No business owner likes to make cold calls. But mastering the technique can be beneficial, even when you don’t use the strategy as part of your direct marketing campaign. Here are some ways to use cold calling you might not have thought of:
Market Research
While most people think of cold calling only as those annoying telemarketers that interrupt you at home, cold calling tactics can be used to find out just about anything that you need to know to make your small business more successful.
Just by picking up the phone and calling local businesses that should know the answers, you can resolve any number of problems that might come up. You may not always get an answer, these folks are busy too, but many times you do. And you can always make more calls or do some additional research on your own to fill in the blanks.
Strategic Alliances
Today, success in business is all about forming strategic alliances that benefit all parties. Traditionally, business people have relied on networking functions such as meet-up groups to form such alliances.
Often you have a specific business or person in mind that you’d really like to meet, but so far have not had the opportunity. While stalking them out is an option, a more direct approach may be to give them a call on the phone. The phone is a very non-intrusive way to feel them out through general market research questions, and if the connection is there suggest further meetings to talk over possible strategic partnership options.
Those business people willing to try new techniques for forming strategic alliances and learning as much as possible about their industry will thrive, even in today’s economy. An effective, low cost technique for achieving those goals is learning how to reach out through cold calling.
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