61% of sales professionals say cold calling is their least favorite task: Survey

Sales pros have strong feelings about making cold calls.

A whopping 61% of sales people polled said that cold calling was their least favorite sales task, according to a survey conducted by Meera.ai.

The poll was based on responses from 80 sales professionals in the United States and the data was collected via the user research platform Lyssna.

There was a tie for the second-most-hated sales task: ‘cold emailing’ and ‘data entry/updating CRM’ each captured 10% of responses.

Which of the following is your least favorite sales task?

The fact sales people dread cold calling may not come as a surprise. But follow up responses captured in the survey show how strongly some professionals feel about this practice.

When asked what they disliked most about cold calling, more than half of respondents mentioned “getting rejected” in some form.

“You are met with hostility and it’s extremely uncomfortable, especially when leads do not seem qualified,” said one respondent.

Others touched on the emotional toil cold calling takes on them.

“People dislike receiving cold calls so it attributes (sic)  to a lot of negativity for the day.”

“No matter how well you research and prepare, or how good your pitch is, there is always a level of awkwardness when calling a complete stranger.”

A number of respondents also questioned the effectiveness of cold calling.

“Many times it is a waste of precious time. It could lead to something extremely profitable but many times it does not. I think cold calls should be replaced with social media advertising.”

For more information about this survey, or to request access to the raw data, please contact us.