Often sales managers make a huge mistake when they require their sales people to make "X" amount of cold calls per week and write down the person they called, what was said and the phone number on a little chart. What ends up happening is fairly interesting and it happens in many industries. Often, the sales people will call when they know most people will not answer and they leave a voice mail. Then they put on the chart; Voice Mail - left message for Mr. Smith.

As an entrepreneur that works late, many sales people would call me on a Friday Evening and expect to get a voice mail, but instead they got me. Then they were not really prepared to talk, or explain what it was they had to offer. They wanted to hurry up the phone call and just waited for me to say I was not interested. After a while I asked these sales people why they always call on Friday and they told me;

"I call on Friday and leave messages because no one is usually there!"

Ever since then, I banned my own sales force from cold-calling on Fridays. Look here is the deal, if you are just going thru the motions because you have too and not because you are hungry for sales, then maybe you should not be in sales at all. The reason I say this is because there are just too many people that are afraid to cold-call, when it is a necessary evil, especially for a newbie. You know that old saying;

"It is amazing how lucky you get when you are working hard"

Well, we all know that's true, but my question to you is, are you working hard or are you just wasting everyone's time, including your own. You do not have to reply to this or leave a comment, but just think on it!