Although I agree to some extend to doing research before picking up the phone and dial a prospect that you have on your desired customer list, I think cold calling, with no prep work, is the best tool to find new business fast. 
 
Out of a 100 cold calls, I aim to have 20 lines to follow up on. These 20 prospects will then deserve the attention as just described in your article and allow us to come better prepared to our "not so cold" prospect.  
 
Cold Calling is alive and more necessary then ever! 
 
Greetings from PTC's ISS dept. in Europe.

You know what the buyer had for lunch, if you're the host! Blind Cold Calling should be Dead, replaced by prospecting to Well Qualified Buyers.

At the risk of being too cute: It's about what you know, not who you know.  
 
If I get a cold call and they only know who I am (marketing), I tune out & they get nothing.  
 
If they know even a little about what I care/think/etc. about, I will at least listen (well maybe for a few seconds longer). 

I attended Nigel and Jill's event and I agree 100%. Buyers are skeptical today and unless you can demonstrate that you did your homework, you are toast. Nigel says make a social call and he's right. There's no excuse for a lack of research today.

Sales 2.0 tools that help the sales rep mine social networks, social media, and the web are staples of the New Sales Economy. Innovative companies like InsideView are leading the charge in "socialprise" tools -- definitely check them out! 
 
The key to taking real advantage of these Sales 2.0 tools is to have the right processes in place that brings qualified leads to the sales force. Sales reps should spend the majority of their time selling -- not wasting time on poor prospects. When done correctly the results are astounding -- sales cycles get shorter leading to more volume and revenue booked.  
 
Just this week I saw an 81k and a 600k plus deal close where the initial contact and qualification was made by an inside demand generation specialist that delivered the lead to inside sales rep who ultimately closed the deal! Awesome stuff!!!

Trish -  
 
 
 
I see companies using tools like Eloqua and Gotowebinar to prioritize their outbound prospecting calls to the ones that express the most interest.  
 
 
 
Scott Miller 
 

Thanks for all your comments and you are all spot on. The point Nigel and I are making is that you have to use the information at hand, which is abundant, to customize your message to the buyer so that it is relevant. This holds true for inbound leads as well as outbound calling.  
 
Chad said it really well in his comment: "The key to taking real advantage of these Sales 2.0 tools is to have the right processes in place that brings qualified leads to the sales force." If your organization thinks the 2.0 movement is about the technology and not effective process, you will not reap the benefits. At the end of the day, sales is a science. Figure out the formula that is right for your organization and then execute flawlessly!

Nigel comments about Trigger Events are BANG ON! 
 
The secret to sales is Timing: Getting the right people at EXACTLY the right time. 
 
Nigel does a great job of covering this in his eBook. Pages 14-16 talk about the Trigger Events that shift a decision makers priorities and TURN PROSPECTS INTO BUYERS. 
 
I have found that the best way to identify, and start seeing, the Trigger Events that create demand for your products/services is to do a Won Sales Analysis. 
 
The link to the Won Sales Analysis tiplate and instructions on how to use it can be found here. 
 
Once you have identified the specific Trigger Events for your product or service you know who you should be Social Calling and when. 
 
Happy Hunting! 
 
Craig Elias

Are these scenarios apples and apples or apples and oranges: 
 
1) A rep getting a list of 1000 names and dialing down the list 
 
2) A rep getting a list of 400 names that were hand raisers from a nurturing campaign before handed to the rep (just blogged about this) 
 
3. A rep getting a list of 100 names that were hand raisers from a nurturing campaign, that were then researched by an intern with links to their LinkedIn profiles, blogs, twitter feeds, all added to their record before the first dial. 
 
We all started with the scenario #1 (most are still there), many are doing some of #2 and some of #3, but if you can get the full machine running, you're going to see incredible results.  
 
The key thing to remember is to NOT think the research and information means you should cut back on the focus of dials and production. Notice in examples #2 and #3, the nurturing was done by others, and the research was done by interns. That tells me that a rep that was making 100 dials a day with #1, can probably still make 85 or 90 a day with option #3 (takes a little time to review data), but will be producing in a way never before seen. 
 
"How do you like them apples?!"

LOVE IT! Thanks all.  
 
Awesome comments. Let's keep this discussion going. There's plenty for me to learn too. 
 
We're not at the end with Sales 2.0 and "Social Selling" just the beginning. My mission for Sales 2.0 is to make selling better. This kind of discussion is the "rubber hitting the road" on making those changes a reality. 
 
