• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Weekly Sales Tip
  • |
  • 303-741-6636
KLA Group

KLA Group

IT Sales and Marketing Agency

Menu
  • SERVICES
      • Digital Marketing
      • Custom Website Design
      • SEO Services
      • Email Marketing
      • Content Development
      • Marketing Coaching
      • Software Development
      • Our Process
      • What is a Revenue Generation System?
      • Digital Marketing Services
      • Sales Training & Coaching Programs
      • HubSpot Implementation
      • HubSpot Implementation for Revenue Growth
      • HubSpot Monthly Support
      • Sales Training Programs
      • How to Cold Call
      • Consultative Selling
      • Email Prospecting
      • How to Ask for Referrals
      • Lead Generation Training
      • Sales Coaching
      • Sales Productivity
      • Sales Hiring Coaching
      • Outsourced Sales Management
      • Sales Assessment
      • Contact Us
  • WHO WE SERVE
    • IT Managed Service Providers
    • IT Solution Providers
    • ConnectWise Evolve
    • Sales Consultants
    • B2B Companies
    • Professional Services Firms
    • Phone System Providers
    • Manufacturing & Distribution
  • ABOUT KLA
    • Who We Are
    • What is a Revenue Generation System?
    • About Kendra Lee
    • Hire Kendra Lee to Speak
    • Meet the Team
  • BLOG
  • RESOURCES
    • Books by Kendra Lee
      • The Sales Magnet
      • Selling Against the Goal
    • Ebooks & Guides
    • Events
    • Weekly Sales Tip
    • Revenue Generating Trends Newsletter
    • Coffee with Kendra
    • Case Studies
  • Contact us

Table of Contents

  • Prospecting Performance Expectations
  • The Impact of Cold Calling
  • Can Reps Stop Cold Calling?
  • Three Scenarios with Better Alternatives to Cold Calling
  • The Cold Call Paradigm Shift

Nurturing vs. Cold Calling: Evolving Sales Tactics

Last updated January 5, 2024 Categories: Revenue Generating Success Strategies 

By Kendra Lee

There are better alternatives to cold calling

This year I’ve seen sales reps in five different companies successfully talk their business owners out of the need for cold calling, only to miss their sales objectives abominably.

Invariably the owners call to share that their reps don’t believe cold calling is working. They’ve decided to stop calling and use networking, LinkedIn, or anything else that resembles sitting back and waiting for the leads to drop in their lap. The bosses agree because in many cases, they wouldn’t want to cold call either. They feel sorry for their sales reps having to make all those calls.

The sales reps have convinced their bosses that there’s been a prospecting paradigm shift. They’re looking for better alternatives to cold calling.

Prospecting Performance Expectations

Business owners are anxious to find leads. Clients we work with set challenging new account quotas for their sales people, then hold their reps accountable to specific, measurable performance expectations.

They expect their salespeople to:

  • Make 30-70 cold calls a day.
  • Set 1-2 appointments each week.
  • Simultaneously, complete the activities that will move existing sales opportunities forward in the sales process.

The pressure is on to find new prospects and set appointments and their salespeople can’t talk these business owners out of the metrics.

KLA-Prospect-List-Building

The Impact of Cold Calling

But limiting your reps to pounding the phones, consistently calling new contacts, working down a new list every month, isn’t the way to make those numbers.

Without a relationship and recognition, your rep is just another transactional product salesperson trying to set an appointment to hawk your wares. You don’t care about the prospect, and they know it instantly when your salesperson starts talking. You didn’t look at their website, social channels or LinkedIn profile. You had your rep dialing for dollars to see who they could reach, then have a quick conversation to determine if you want to meet with them. There’s no thought as to if they want to meet with you.

This is how cold calling got its moniker. It really is cold calling, perhaps even callous calling.

A quick hello. A list of qualification questions. No relationship. No research. No fun in the rep’s voice. No interest in the prospect. Your sales rep has a script in mind and quickly runs through it. If the prospect isn’t a fit, on to the next one.

When your rep does happen onto a prospect who is looking for services like your own, guess what happens? You enter a highly competitive sales cycle with tremendous pricing and terms pressure. Sales activity is high, but win rates are low. Selling is tough. Overall company growth is slow.

Use our Recognition ROI infographic to evaluate how your company’s recognition in the market is affecting your sales reps’ ability to gain access to new prospects.

Can Reps Stop Cold Calling?

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know that I tell business owners and sales reps that salespeople have to keep calling.

