Why Making Cold -Calls Is An Effective Marketing Tactic For Me, Yet I Hesitate To Use It To Gain New Clients

I didn't realise how tired I was last night until I slept through my sister getting ready for work at 4.30am and her boys getting ready for school. Had a good night's rest though, so today things are moving along great.

I'm halfway through my reread of Winter Moon by Dean Koonz and I'm enjoying the story as I did when I first read it. I love the way he uses words to paint us a character sketch and tell a story. Wish one day I could write just as well.

Joburg is wet. I love the rain and it's all quiet in our building and the writing is moving along. I spent most of the morning doing marketing and admin. Found a couple of job leads that might be appropriate for my friend Lynn and for Baby, so I forwarded them.

A mid-morning cold call from someone selling a media directory service reminded me that I've been toying with the idea of cold-calling my potential clients. It's an effective marketing tool for me, having used it successfully in the past, but there are a couple of reasons I'm hesitating:

• I find making phone calls very stressful. I worked as an account executive in the late '90s and one of my duties was to cold-call potential clients. I made one hundred new cold calls everyday and then followed up on previous calls. It paid off in terms of finding potential clients and gaining their business, allowing me to make close to R500 000 a month in sales. However, the process was very hard work. Also, strangers were annoyed to get calls from a stranger (me) and some of them expressed their annoyance by being rude or using abusive language.  
• I'm not sure my business has the capacity to deal with call-backs from potential clients and still be able to immerse myself in writing.  This is a one-person business and I don't have a receptionist to take messages when I'm busy with the writing process.
• I prefer using email to communicate with clients, not phone calls - One of the reasons I love using email is because I can control my communications - I can contact clients when I have a pause in the writing process and am mentally ready to discuss issues with them.Making cold-calls would set a precedent to communicate with clients by phone. I also find it difficult to manage when a client phones me to verbally explain a brief of changes that they want made on a project. I'm nervous that I will miss a lot.  As a small business owner the potential for something falling through the cracks is too big and I prefer to have assurance of the client writing down what they need and how they want it delivered. A written brief gives me confidence that I can refer to it when I'm unsure about something. 

 All of the above are, of course, excuses I make to myself about why I'm not picking up the phone. The reality is that, if I want my earnings to improve, I have to be willing to do whatever marketing tasks are necessary to bring in the business.

So. Has cold-calling worked for your writing? And how do you feel about cold callers? Do you think there should be a "Be Kind To Cold Callers Day?"