As marketers and business owners, what’s the one part of our jobs that we hate the most?
I’m not psychic, but I’m guessing that if I said, “cold calling” 99% of people would agree with me.
If you’ve ever done it, you’ll know why. As humans, we dread rejection. People who aren’t very good at cold calling (which is most of us) are likely to get rejected a lot. Add to this the sense of shame and guilt that comes from asking busy people for their time or money, and it can be a demoralizing experience.
But does cold calling really have to be so awkward and horrible—both for the caller and the prospect?
Perhaps we’ve just been going about it the wrong way all these years.
At least, that’s the contention of Nick Cownie, an Australian entrepreneur who has overhauled this much-maligned marketing technique to achieve a gobsmacking 95% conversion rate.
No, that’s not a typo. I really did say 95%!
It takes someone special to go against the flow and embrace such an unsexy lead generation technique and turn it into a powerful tool for growth. But Nick is a fascinating guy.
Somewhat of a polymath, Nick first developed an interest in human interaction as a teenager, when a friend gave him a book on body language. Later, he studied Neurolinguistic Programming, eventually sitting on the Australian Board of NLP.
Before he started his marketing consultancy Nick practiced traditional Chinese medicine, spending 10 years as a paediatric specialist in acupuncture.
A major diagnostic approach in Chinese medicine is “pattern identification,” a technique that looks for patterns in the underlying causes of conditions rather than focusing on the symptoms themselves.
Nick quickly learned to use this skill to recognize patterns across all areas of his life, finally applying it, along with his extensive knowledge of NLP, to sales and marketing. Not surprisingly he achieved incredible success.

Leave a Reply