The Best Time To Cold Call According To Fitness Science

Only after 11am on Tuesday.

Only Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Only between 10-12.30 and 2-4.

There's plenty of old adages advising on when best you make a cold call.

That's if cold call pickups even happen nowadays.

Nuance and niche apply too.

Those awkwards to reach are best tried when no-one else can either reach them, or is there to keep their gate shut. Before first-thing and when dusky after stumps.

At various stages of my quota carrying, I enjoyed the fruits from making a mere couple of extra calls each day.

The very first call I'd make before I started at my desk was a cold call number on a list designed specifically for the purpose of new pastures. Then try and make sure my last call before leaving the office came from next on the same list.

My reasoning was that if I managed one of these two on average each day, maybe leaving aside Monday mornings - also bearing in mind back then I was prone to be driving during at least one of the day's bookends, and I soon learnt you cannot cold call handsfree from your car - then that'd tot up to around a couple-hundred dials over the year.

How long would it take to make those 200 sitting at your desk?

I felt I was giving myself a huge boost. Little efforts adding up. An actual real-life slant on mostly annoying deepisms, such as; success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out & a little progress every day adds up to big results.

And I knew that this gentle 'pounding the rock' gained me business from prospects that opened this way.

There's also the seminal 'system' Miller Heiman approach which touches on this.

They talk of The Roller Coaster Effect. Unfulfilled Sales potential from oscillating performance through peaks and troughs. Career stunting mood swings between feast and famine. Genuine growth and superstar performance preventors that are lurching cycles of boom and bust.

Suggesting that of what they see as the four main tasks of a seller in a 'complex' environment, prospecting is usually left, if even done at all, 'til last. Typically only after all other 'selling' tasks are completed for the day on bids inside your funnel. Or as they put it, the task always pushed ever further back in the day is; Look for entirely new business by prospecting in the Universe.

Their 'Solution', is to keep the typically first-tackled items on your to-do list in place up-front - working those hot deals - but as second priority then go straight into prospecting. For them; ...narrowing the Universe.

It doesn't hurt to make that one dial afresh ahead as those around you are still chit-chatting around the kettle. Or as you open up your laptop in your jim-jams.

I used to expect no joy. And little may flow forth. Until that time it does. And can prove a game-changer.

Do we now have science to back this up?

I fell for the clickbait of; Scientists think they might have discovered the perfect time of day to exercise if you want to lose weight.

"Swedish scientists believe squeezing a workout in first thing might be the best way to lose weight. Although based on a study of mice, experts say the results 'could prove of value' to humans."

How similar are we solution sellers canvassing to Swedish mice running on their wheel?

And if a match, then ought we also do our cold-calling in our "early active phase"; aka at the very beginning of our working day? For the mouse "boosting the metabolism and the burning of fat", can a salesperson enjoy 'boosting the funnel and the burning of doubt'?

Why not give it a go? Get a little list of suspects in a target market you feel ripe, but as yet not aware of your wonders. A list that does not feature anyone you're already trying to engage. Make it ten names/numbers. Start Monday morning. If we follow the mini-rodent plan, make two dials on each early morning rota. By Friday end-of-play, see where you've got with it...

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