The majority of sales organizations today continue to mandate cold calling by their salespeople. They do this despite the fact that cold calling has the lowest return of all prospecting methods. Managers like to require cold calling because it is done at the salesperson's time and expense, not the company's. They believe that the ability to scrape up some business here and there, on the salesperson's time, is enough to justify the ongoing activity of cold calling.

What they fail to realize, however, is the dangerous hidden cost of cold calling.

I'm talking about the effect that cold calling has on salespeople. In my experiences in working with hundreds of companies, doing sales training, sales planning, and coaching individual salespeople, I've learned a few basic truths that are valid one hundred percent of the time. First of all, companies that require cold calling have the highest turnover of all sales organizations, upwards of seventy-five percent. Such high turnover is disastrous to a company's long-term profitability. Companies that run a solid marketing program and provide qualified leads to their sales forces have virtually no turnover.

In the world of salespeople, the number one reason why salespeople quit their jobs is the requirement to cold call. And, as you can guess, the number one reason why top producers choose to stay with their employers long-term is because those employers are providing qualified leads and therefore there is no need at all, let alone any requirement, to cold call.

I personally quit jobs because of the requirement to cold call. On the contrary, I stayed at one particular position for quite a long time and was very prosperous there because my manager was actually against cold calling and worked hard to make sure we always had a decent supply of incoming leads. Not surprisingly, we were the most rapidly expanding branch in the country during my tenure there.

Sales organizations that wish to attract and keep the desirable, most professional top producers out there need to start with the basics and implement a solid marketing plan that will generate a consistent supply of leads for the sales force. Anything else will lead to a lack of talent and high turnover on the sales staff. A requirement to cold call repels great talent and attracts inexperienced salespeople who won't bring in the big numbers every manager desires. A good marketing system, and the consistent stream of leads it generates, attracts and keeps top sales talent.

Frank Rumbauskas

Frank J. Rumbauskas, Jr., author of the New York Times Best-Seller "Never Cold Call Again: Achieve Sales Greatness Without Cold Calling," spent several difficult years in sales, frustrated and convinced that there must be a better way than the familiar chants of "cold call more" and "increase your activity" so frequently heard from well-meaning but otherwise clueless sales managers.

While working as an account executive for a Fortune 100 company in the mid 1990s, Mr. Rumbauskas was mentored by another A.E. who went from entry- level sales to upper management in 3 years, something unheard of in this particular organization. This top producer revealed a very basic principle to Mr. Rumbauskas. He immediately applied it and suddenly began to achieve tremendous results. That simple principle forms the basis of this entire program. Mr. Rumbauskas has taken it, perfected it, designed systems around it, and is now able to apply it to any and all sales jobs. He went on to successfully start and run two sales agencies based on these principles before moving into sales training.

His biggest strength compared to other sales trainers and authors is the fact that he is now a business owner who meets with salespeople on a regular basis. He is careful to observe everything they do right as well as everything they do wrong, and his training materials reflect this firsthand experience.

Originally from Linden, New Jersey, Mr. Rumbauskas now resides in Phoenix, Arizona. He is actively involved with various community and civic organizations in the Phoenix area, and is an active entrepreneur - he owns a mortgage protection life insurance agency which uses the principles he teaches to generate business without cold calling, and is a major holder in an emerging wireless internet company. He enjoys reading the great number of success stories we receive from students of this program. If you have a success story you haven't yet shared with us, please do so!