Dr. Freelance: Thanks for your recent post on cold calling for freelancers (and the recommendation for the Well-Fed Writer, which I plan to read). However, I am at a loss as to when it’s best to make the calls. Can can suggest a day of the week as well as time of day that would increase my odds of success?—Warming Up to the Idea
Warming Up: My personal experience has been that early mornings (8-10 a.m.) and midweek (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) are the cold calling best days and times. Mondays are a bust because potential clients are getting their weeks started, and Fridays are no good because their brains are elsewhere—and mine is, too! I like morning calls because I’m a morning person; so, it facilitates connecting with a like-minded soul.
I did a bit of research, and found that the science backs me up, and adds a couple of additional strategies. This article from Sales Machine, “What’s the best time to cold call?” cites a study done by Dr. James Oldroyd from the Kellogg School of Management, who analyzed more than a million cold calls, made by thousands of sales professionals inside around 50 companies.
His conclusions about cold calling best days and times:
- Thursdays and Wednesdays are far and away the best days to call.
- Interestingly enough, Tuesday is the worst. (Contrary to my anecdotal experience.)
- 4-6 p.m. is the best time to call, followed by 8-10 a.m.
- The worst time span is 11 a.m-3 p.m.
I did come across one article that advised calling at 11:59 a.m. with a very brief “Magic Minute” call. The author’s reasoning is that you’re catching a prospect when she’s stopped working and is therefore receptive to a call. Haven’t tried that one, but may be worth an experiment!
Dr. Freelance, cold calling is one of the harder things for me to do, so I appreciate any tips you can give—hope to see more posts about this in the future.
Jackie,
Have confidence in your ability to do the things you think you cannot. We often underestimate our abilities when it comes to overcoming challenges. Cold calling loses its ability to intimidate once you realize that you are not begging for work but are offering a solution. Once you leverage that as the purpose of your call you’ll find the intimidation factor diminishes greatly. When the intimidation goes down your confidence goes up!