Do I consider cold calls good or effective?

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Do I consider cold calls good or effective?

No, not really. The math works out like this: you could call about 50 people in an hour and maybe have real conversations with 10 of them. If you spend that same hour setting up a cold‑email system, you can build infrastructure that lets you reach roughly 50,000 people. Comparing the two, 1 hour of calls reaches 50 people, while 1 hour of email outreach can reach 50,000. That’s a 1‑to‑1,000 ratio. In reality, emails are probably 50‑100 times less effective per contact than a call, meaning you need to send about 150‑times more emails to equal the effectiveness of a single call. Even so, per unit of time cold emailing ends up being roughly 20 times more effective than cold calling.

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If I’m forced to cold call instead of cold emailing, should I just repeat what I ask for via email and adapt it for calls? What’s your approach?

I’d basically reiterate the same ask you’d use in an email, just phrased for a phone conversation. My experience with cold calling (and even door‑to‑door) shows that you need to be efficient: I was making 50‑80 calls a day, getting five to eight meetings, with about a 60 % show‑up rate when I confirmed the appointments that morning. The conversion was roughly one meeting per 20 calls, not the ten‑to‑one rate you sometimes hear. Each call takes time—dialing, waiting for an answer or voicemail—so the effective number of real conversations is lower. The key is to keep the pitch concise, handle objections quickly, and understand that the success rate will be lower than with email, but the fundamentals of the ask stay the same.

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What are your thoughts on using cold calls for outreach, and should I change my approach?

Cold calls are far less efficient than cold emails these days. Roughly only 10% of the effort you put into calling translates into real results because many leads never answer, you often talk to gatekeepers, and even qualified prospects are frequently busy or uninterested. In contrast, a cold email campaign can reach thousands of leads, pre‑qualify them, and give you a list of warm prospects before you ever pick up the phone. Cold calls can still have a place, but they’re much more manual and low‑yield compared to email outreach.

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What do you think about cold calling for outreach compared to cold email or Loom videos, especially regarding spam risk and effectiveness? Do you recommend it over cold email, and what's the best outreach method you'd suggest?

I don't cold call anymore because of three main issues. First, you often don't get a pickup—if you call 100 people, maybe only 30‑50 actually answer, wasting a lot of time. Second, even when you get past the voicemail, you frequently reach a gatekeeper or front desk instead of the decision maker, and gatekeepers tend to discard your message. Third, after finally reaching the decision maker, they're often busy or give excuses, so you don't get meaningful time with them. Overall, I'd estimate that 80% or more of cold calls are wasted, making it negative leverage—you'd need to make five calls just to get one worthwhile conversation. I much prefer sending Loom videos, which let you convey your message asynchronously and avoid those gatekeeper and pickup problems.

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Is cold calling worth it for a real estate niche, and what minimum should I aim for with one-time or monthly SaaS pricing?

Yes, you can make cold calling worth it, but I don't really recommend it these days. It depends on the service—some industries rely on phone calls because their customers use the phone all day and don't check email. Here's a secret: if a sales rep spends 100 minutes on calls, they're actually talking to decision‑makers for only about 15 to 20 minutes, meaning their utilization is roughly 20% and 80% of their time is wasted. One easy improvement is to increase the pickup rate by rotating numbers and eliminating ring time. Think about it: finding a number, dialing, waiting for the ring, and connecting can take a lot of time—your actual conversation might be just 30 seconds while you spend 45 seconds just getting the call set up. Auto‑dialing and removing ring delays help, especially since many people simply don't pick up anymore. Cold calling is only profitable if you build that infrastructure; if you're just starting out, you lack that support, making it even harder. I've cold‑called many thousands of people—likely over 10,000—and have done door‑to‑door for even more. I'll stop here because I'm running out of time.

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