Cold Calling Versus Content Creation - Who's the Heavyweight?

Small and Medium-sized businesses throughout the world (as well as Fortune 500 companies) are working now on the perfect balance between inbound marketing based on great content and search plus just the right amount of outbound calling by phone. It is the issue of the day in many companies, and can be quite a heated debate.

Recently there was an interesting conversation about this very topic. It began due to a recent blog post about cold calling that caught many an eye, was tweeted and mentioned everywhere. It was written by inside sales expert Trish Bertuzzi of The Bridge Group.

The post talked about how phone calling is not dead, bur rather the whole concept of "cold caling" is - and it sparked far too many comments to mention. What it did for me was to cement the idea that this topic - how much time, dollars, and effort should go into attracting the right prospective customers to you through creative and compelling content versus those companies who use a large percentage of sales resources for their inside sales team to do outbound calling - is HOT right now.

While there is a lot of debate (just listen to the audio of the call with experts Ardath Albee, Trish Bertuzzi, Craig Rosenberg, me, and Kirsten Knipp) there truly is no one "right answer" for your company. Craig, AKA "The Funnelholic"  posted about our call here. If an "expert" says there is, you should double check on that - and get a second or third opinion. Too many businesses are losing lots of money to people purporting to have all the answers.

(Tip: Anyone who ever says they have all the answers should be treated with extreme caution!)

We'll be posting more on this topic and all the stir it is causing as we get more facts and statistics to help B2B and B2C sellers grow business. Post your thoughts and jump in on this - every viewpoint counts!

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Lori Richardson is a Sales Detective and CEO of Score More Sales. She works with B2B small and medium-sized companies to grow their revenues and their visibility with more-probable prospects. Reach her at Score More Sales or on Twitter at Score More Sales.