One thing I do know is people CARE about this topic. There is PAIN out there. In 45 mins I am going to present the material from the ebook on a webinar and 2,300 + people have registered. 
 
I appreciate all of you for pushing this Sales 2.0 movement forward.  
 
YOU ROCK! 
 
Nigel

When I started my company in the 80's, I rented a street directory and called a few thousand companies where all I knew was the company name, phone number and address. I learned a few things. 1. Cold calls suck! No matter how good you get, there are better ways, 2. I got good. I got to the right people. I had gatekeepers tell me what their bosses had for lunch. I had gatekeepers help me get to their boss. I had decisionmakers take my calls and be glad they did. 3. Referrals, introductions and inbound marketing developed lead gen are the way to go. But back then, I had no money and I wasn't too smart, so you do what you have to do. One other thing...If your hard drive or server crashes. If somehow you can't get to your qualified leads, can you cold call or are you out of business?

Awesome discussion, Trish & Nigel. 
 
I have several AMENs to hand out here... 
 
1. Matt, you're not being too cute. You're comment is right on. It's about what you know, not who you know. I can buy a contact (email/phone) from one of a dozen sources for $1 or less. So what? What do I know about this company/person that is going to make them want to take my call or read my email. You've got to be relevant in the first 5 seconds or else I hang up / press delete. 
 
2. Chad and Trish - Thanks for the InsideView shout out but as we all know, great tools/technologies in a vacuum do not a great sales rep make (Yoda grammar). You have to have the right processes in place to take full advantage of InsideView or any other socialprise / Sales 2.0 tool. 
 
3. Craig and Nigel - Please keep spreading the Trigger Event gospel. They work. You need to understand what represents a trigger event for your product/service but once you do, there are tools/technologies to discover and alert you about those events so you don't spend hours scouring through news, blogs, twitter, etc. 
 
4. Mike D - Love the data you're seeing (and generously sharing) on nurtured vs. cold leads. As for the different classes of leads you describe, I would argue that Sales 2.0 tools are making it possible to be reasonably well informed about cold lists as well as nurtured lists WITHOUT spending hours of research time (or even having the luxury of a research intern, which few of us have.)  
 
Tools/technologies should be our interns. Sales 2.0 tools can do a lot of the grunt work involved in understanding both the WHO (company, person) and the WHAT (trigger event, company connection) so you can quickly (like 1-2 min) qualify and engage with a lead. 
 
 
Again, great discussion -- both strategy and specific tactics. Hope this thread keeps going!

Loved the ebook Nigel! 
There are a number of social networks starting for salespeople that are showing a growing trend. Salespeople want to get a referral or a warm lead, and focus on that, rather than time spent potentially wasted on cold calling. These are 2 new sites for sales2.0 lead and business info exchange http://bit.ly/4xcexi and http://bit.ly/BaIud . We support the technology behind these (and private) networks at Myway. 

The more tailored a cold call or email, the better. So, the more information you can acquire about your prospect and tailor your script to them, the greater the odds of their interest in you. Great sales blog at http://goldencirclesales.blogspot.com/

There really is no right or wrong answer to whether "Cold calling is dead" or not. It all depends on what you sell and to whom you're selling. 
 
 
 
If you're in a transactional business - then cold calling to reach the widest audience possible with a quick sales cycle can make sense.  
 
 
 
If you're in a complex b-to-b sale, where you need to reach C-level execs at Fortune 500 companies, than you better be sure you've spent you're time upfront and have a well-crafted approach as to how to get an audience. Just "smilin & dialin" won't work here.  
 
 
 
So - the most important thing; know who you need to reach and then look at the various approaches to get there.

@Trish Bertuzz: one more essential Sales 2.0 tool: know the company name of the website visitor and their level of interest. 
That will make your cold calling much more effective as you will only call interested companies and you know the subject to address. 
See LEADSExplorer

As they say, even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. That's blind cold calling. But my point is this -- that squirrel is very hungry and does not get enough to eat. Just like companies who rely on cold-calling won't make their quotas. 
 
The killer combination, in my mind, is lead nurturing and trigger events. Use a car example. What if Ford just impressed the hell out of us (instead of stupid TV ads). Then we get a $3,000 repair (trigger event). Where would we go to buy a car? Ford of course. 
 
I'm doing a radio show tomorrow on The Importance of Lead Nurturing <a> http://brooksgroup.com/thesalesbuzz/content/Radio0909.aspx <a>