Killing the cold call for new business. Really?

Three pieces of headline-grabbing spurious claims: (i) last week’s LinkedIn ‘kill the cold call’ (entry-level sub £36 p/m); (ii) an article by Alan See,  CMO, (@alansee) with the cutely phrased ‘questions are the answer’ proposal; and (iii) more simplistic stuff from Dale Roberts (VP Professional Services for Social CRM Innovator Artesian).

If you never saw these items, an e-e-e-ver so brief summary for you, then:

(i) LinkedIn simply wants you to subscribe to its new service; it argues it has revolutionised the recruitment business and now it’s going to revolutionise the new business prospecting business; hurrah

(ii) Alan See rightly argues that phone interruptions are unwanted but wrongly goes on to argue that, just like classroom teachers, we can elicit all sorts of interesting answers from prospects simply by asking the right questions; as if

(iii) Dale Roberts goes all crime detective-y situation and statistics and telling us that buying behaviour has changed before invoking, you guessed it, new technology and a simple starting point as the solution for we sellers: ‘establish a personal, authentic on-line reputation’; simples

The phrase “those that can’t do…” comes to mind.

What’s clear about all these offers, suggestions and proposals is that their originators don’t actually seem to do any of this kind of work themselves. The impression I get is that they’re more strategic advisers and consultants than