e-book a week prior. This is a « warm » call because there’s a pre-existing reason for the outreach.

Advantages/Benefits

• Direct and Immediate: Provides a direct line of communication to a prospect, allowing for an instant, real-time conversation and immediate feedback.
• Proactive Pipeline Building: Allows a sales team to proactively generate leads instead of waiting for inbound interest.
• Human Connection: A real conversation can build rapport and trust far more effectively than purely digital methods.
• Valuable Insights: Even unsuccessful calls can provide valuable information about the market, competitors, and customer pain points.

Related terms

• Outbound Sales
• Prospecting
• BDR (Business Development Representative)
• Sales Cadence
• Pitch
• Objection Handling