Online Sales Tools Won’t Help You Seal The Deal If You Can’t Cold Call

Dec. 2, 2009 - PRLog -- Following news that Dow Jones has launched its new social selling tool, Andy Preston, MD of Outstanding Results it concerned that many may think such developments mean that they don’t need to be able to cold call well and assume that the software will do all the hard work for them.

Despite claims that such software can encourage warmer connections with potential customers and contacts through indentifying relevant events, news stories and appointments, Preston is concerned how beneficial they can be if salespeople don’t possess the ability to covert the calls into opportunities.

Preston says;

“It’s great that vendors are coming out with tools to help salespeople, but as for ‘signalling’ an end to cold calling, I think that’s rather a bold claim! After all, a notice that someone has launched a new project or started a new job doesn’t really add much ‘warmth’ to the call these days. Anyone searching your name, job title or company on Google can potentially find that out, as well as watching announcements in print and online press.  Unless you’ve got a good relationship with that person previously, there’s still a large element of ‘coldness’ to that call and you’ll still need the majority of your cold calling skills to convert the prospect into an opportunity.”

Preston, who is author of ‘Selling in a Slowdown’ and founder of The Sales Training Breakfast Club believes that in these tougher times, many companies and individuals have forgotten how to sell and in particular, how to get new business from their cold calling activity, something which successful companies are addressing right now.

“Companies that have the right staff for this market, with the right ‘new business’ sales skills and the right training are leaving their competition in the wake and I doubt that any sales software could compete with those kind of people,” says Preston.

ENDS

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Editors Notes

Andy Preston is MD and Training Director of sales performance company Outstanding Results.   Andy is an international speaker, author and trainer and specialises in working with companies to improve their sales results.

Preston has over a decade of experience and success in the sales industry, working his way from sales representative to sales director in less than twelve years.

More information on Andy Preston can be found at www.andy-preston.com and for more information on Outstanding Results please visit www.outstanding-results.co.uk