The golden rule of cold-calling. Don’t

Almost all recruiters are told they must cold-call to build a client-base.

Sadly, that is mostly bad advice.

Certainly it is true that all recruiters need to develop clients, identify prospects and find ways to build sustainable relationships. And often that means connecting with people you have never dealt with before. So yes, we are business developers, and in a tight market that becomes even more critical.

But, if at all possible, don’t cold call.

However don’t misunderstand me on this one. You do have to make those calls and initiate that contact. The point is, you should do everything you can to make sure that the call is not stone… freezing… cold. That is the key.

Move your cold call to a warm call.

Instead of hundreds of random calls to people who don’t want to hear from you, and where your pitch is little more than “Got any job orders I can fill?”, do the research work to find a point of common ground which turns the call from ‘cold’ to ‘warm’. There are many ways to do this, but here are a seven good ones.

Approach ex-candidates who are now in roles where they may become clients (I hope you looked after them well!)
Get a referral from another division or office in your company (“Mr. Prospect, I am calling because our Singapore office has done a lot of work with your colleague, Michael Chew, over there and he suggested I give you a call”)
Get a referral from another current client “Mr. Prospect I work extensively with Michael Chew at Apex Industries. He mentioned you had worked with him there, and suggested I give you a call to see how we might be able to assist”.
Connect first in a neutral environment and follow up later. “Mr. Prospect it was a pleasure to chat with you at the Marketing Institute Conference last week, and I would enjoy a chance to talk more about your comments on SEO trends”.
Follow up previous placements, no matter how long ago. “Mr. Prospect, you probably would not realize this, but I placed Bob Clarke with your predecessor quite a while ago. I would love to come down and see how he is doing and introduce myself”.
Engage on social media first “Mr. Prospect I have enjoyed our banter on Twitter and thanks for the follow by the way. I am in your part of town next Tuesday and would love to drop in and find out more about the new training system you were tweeting about” (A Rec to Rec did exactly this to me while I was in London recently. I met her).
Follow up on a talk given by a prospect, or a blog written, or a piece of PR they have received. “Mr. Prospect, I loved your blog on the boom in mobile technology, …”

Be creative about this. Brainstorm it in your team. You don’t want to be manipulative or trite, but you do want to start your BD call from a warmish position, get some connection… and then move on from there.

It will increase your hit rate exponentially

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Comment by Russ Recruits on May 16, 2012 at 9:22am: Nice piece - and some good comments from @bill and @ peter.

In my humble opinion, the main reason young recruiters fail is becouse they start with Bottom Feeders whose mentality is "Hire and Fire", not "Learn and Burn".

These agencies also tend to base their whole model on volume cold calling, with little research time allocated to undertake any other route or relationship building.

As for the use of the term "Youngsters" - tut tut - age is nothing but a number and I didnt start in this game until my late 20's. :)

The advantage being I had a little more time to naturally aquire skills relevant to the role, I understood people more, business more, had learned that you have to work to get, you have to ask before you can get, and used to rejection (being dumped a few times helps for sure!), like any maturing adult would be. Thats why I survived while the "youngsters" around me crashed and burned.

Comment by Jerry Albright on May 16, 2012 at 10:47am: Greg - I think these 7 tips are great. It's the place to start - that's for sure.

But what are you supposed to do for the remaining 39 hours of your work week. (31 if you're in France.)

The problem is so many today are being encouraged from all angles to focus on #6 - Engage on Social Media First. and avoid making any "warm/cold/hot/tepid/chilly" calls.

Sorry Greg. While I'm sure this might be the route of choice (who wouldn't choose to only connect with people who love you?) - it simply is not reality for 90% of the recruiters today.

Want to be a success in recruiting? Pick up the phone and introduce yourself to somebody. Then do it again....and again...and....

