Katie McManus traces cold calling back to door-to-door sales and early telephones, when owning a phone meant you had money to spend. As phones became common, the signal faded and cold outreach stopped working. She doesn't teach it anymore, focusing instead on helping ADHD business owners find profitable niches.
Do you know the history of cold calling? It's actually really interesting how this thing that is super annoying to us today used to be really super effective to sell stuff. So back before phones, before the interwebs, before we had little smart devices in our pockets that we could buy pretty much anything that we wanted at any point. People would have three ways to buy things. Essentially, they could order from a catalog, they could go into their, like, town or city and try to shop around for exactly what it was that they were looking for, or they could wait for the door to door salesperson to come around with that year's or that season's goods. And it was actually really common for people, especially in, like, rural areas, to really just wait for the salesperson to come by with school supplies, with clothes, with like farm gear, whatever. And I bring this up because I want you to understand that the market was already primed to buy in this manner where someone would kind of intrude on their day, tell them what they were selling, and they'd be like, oh yeah, I would like that thing. Please give me the thing and I will give you my money. So the phone was invented. The early adopters of the telephone were all really wealthy because phones were expensive. You had to lay the telephone lines, you needed to get the device, and you needed to be able to pay for the operator to do their thing with all the cords and the holes and, and that's the technical term for that. So all the wealthy people are starting to get these phones put in their homes. And the companies that usually send out their door to door salespeople are looking at this environment and thinking, you know what, we're sending our people out anyway to go door to door to all these houses that are out in the rural setting. So it takes them a really long time. You know, the people who have the most money, who are most qualified buyers, have a device in their home that we don't actually have to go straight to them. We can call them and tell them what we have. And that was the moment when telemarketing was born. And when it started, it was super effective because not only were the customers really trained to buy in this kind of way, and it's also way more convenient for them. Instead of waiting for this guy to do his rounds and come around to their place and hopefully still have some of the stuff that they wanted or, or to go into town, like they just had like a phone call come in, you know, there you go. Also, everyone who just got a telephone installed in their house, so it's like a brand new thing and here's a brand new way to use it. And like, that's exciting. So the telemarketing companies, they made a lot of money. The people who had the early phones, they bought a lot of stuff. But then phones became more and more accessible and more affordable to to the vast majority of people. And the more affordable it was to get a phone put in your house, the less effective it was to sell over the phone. Because it used to be that if someone had a telephone number, that meant that they were a qualified buyer, they had enough money for the thing that you were selling. But as less and less affluent people were able to afford phones in their homes, obviously that was no longer the case. So the efficacy of cold calling has declined since steeply, since its very inception. Until today, I don't know a single person who has ever bought a single thing from a cold call. I also don't know anyone who signed up for anything from a cold email or a cold dm. And this is why I don't train my clients on how to do cold outreach. The success rate is incredibly low, but the amount of time it takes to get even one sales call booked or one thing sold, you're going to have to spend 40 hours a week of doing cold outreach. And not just that, but you're going to have to do cold outreach and get all that rejection that comes with it. Because at this point, everyone has a phone number and everyone has an email and everyone has social media. Just the fact that you can DM them or call them or email them does not mean that they're a qualified buyer or even remotely interested in what you have. So, anyways, that's how cold calling started and that's why it's no longer effective. And that's why I don't train it up to my clients. Oh, and hi. I help ADHD business owners make more money in less time with fewer distractions by helping you discover your profitable niche. Design an offer that people actually want to buy and learn how to market and sell it without wanting to vomit. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. Like and follow if you want more content like this.
