LinkedinLunatics

Regarding your number three, a lot of the time you're cold calling some wage slave who has neither the interest nor authority to buy anything from you.

"Every business is a fuck" gets my vote, but the people you're cold calling are not necessarily a fuck.

I don't think that B2B cold calls are "spam", per se, and I wouldn't even say that most of them are truly "cold" calls. Worst case scenario, they should be warm calls. Or room temperature calls. Like, if you sell printing presses, you probably shouldn't be calling a hair salon. But calling a local newspaper--somewhere that you know uses the product category that you sell--is reasonable.

I do take cold calls from salespeople in my current position, and my response is usually that, if they can provide a product that meets the needs of the company I work for, I'm more than happy to try it.

Number 2 is a great point. That's what I hate about LinkedIn and why I only use it to look/apply for jobs and occasionally scroll through if I'm super bored.

My experience in my current job are endless cold emails from salespeople who don't even understand that I have no use for their product. I work in a field where I have to research a lot of different equipment/parts for my client, but that I don't use myself. I had to request a catalog from one of these places which involved giving my work email address. Now I get endless emails about how they'll 'be in my area' (LOL no you won't because I work remotely across the country from both my company and my client) and they want to demonstrate their new product...which I don't use because I don't work in that field. Makes me laugh every time and yes it is very spammy.

I'll also add that B2B cold calls do work. If you have a good product or service and approach it the right way, you can generate plenty of business this way. That said, it’s wholly a numbers game.

You don't even need a good product or service when you play the numbers game, you just need higher numbers!

B2B contact is generally fine, unless you're going to be a stalker about it. Had one the other day who messaged me on linkedin with her pitch and included the standard 'If you have time and this is interesting feel free to reach out' I saw the e-mail pop up just as I was stepping away to have lunch, as it was the standard lunch time. Before I even got downstairs (work from home) my company's calling me out of the blue to tell me they have a call for me from this person. I declined the call, as we both agreed it was just business spam and after lunch responded and let them know we'd never be interested in their services. 'Feel free to get in touch if you're interested' and 'I'm going to track down your company's phone number and call you 30 seconds after I send this' just don't vibe for me.

Yup, in the sales world it's accepted truth that you have to cold call. That said, in my sales position I've just switched to personalized email outreach for first contact and if anyone asks, oh of course I'm making calls. That probably only works in certain applications, but I'm making the numbers I need to.

more enjoyable to call established leads, people who already expressed and interest and just needed help making up their mind

Those calls aren't cold.