If sales was a middle school PE class that took place sometime between 1950-2013, cold calling would be running laps in preparation for The Presidential Fitness Test.
It's the responsibility no one likes, but everybody's forced to do at some point.
Despite the degree of I-hate-this-so-much-itude that cold calling tends to elicit, it's still a staple of many a modern sales process — so pretty much everyone across most sales orgs can benefit from some perspective on it.
That's why we surveyed over 300 sales leaders on the subject. Here's some of what we found...
Top cold callers tend to fit one of two psychological profiles.
Our research indicates genuine curiosity about prospects' challenges (27%) and treating rejection as data points rather than personal failure (25%) are the main traits differentiating the best cold callers.
These figures highlight two key psychological profiles for top performers: the intellectually curious and the analytically detached.
By no means are those profiles mutually exclusive. Exactly 0% of top callers make every prospect feel like the prettiest girl at the dance and then cry in the bathroom after hearing, "No, thank you."
The same goes for high-volume, sociopathic robo-reps who creepily whisper, "It's a numbers game, baby," to their visibly uncomfortable desk neighbors after every rejection.
Still, these personas and their associated skills, tendencies, and dispositions make for effective cold callers — so relevant training and independent skill development should be at least partially geared towards them.
ROI-killing multichannel communication issues scare leadership, but their responses might be too soft.
The study also saw 19% of respondents cite inadequate social selling and multi-channel approaches as their main limiting factor in achieving ROI on cold calling. But only 12% say reps should focus primarily on multi-channel prospecting skills to improve as cold callers over the next two years.
Several sales leaders appear concerned about their multi-channel communication, but they might not really press reps about it.
That's a tough discrepancy in the age of "Just text me" — an era where some people would rather starve to death than call a restaurant that doesn't use OpenTable.
Modern cold calling strategies incorporate complementary communication avenues (especially social media outreach), and ensuring those approaches work properly takes both organizational support and personal initiative.
What can you do with this next-level, revelatory insight?
For reps: Keep a call-tracking journal, focusing specifically on intellectual curiosity and analytical detachment. Track curiosity-related elements (like questions that garner meaningful responses) and hard data (like call outcomes and objection categories).
For managers: Identify high performers on your team who fit the key top-performer personas and use them as peer mentors. Have reps who consistently sustain meaningful conversations work with ones who rely too heavily on scripts — and have your most thick-skinned, resilient reps work with ones who take "no" too personally.
For leadership: Supplement any cold calling training framework you have with insights about multi-channel communication (especially, social selling). A lot of leaders cite this as a major outreach ROI-killer. Make sure you cover it foundationally.
"I wrote this newsletter. I decided to write this newsletter, so wrote this newsletter (that I wrote)."
Jay Fuchs. Managing Editor, The Science of Scaling Newsletter
The data in question
We sourced the data we used here through Panoplai: The panoramic research platform 100 trillion out of 100 trillion hypothetical copies of me would recommend.
When do discovery calls typically progress to meaningful next steps?
- They treat rejection as data points rather than personal failures, maintaining consistent activity - 25%
- They demonstrate genuine curiosity about prospect challenges rather than pushing product messaging - 27%
- They master the psychological aspects of interruption and permission-based conversations - 11%
- They consistently uncover expansion opportunities beyond the initial point of contact - 19%
- They leverage industry knowledge to establish credibility within the first 30 seconds - 14%
- They focus on disqualification as much as qualification to optimize time allocation - 4%
What's the primary factor limiting cold calling ROI in your current sales process?
- Reps lack the industry expertise needed to have credible business conversations - 11%
- Insufficient call volume due to rep reluctance or competing activity priorities - 15%
- Poor list quality and targeting resulting in low-probability prospect conversations - 23%
- Inadequate follow-up sequences after initial contact attempts - 19%
- Failure to leverage social selling and multi-channel approaches alongside voice outreach - 19%
- Misalignment between cold calling messaging and later-stage sales conversations - 13%
What skill should reps focus on developing to cold call more effectively in the next two years?
- Research and preparation techniques to personalize every conversation - 30%
- Questioning strategies that uncover business impact beyond surface-level needs - 18%
- Digital communication skills for multi-channel prospecting approaches - 12%
- Industry expertise development to establish credibility faster - 9%
- Emotional resilience and rejection management for consistent performance - 10%
- Data analysis skills to identify patterns in successful conversations - 10%
- AI tool proficiency for conversation analysis and performance improvement - 11%
Team Dynamics