The story ‘cold calling is dead’ set the broker channel ablaze with comments praising the benefits of social media, and defending the tried-and-true method of picking up the phone and saying ‘hello.’
Kat Macaulay posted “Great article! I posted a blog about this recently... so true.... Social media is incredibly powerful; the key is to listen more and thoughtfully engage.”
Andrew Baile of Milton, Ont. however, couldn’t disagree more.
“That ‘Cold calling is dead’ is untrue and is a fabrication of the truth in order to satisfy stakeholder interests,” wrote Baile. “The percentages shown in the comparative mode to ‘support’ this fabrication are not comparing apples to apples. The reason that social media is popular is that it is a lot easier to do than to cold call.
“No one likes to cold call, I realize that. However it works and always will,” added Baile. “When I ‘x-date’ renewals for future sales proposals I almost always get the date to quote on later. And sales work well this way.
“You must engage people to make sales and cold calling is a sure-fired way of doing it. I know: I’ve done it.”
The original article quoted Andrew Jenkins, vice president of strategy for ArCompany, who spoke at the Crystal Ball conference in Toronto, Ont. Before a room of 150 brokers from across Canada, he explained that agents using social media had a greater sales buy of 20 per cent, compared to cold calling, “which is only effective 3 per cent of the time.” (continued.)
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Macaulay did follow up with a comment stating that Andrew did have “a really great point” about cold calling, but cautioned that brokers should evaluate their demographic when looking to reach out to potential clients.
“The changing landscape of business being that ‘Gen Y’ makes up 65 per cent of the workforce and 96 per cent like to be communicated to on SM (Social Media) is very relevant,” wrote Macaulay. “Consumers choose when, how and to what extent a company communicates with them. But, as you've stated, cold calling still works for you; but for how much longer?”
