Cold Calling

Phoning a prospect who has not asked to hear from you, to start a conversation or book a meeting. One of the oldest outbound sales tactics.

Why it matters

Cold calling is unglamorous and often uncomfortable, but for some markets it still cuts through where email is ignored. Whether it fits depends on your buyer, but early founders should not dismiss it out of hand.

For example

A rep phones 40 prospects a day; most decline, but three conversations turn into booked demos that email never would have started.

Go deeper

Essential Cold Calling Tips: 17 Proven Techniques for Success Gong · article Gong analyzed over 100,000 real cold calls to find what actually correlates with booking a meeting, so this is data, not opinion, on how to open a cold conversation without sounding like a script. Useful if your outreach includes calls as well as email, since the same targeting and relevance principles from written outreach carry over to a live conversation. Open gong.io →

Related terms

Also in Starting Up

See how founders actually handle this on Getting your first customers, part of the Starting Up hub.

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