At a gathering recently I spoke with a b2b service professional who made the bulk of his living by cold calling. By all accounts, he is successful. (Then again, I’ve found the people who talk most about the money they have usually have the least; and a car they can’t afford. So who knows…)
Anyway, he was complaining because his business had stopped growing. I said, “well, of course. You are relying on menial grunt work to get your clients instead of automating the process with a marketing system so you can spend more time cashing checks.”
His response?
I was nuts because he was making money doing cold calling, so it was stupid of me to recommend something else and tell him what he was doing was wrong.
At this point I told him he was like a functional drunk. He frowned.
“Just because you can function with a gallon of Jack Daniels in your belly doesn’t mean you should, nor does it mean your foolishness isn’t gonna come back and kick you hard in the ass sometime in the near future. Cold calling is the same way. Keep it up and don’t grow your business the right way when you can, and not only will you stop growing now… you will probably be angry and sorry somewhere down the road when the manual labor becomes less effective or you want to take a few vacations.”
He puckered his lips and we said goodbye.
Like they say, you can lead a horse to water. But ya can’t make him drink.
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