  • 55% of leads should come marketing activities and events.
  • 25% of leads should come from referrals.
  • Reps should be uncovering the remaining 25% from calling, networking, emailing, and other prospecting activities.

But that calling shouldn’t be cold and callous.

Three Scenarios with Better Alternatives to Cold Calling

Prospects need to be nurtured. It can take as many of 9 attempts to reach a new prospect, so consider these three scenarios and better alternatives to cold calls.

1. You give up after two or three calls. Prospects haven’t noticed you and you didn’t reach them. Without some relationship nurturing, it’s a waste of your time. Keep reaching out until you’ve made at least 9 attempts, mixing in email, drop-by visits, LinkedIn engagement, event invitations, and sharing interesting content.

2. You reach a prospect, have a quality conversation, learn that they won’t be ready to do anything for 6 months. If you aren’t doing any relationship building, that was a wasted call as well. Savvy salespeople know to call back in 60 days to be top of mind when the time to make a change is right. Or, put that prospect into a marketing nurture campaign where the contact will receive consistent blog posts, invitations to your next lunch and learn, and notification about your latest video or infographic.

3. You aren’t able to connect with the prospect easily. You try once in a while, but the list is long and time is short. At best you call once a week. At worst, it’s once a month. Without consistent nurturing, you’re easily ignored and forgotten. Every call is like the first call. Add this contact to your marketing nurture campaign, too.

If you need some lead generation ideas, read parts 2, 3 and 4 in my book “The Sales Magnet.” You’ll get personal, collaborative and digital prospecting strategies you can combine with your sales reps’ prospecting.

The Cold Call Paradigm Shift

There has been a paradigm shift in cold calling.

Prospecting is not about making 100 calls a day. It’s about having quality conversations with prospects to learn more about them, then nurturing them until they’re ready to engage. Along the way you’ll find prospects who are ready right now, and others who’ll be ready in 60 or 90 days, six months, even next year.

If you’re nurturing prospects with lead generation strategies combined with sales reps’ check-in activities, you’ll build a prospecting funnel of warm relationships. Now as contacts engage, your salespeople can call based on value and knowledge from the relationship. Competition, price and term negotiations are dramatically reduced. Your win rates increase because prospects experienced the value you provided through your nurturing approach.

Sound like a shift you want in how your business sells?

There is a prospecting paradigm shift going on, but it isn’t about cutting the calling. It’s about combining it with nurturing lead generation activities and continuing to hold your salesperson accountable for doing their part.

Read More Related Articles

Good Referral
Revenue Generating Success Strategies  Two Steps to Put Clients in a Referral Giving State of Mind
Revenue Generating Success Strategies  Paint the picture of your ideal sales referral
Revenue Generating Success Strategies  Want to Boost Technology Sales? Incent Your Support Staff

Primary Sidebar

Footer

Office

  • KLA Group
  • 7779 S Glencoe Way
  • Centennial, CO 80122

Services

  • Digital Marketing Services
  • Sales Training
  • Sales Process
  • Hire Kendra to Speak
footer-logo

Resources

  • Blog
  • Coffee with Kendra
  • Events
  • Ebooks & Guides
  • Newsletter
  • Weekly Sales Tip
  • Books by KLA
  • Sitemap

About KLA

  • About Us
  • Who We Serve
  • Revenue Generating System

Service Areas

  • Commerce City, Colorado
  • Englewood, Colorado
  • Lakewood, Colorado
  • Wheat Ridge, Colorado

Contact Us

Call +1 888-305-0471Contact Us

Join Us

Subscribe OptionsCoffee With Kendra
  • Privacy Policy

© 2025 KLA Group. All Right Reserved.

  • 5 Critical Steps To Turn HubSpot CRM Into a Revenue Engine 
  • 3 Reasons Your Thank-You Page Is Costing You Leads (And How to Fix It) 
  • What Should Show on Caller ID When You’re Prospecting?
  • How HubSpot’s Content Remix Powers Faster B2B Lead Generation
  • Is Cold Outreach Dead or Are You Missing AI and Smart Tactics?

test

Subscribe to Our Blog

Get the latest sales and marketing articles from KLA Group delivered directly to your inbox. 

Name(Required)
This field is hidden when viewing the form
Untitled(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Talk with an Expert

Name(Required)
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Syllabus - Lead Generation

Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Coaching - Sales

Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Syllabus - How to Ask for Referrals

Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Syllabus - Email Prospecting

Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Syllabus - Consultative Selling

Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Syllabus - How to Cold Call

Name
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR BLOG