Andy NearyI help insurance professionals turn brand awareness into business growth.

cold calling isn’t as easy as it used to be. Here’s 👆why.

18 Jul 2025 · 1 min

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Andy Neary explains why cold calling worked better in 1995: prospects couldn't see caller ID, so they picked up to find out who was calling. Now everyone screens calls, making the old playbook obsolete.

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Let me share a story, a little analogy that drives this point home. I got in the business in 2002 and so go back a little before that. 30 years. 1995. If I were prospecting in this industry in 1995 and I were using cold calling as my number one method of prospecting, here's what that would look like. I would have a phone on my desk with a bunch of push buttons, right? And I would pick up the phone and I would make a call to a prospect. And on the other end of the line, that prospect would see their phone or hear their phone ring, and they would not be able to see the number calling. Therefore, they would have to pick it up just to identify who the heck is calling. That alone made cold calling more effective back in the day.