(Entertainment-NewsWire.com, October 08, 2013 ) Dallas, TX -- Baylor University recently conducted a study to determine if the popular notion that cold calling is dead in our new Information Age economy is really true.
The results speak for themselves. Here are just a few of the findings from the study:
- 72% of cold calls result in outright rejection
- Only 28% of calls resulted in the prospect not hanging up on the cold caller
- Out of 1,774 calls that were taken by the prospect, only nineteen, or 0.3%, resulted in a qualified lead
And, perhaps most astounding of all:
- A skilled salesperson in today's economy can expect to spend an average of 7.5 hours cold calling to generate one qualified lead.
In defining the word "qualified," the standard is that a prospect must be in a current buying cycle for the product or service being sold, must have the means to make the purchase, whether cash or credit, and must accept an appointment with the salesperson. This further supports the theory held by many modern sales experts that appointments generated from cold calling are the least valuable of all and rarely result in a sale.
One of those modern sales experts, who has been very active in publicizing the results of this study is New York Times best-selling author Frank Rumbauskas, of Never Cold Call Again and several other books and products including his comprehensive sales prospecting home-study course available at his website, nevercoldcall.com.
"This study proves what myself and so many others have been saying for years: That cold calling is a leftover relic of the 1950s and anyone who expects any results from it in our tough, modern economy is dreaming. Numbers don't lie, and these numbers prove beyond any reasonable doubt that cold calling is a complete waste of time," Rumbauskas commented.
The Baylor University study further reinforces another done by the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina several years prior, which concluded that 80% of business executives, owners, and other decision makers in the United States will absolutely, positively never buy as the result of a cold call.
