Every day some one is declaring something is dead. Email is dead. Social media is dead. Cold calling is dead. There is always some influencer looking to get ahead of the curve and claim some sales technique is dead.
Let me ask you a question.
Is door to door sales dead?
If you said yes, then you should feel lucky that you’ve never heard that knock
on your door at 2:00 on a Wednesday from some selling cleaning supplies or roofing inspections, etc.
Door to door may not be prevalent, but it’s far from dead, and that’s my point.
We need to stop claiming sales techniques are dead and instead figure out how to build our communication stack.
All these prospecting techniques are nothing more than varying communication approaches and learning to use them all based on your target market is how you win.
People are different and like to be connected and engaged through different channels at different times and suggesting that you know what each person’s unique communication channel is pretty bold.
I argue you need to build your own communication stack and use them all in the most efficient and effective way possible.
Think about all your current prospects, where do they live, what do they do, and how might they like to be engaged and at what times.
Understanding that, what would be wrong with a cadence that leverages a robust communication stack that looked like this;
- e-mail – cold call – Twitter follow – e-mail again – LinkedIn connection request – cold call – email – snail mail – Twitter DM – LinkedIn Inmail- Text – etc.
Why wouldn’t you create a cadence like this? Why would anyone ever use just one or two communication mediums to get through to a prospect? Why would anyone handicap themselves like that? That’s just silly.
Cold calling isn’t dead. E-mail isn’t dead. Social isn’t dead. Even, door to door selling isn’t dead. What’s dead is depending on a single communication channel to connect with your prospects.
Don’t listen to the experts. Listen to your prospects and customers. Build a communication cadence leveraging everything in your communication stack. I promise you; some will answer your call, someone will respond to the email, someone will reply to your Twitter DM, someone will connect via LinkedIn, therefore use them all.
Single channel communication, now that’s dead. Don’t do that. That’s just stupid.