February 20, 2025 • 12 mins
Is cold calling dead in 2025? Let's tackle this question! Learn if cold calling is outdated, explore other smart ways to attract warm leads, and get SIX (plus a bonus!) reasons to ditch it for good. If you want a scalable, sustainable business... this is a great place to start!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
is cold calling dead in 2025.
I sold a lot of homeswithout cold calling.
So does cold calling work?
I'll get it out of the way.
Yes, it does work.
it is soul sucking in my opinion.
And, um, 5, 000 plus families servedin my journey in real estate sales,
(00:20):
helped a couple thousand, maybe evenclose to 3, 000 agents at this point,
grow and scale their businesses.
predominantly without cold calling.
So none of what we teach a milliondollar agent method is based on any cold
calling, any paid leads, any referralfees at closing, any of that stuff,
(01:13):
all of our stuff is.
generating warm, inbound, organic, leads.
And my philosophy is this, and I'm goingto go through kind of six thoughts I have
here that hopefully will convince you thatthere's a better way than cold calling.
my philosophy is that if I'm going to puteffort into, my business, it's going to be
put into something that allows me to scaleand scaling is different than growing.
(01:38):
So could you grow your real estate salesby getting good enough cold calling
where you can set listing appointments,go on those listing appointments, take
those listings, rinse and repeat, right?
Yes, you can.
Absolutely.
There are entire coaching programs.
Based on this fact, a quick story.
And this is no disrespectto the OG Mike Ferry.
(02:01):
here's a funny story whenI first got into coaching.
So I ran a webinar.
This was my first webinar like, andI think the title was how I sold.
300, how I closed 312 homes workingone day a week, and it was the year.
So the year I did that was 2013and I just got into real estate.
(02:24):
My first full year was 2008, so by2013, five years into the business I
was down to working one day a week.
And that next year we went from three12 to 453 and I was still working
one day a week, 10 producing agents.
So obviously I went down the pathof leverage, I built out lead
generation levers that brought in.
leads consistently.
So this was not a bunchof agents cold calling.
(02:45):
None of it was based on cold calling.
I send out this invitation to a webinar.
Come find out on this webinar, how Isold 312 homes working one day per week.
Mike Ferry gets a hold ofthis email, turns it around.
I guess he like, and paste the emaillike as an image into an email that
he sent out to his, uh, his list.
(03:07):
And apparently it went to thousandsof agents because they all, not all
of them, but a lot of them reachedout to me and say, Hey, listen, just
so you know, got that email fromyou also got it from Mike Ferry.
So he basically said, if you believethat this is possible, if you believe
that somebody can build a businessto sell hundreds of homes per year,
working one day a week, I have some likeland to sell you in some, some swamp
(03:29):
land in Florida or some funny comment.
Right.
So his, worldview is such thatthe only way to succeed in real
estate is to cold call like hiswhole program is based on that.
Does it work a hundred percent?
It works.
Do I know agents that soldover a hundred homes per year?
Cold calling?
(03:49):
Yes.
Are those agents?
a slave to their businessdecades into their business.
Yes.
So I knew when I saw that path, becauseI kind of evaluated the different
ways I wanted to build my business.
When I saw cold calling as a wayto do business, I actually tried
it once and I remember I talked toone expired and he was just ugly.
(04:14):
And I was like, there's no way.
I don't know if he hung up on me orsaid some mean words or, you know,
maybe my, my skin is not that thick.
And if you're a cold caller,you can argue that, you know,
I'm just a wimp or whatever.
But I knew that I wanted to detachthe time I put into my business
from the money that I made.
And so a true business owner isnot tied into their business.
(04:35):
And I didn't know if what I wantedto build was possible, If I was going
to be the, the only one that couldgenerate opportunity in my business
via cold calling, I knew that itwasn't possible for me to scale.
And cause now I've seen teams thathave tried to scale beyond like
the, the Rainmaker, the primarycold caller trying to teach others.
And it's very hard to replicatethat skill set, right?
(04:58):
You can have like 15, 20, 30, 000calls in and the level of skill
you can get lethal on the phone.
But I didn't want to do that.
Like I just, I knew Ididn't want to do that.
So my only option was tobuild a marketing systems.
We call them lead gen levers now.
That generate inboundorganic opportunities, right?
(05:18):
So here are the reasons, six ofthem, why cold calling is dead.
According to me in 2025 and beyond.
And it, and I just think it's somethingthat if you want to have a business
that truly serves you, truly givesyou a life of freedom and helps you
make an unreasonable amount of moneyin a reasonable amount of time.
these are the six reasons.
So first of all, it'sa low conversion rate.
(05:39):
We've got a cold caller, uh, that Iknow he actually came into our world.
He's a cold caller and we're trying toteach him this, uh, you know, inbound
organic and building marketing systems.
And he's like used to cold callingfor like six to seven hours a day
to set one listing appointment.
He's like, yeah, it's totally fine.
I just cold call for sixto seven hours a day.
I get all the rejection and I justbooked my one listing appointment.
(06:03):
Sometimes I can get itin four or five hours.
Sometimes it takes me six or sevenhours, but somewhere in there
and I'm just like, that sounds.
It's awful.
So it's, it's maybe one, 2 percent of theconversations you'll have on a cold call
situation, you'll, you'll book into eithera nurture or, a listing appointment.
So does it work?
Yeah, it works.