Comment by Elise Reynolds on May 16, 2012 at 3:20pm: I have been recruiting for almost 15 years. So I don't have to cold call as much as I once did. However I still do it. What I try to do is call on the manager and really have a conversation about what kinds of things he needs. Then I put follow ups in my calendar, say every month or every other month to follow up with him. I try to educate myself as best as possible before picking up the phone on the company and what kind of openings they have. Sometimes it takes a year or more between the initial cold call and landing that first job order.

After you have had one or two decent phone conversations then it is no longer a cold call. I do work my personal network and I am up front with people that I am looking for new clients. I find when I am direct people will try to be helpful if they can.

My biggest problem is to discipline myself to make the marketing calls to begin with, I tend to get very busy with the bird in hand and doing my sourcing that I don't want to make the time to get new clients.

I think cold calling is not always the most efficent method to get business. Naturally you should target companies where you have an existing connection first. However, I cold call all the time to get candidates. I am always picking up the phone and introducing myself with candidates.

Regardless, I do think being able to cold call when you need to is one of the more important professional skills almost ANYONE can have. Obviously if you are in the sales business it is important but also regardless of whatever you do. Being able to take charge of your own destiny and introduce yourself to someone you think can assist you with your goals instead of waiting for someone you know to come along and be a hero is highly valuable.

Comment by Amber on May 16, 2012 at 3:39pm: Good tips and reminders, Greg. We have a new person in our office who has never been in any type of sale position but is learning most aspects of our business. I printed this for him to read through, I think it will be great ideas for him.

Comment by Greg Savage on May 16, 2012 at 5:58pm: Jerry A, and others who have supported the fact we still need to cold call, of course, you are right! Making connections, covering ground, opening doors,that what we have to do. And you have to hit a high volume to get a return. I am with you on that. This blog was inspired by a visit to one of my offices where the recruiter I was talking to was bemoaning the "cold calling tedium" and with a bit of digging I learned she had not even taken the easy road of calling senior candidates she had worked with over the years, who were now in senior roles

If you have NO business, and No warm leads...then cold calling it is. No doubt. But if you can think a little laterally, maybe you can make those calls (which after all are still "cold" You don't know the person)...just that little bit "warmer

Comment by Chris Amato on May 16, 2012 at 8:30pm: The best topic I've seen in a long time and timely, thanks Greg.

Its no secret that everyone hates cold calling, me included, but it must be done. If it makes anyone feel better or more productive to call it warm calling, then by all means, go for it. Some things just don't change, the phone is the phone and the process remains the same. They may shrink it to the size of a dime or have imbedded in my cranium, but you'll still have to dial, talk (maybe if lucky), hang up, repeat.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but sales is a people business and you can't avoid them. How you choose to overcome the introductory phase (have a purpose, solve a problem, gain trust and credibility) is what makes the successful salesperson.

Great advice, make the connections if you can, but if you can't do you walk away? Do your homework (its much easier than it used to be), create your plan and go for it, before someone else does!

In sales and in life, the luckiest people will remain to be the hardest working and the most successful will be the smartest, hardest working. Don't get caught in the hype!

Comment by Celinda Appleby on May 17, 2012 at 9:03am: Great article! I am forwarding to our entire staffing team.

Comment by Sylvia Dahlby on May 18, 2012 at 8:55pm: social media is the new cold call

Comment by Sabrina on May 24, 2012 at 1:51pm: As someone who is about to start my first job in recruiting, as a technical recruiter at a huge agency, it's my understanding that cold calling is just one of the requirements of the job. I think recruiters there make about 100 dials a day. I don't want to gain a reputation for being an annoying recruiter, but there doesn't seem to be a way around the metric requirements. If you have to make 100 dials, some of them are going to be cold calls.

Comment by bill josephson on May 24, 2012 at 2:12pm: Sabrina, if you have a quality relevant job to present to a candidate and/or a quality relevant candidate to present to a company they may not need your services at the moment, but you won't be "annoying" them. Never take feedback personally as long as you present professionally.

Almost every warm call people make today was once a cold call, made warm over continuing contact.