Practice what you preach VP's

Story+Rant= This..

I've not yet experienced the responsibility of being a senior leadership member.

I'm probably about 5-10 years away from that even being in the equation-Unless my entrepreneurial skills transcend to that status.  There's been hundreds of articles on the art of cold calling and every sales leadership executive still believes in its benefits.  These VP's of sales and marketing tell their managers how many more dials are needed and why it's important to cold call.

"The more touches you make, the more sales we get Fred!"

Quite a few of you sales VP's have said this multiple times in your life.  You empower your sales teams to hit the phones with reckless abandon and not take no for an answer.  If you are annoying your prospect, it's the last thing you're thinking about.  The word "touches" repeatedly comes up so much it sounds like a HR could be knocking on the door.  You constantly look at metrics.  When you have a bad quarter, you REALLY start looking at the metrics.  You're stressed because you have to report a President and he/she has to report to a board on why things aren't going well.  Never mind the fact that you are in a mature market, you still go to your managers saying..

"Pound the phones harder.  We need more activity." 

Your phone rings constantly everyday.  Over half of them are cold calls from sales executives that want to help your problem.  You have team meetings upon team meetings trying to figure out what everyone in the room knows is the problem. You get out of that meeting and walk to back to your office.  Someone's calling your phone...

"Hi ___, My name is Gavin from solutions services. I wanted to_X

You immediately shut down.  If you haven't already hung up the phone, your guard is up and you just don't want to hear it.  Despite the fact that you tell your team to listen, show empathy, and be professional, none of this applies to you.  You hate sales calls  and the older you get the more you hate them.

What happen to you?  What triggered you to be so cold to cold calling.  You tell your teams that's the only way the business will succeed yet you refuse to practice what you preach toward others.  There are some bad sales people out there and I can agree it will frustrate you.  Instead of shutting down, why don't you try to disqualify yourself from salespersons list.  They are just going to do what you've been teaching your team.

Call and call until they break your will and you take the meeting.