Wow, some of my favorite bloggers all wrote great articles over the weekend and posted them this morning for me to read over my afternoon coffee.
Brian Carroll wrote about top performers building relationships with the right people BEFORE they’re ready to buy. These top performers become trusted advisors.
Paul McCord wrote about why decision makers hate cold calls. He looks at answering a cold call from their point of view. And it’s not pretty.
Geoffrey James says that if you must cold call, try these 7 ways to make it easier. Maybe you can have some of your colleagues cold call your boss to get them to understand how effective (or not) cold calling is.
EyesOnSales has a great post from Lee Salz on why expecting a purchasing decision to be rubber-stamped by the boss is a bad idea.
And for another way to look at cold calling fun, take a look at this video by the HubSpot guys.
All About Referral Selling 
Aw, c’mon… Some people still have to cold call. Yeah, we all know it’s not the best way to develop a lead, but it’s part of the real world for many folk… rightly or wrongly.
Geoffrey
Hey, I included your post for those unfortunate people who have no other choice than to cold call because their company management requires them to.
Yeah, sad, isn’t it. Referral selling is SO much easier. It can be hard for folks to bootstrap the network, though.
I agree that referral selling is so much easier. But it’s work nevertheless, that’s why it’s called netWORKing. I see many people finding cold calling easier to start doing because it’s just them and a list to dial from. As you pointed out, starting your own referral network is difficult. So referral selling has a bigger barrier to start but the payoff is well worth it to those who can get over that initial hump. To boostrap, I recommend:
* Reading the book by Joanne Black
* Join an in-person networking group like BNI or Chamber of Commerce
* Join Inquisix!