In my previous post I mentioned South African ski resorts. You may not think the idea of this strange but there was a time when I did. That was before I lived there, of course. We moved to South Africa in October 1994, not long after Mandela became president, although I don’t think the two events were directly connected! October is spring in SA and summer is on its way. I had imagined South Africa to be a very hot country and so it is – just not all the time. The first car we got had a heater and we laughed at this and put it down to the fact that all cars must come with them fitted as standard and it would probably cost too much to take them out. When winter came we found out why the cars have heaters. We also learnt the huge benefit of a north facing house. Ours was south facing and, as the sun shines from the north, it was a huge disadvantage in the winter. Quite simply, the house never warmed up. The temperature fell to about -4 centigrade during the night and rose to +20 centigrade during the day. But still the house never warmed up during the day because it was south facing. We had coats by the front door, not to put on when we left the house, but to put on when we came in! That house was so cold… it’s the coldest I’ve been in my life - and that’s saying something.

However, we soon learnt how to live in South Africa. We learnt, especially, to appreciate the heater in the car. We then moved to a north facing house – and what a difference that made – and we also learnt to appreciate that the country has ski resorts. It’s a beautiful country with wonderful people and well worth a visit. But be warned; it can get cold.

Which brings me to my point – cold calling. Last week I advised a new customer that I thought cold calling does not get great results and that the money spent on doing it could be better used. A couple of days later I was reading a sales magazine article about the success of a sales director. He explained that he’s looking for salespeople who can take a sale from cold call to multimillion pound deal and was lamenting the fact that there are not many people who can do it. Given my experience, I’m not surprised! What he wants are salespeople who can sit down with the Yellow Pages and make calls. As I said; I do not believe cold calling works well. I know lots of people do it but I believe there are better and more intelligent ways of getting business. After reading the article I came across Frank Rumbauskas’ views on cold calling – basically don’t. I then also read Jill Konrath’s views on cold calling in her book Selling to Big Companies – basically don’t. So I’m not on my own here. Is cold calling on its death bed or am I just attracted to the views that I agree with? In my defence I can only ask who in sales enjoys being out in the cold? I certainly don’t!

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