Back in the mid to late 90s, I was a cold-calling machine. I placed 100-200 calls per day, trying all the tricks in the book to get to the decision makers within some very large companies. I sent out bulk invites to potential customers via fax. Yes, fax. I sent email after email (with some pretty decent open and response rates to boot). That's what the top sales rep had to do to be the best.
It's not to say that dialing for dollars is over. But it's damn hard to do it without losing credibility from the F&B Director, or that restaurateur who owns 10 locations. They don't want to be interrupted by sales people, especially if you don't know what their needs are. YOU don't want to be interrupted by sales people making cold-calls and sending cold emails.
