If you are in sales cold calling is a great way to get sales appointments and quickly weed thru those who are interested and excited about what you are selling and those who are not interested.

Some people believe because cold calling is a percentage game and few people actually wish to buy what you are selling. Nevertheless cold calling saves the sales person time in travel and the prospects time from not being bothered or visited by unwanted sales people.

Many sales folks hate cold calling, yet I bet if they would better track exactly where their best sales originate they would be surprised that cold calling is indeed amongst the top ways that such leads came it. Word of Mouth referrals would give cold calling a good run for its money in this category, yet you cannot wait around for the phone to ring if you are going to be successful in sales, you must be proactive.

Speaking of being proactive I recommend that you chart the number of cold calls you make each week and the amount of sales you make and you will see that when your cold call numbers go up so does your commission sales income. It therefore makes sense to set goals of how many calls you make and chart your progress and look at how many of those cold calls lead to entering serious talks with the prospects or drive you into the sales process and then eventually lead to sales. Please consider this in 2006.