A study by Sandler Sales Systems (May 19, 2010, Reuters), identified cold calling as worse than giving speeches, and celibacy was preferable to picking up the phone and making a cold call. The only thing worse than cold calling was a root canal.
This is excellent news for agencies with producers willing to make cold calls because it means great opportunities exist. Too often, though, I find that many producers with the unique ability to make cold calls aren’t always using their special ability to its fullest extent. Agency business models aren’t always designed for them, for better or worse. Most often, I find that because agencies employ so many producers who fear making cold calls, the ones who don’t become trapped in a “fearful” environment and their performance suffers. They might even develop their own fear of making cold calls.
This type of agency environment often goes back for years. I’m amazed at the number of successful agencies founded by producers who greatly feared cold calling and yet began by making a lot of cold calls anyway. They were broke with families to feed and with their backs to the wall – they made the calls. Then they made the sales and became successful enough to quit making cold calls.
One definition of success these owners sometimes use is to make enough money so they wouldn’t have to make cold calls. This is a key reason why second generation agencies fail. It’s not that the offspring are lazier or incompetent – it’s often that they’re often too much like their fathers. The only difference is their benign environment does not force them to overcome their fear and make the calls. As one father succinctly stated, “My kids are so much more fortunate than me and so much more talented than I. Sometimes, I just wish they had been born poor like me!”
Many company people, consultants, and fathers question this second generation, but they do not understand the enormity of the fear to make cold calls. They don’t understand that only a truly greater fear will force the younger generation to make those calls. It is a tough decision to let your kids starve so they will make sales calls, but that may be the only option if they are to succeed. Sometimes, harsh medicine often affects the best cure.
This scenario of second-generation failure does not just apply to offspring. I find the exact same scenario exists in many agencies that have no family members. Hundreds of agencies across the country are filled with producers that cannot produce. Agency owners feel sorry for them and pay them enough to survive because they sympathize with them. They know how hard it is to make cold calls, and although they did it, the process was so painful that they don’t want to force anyone else to ever have to do it.
Some agency owners feel that feeding these suffering producers business is a humane practice. However, this is exactly the wrong thing to do! Although these agency owners will do everything possible to rationalize their decision, it boils down to the fact that they won’t force a person to starve in order to get them to make their calls. The result is the producer doesn’t make the calls and leave the agency to find a career that would be a far better fit. The agency suffers economically. Frustration builds throughout the agency because employees see producers getting a free ride. No one is happy and no one is making real money. The root cause is that the agency owner sympathizes, rather than just empathizing, with their producers.
Sometimes, it’s necessary to be cruel to be kind.