Why Is Cold Calling So Difficult?

Risk vs. Reward... "Most [brokers] today would be embarrassed to admit that they are peddlers. In fact, they are embarrassed to be called salespeople. Calling ourselves consultants or advisors is much more rewarding."

That's Hans Hansson at Starboard TCN in San Francisco writing last week in his entertaining blog. Hans' post, Why Is Cold Calling So Difficult?, really struck a chord.

"Cold calling takes patience, the ability to accept rejection, and a daily commitment of time in order to be successful. Because younger generations want immediate satisfaction and don't accept rejection well, cold calling seems to be thing of the past."

As I thought about this, my mind drifted back to my very first day as a real estate salesman in 1973. I arrived in the office early and found a scrap of paper on my desk. My broker boss had scribbled, "Call anywhere in the United States." True story. That was my sales training.

So every call was a cold call. But, hey, I was young and naive. Naturally, there was lots of rejection. It was tough. But it amazed me that just one call could lead to a new client and (maybe!) a commission. Somehow the reward of a big payoff compensated for my bruised ego.

Why do some people assess the odds this way and others don't? As Virginia Postrel wrote in the New York Times (Jan 26, 2006), "People have different tastes for risk, just as they have different tastes for ice cream or paint colors."

"In economic theory, some questions have no right or wrong answers. Even if a gamble is mathematically more valuable -- a 75 percent chance of $4,000 has an expected value of $3,000, for instance -- someone may still prefer a sure [$1,000]." Good real estate salespeople will always take the gamble.

-- Peter Pike