But also door knocking worksand who wants to door knock?
(06:26):
Like I don't want to door knock.
Does it work?
Yeah, it works.
But I don't want to like,it was 27 degrees today in
Charlotte, North Carolina.
You know, I don't want to be outin 27 degrees or if it's raining,
like what you don't do business.
If you're a doorknocker, like you'renot gonna, you know what I mean?
So, so those methods are just notanything that is viable in my opinion.
So number one, low conversion rate.
(06:47):
Number two, who reallylikes a cold caller?
Like raise your hand.
And there are a few of you outthere that are just sort of weird.
and I'll do this.
From time to time.
Very rarely though.
you'll kind of get a cold call andyou'll, you'll have a conversation,
conversation with them andsort of push them a little bit.
but consumers hate cold callers.
So why would you want to do somethingthat people don't like anyway, you
(07:10):
know, even if you were like resilientand you're thick skinned and like, I'm
going to do it, it's going to be fine.
There's nobody that like gets a cold call.
Oh man, my home did expire and oh, you'rethe, you're, you're the 17th agent.
Let me entertain thisconversation with you.
Right.
Why would you want to put yourselfin a position where the person
on the other side is not goingto have an affinity towards you.
They're just not going tolike the whole situation.
(07:31):
So that's just another thing.
Number three, it's not agreat first impression.
how do you generate businessfor, for as a real estate agent?
I call complete strangers, Idon't know how to market at all.
So the only thing I know how to do is.
Put a headset on and I justcall complete strangers.
we have this expression, youknow, a blood and guts approach to
business or more elegance and ease.
(07:53):
I just choose not that my ways areeasier because in a lot of ways,
they're harder to build the systemsand slow down and do that work.
but the blood and guts like this, I justthink it's a horrible first impression.
It's like you get into someone's houseand like, uh, you know, you met them.
Just like banging the phone over thehead via a cold call and it's like
(08:13):
well, how do you market my home?
It's like clearly you don't know howto market yourself because you're cold
calling, if you were a good marketer,you wouldn't have to cold call people,
So I just think it's a bad firstimpression number four there's way better.
And this is where my brain goes.
I just think there's way betterthings to spend your time on.
And that's what million dollar agentmethod, if there is a plug ever, if
(08:35):
there was a plug for million dollaragent method, it's on this one point.
Time is better spent on buildingscalable marketing systems.
Right.
Whether it's our database touch blueprintor our brand authority builder, or
we've got eight or nine other lead genlevers that take some work to implement,
but leads are coming to you, right?
(08:56):
For sale by owners.
Yeah.
Do we, have a for sale by owner system?
Yes, but they call us.
Or we follow up with them because weprovided some valuable bit of information.
Same thing with our expireddirect response system.
Do we work expires?
Yes, we work expires, but they callus because we mailed them something.
Is there more effort involved?
Yes, but it's a 20 X return oninvestment and it takes some time
(09:18):
to set up, but you can outsourceit to an, an administrator or high
school kid to do your mailers, right?
So I just think there's time better spenton a whole bunch of systems build outs.
You know, building out systems versus justpicking up the phone and cold calling.
number five, your time is worthmore than rejection, So just
because you could grin and bear itand smile and dial, why would you?
(09:42):
if you are a cold caller andthis rubs you the wrong way.
But don't you think you are worth morethan just getting rejected all day long?
But yeah, but the numbers, you know,I, I know that I've gotten good
enough at it where I can say this oneliner and, you know, I can basically
get through, you know, X number Istarted out as this and like, okay,
great, but your time is worth more.
(10:04):
There are way more efficient waysto generate business, And there's
gotta be better things that youcan spend your time on than just
getting rejected all day long, right?
Three, four, five hours of cold callingand getting rejected to find that one or
two that are going to allow you to comeand present to them That's number five.
Number six is, once you figure outthe inbound lead generation, You
(10:27):
know, building out those systems,they convert at a massively,
massively higher rate, like four tofive times higher conversion rates.
Well, way more than that.
I mean, these are like peoplethat are in your network.
You're expanding.
Basically, there are people thateither know you or don't know you.
The goal in our world is to generateinbound leads, organic inbound leads.
(10:51):
That go into your, now they're sortof in your world and you're just
following up with them with valuableinformation and they're raising their
hands when they're ready, right?
That's our lead generation, leadconversion system build out.
We do that within 90 days atMillion Dollar Agent Method.
and if there's a bonus one,a number seven, is that cold
calling is not scalable, right?
So there's no way that youcould scale cold calling.
(11:12):
what are you going to do it forfive years to get good enough at it?
And then teach another way lessmotivated agent how to do it.
Like there's no way it doesn't work.
It does not scale.
But you spend 90 days building outsystems in milliondollaragentmethod.
com.
Go check out the seven minute video.
You spend 90 days building out systems.
You have what it takes to generateone, two, three closings per month.
(11:37):
Without cold calling, right?
So cold calling worksfor all you cold callers.
Go to million dollar agent method.
com suspend disbelief.
There is an easier way to do this.
I'm living proof that you do not to be,you do not need to be a cold caller.
And the only true way to scale yourbusiness sustainably without it relying
(11:58):
a hundred percent on your efforts is tofigure out a way to build lead generation
systems that do the heavy lifting for you.
if that is you and you want to figureout how to build out those systems
together, go to milliondollaragentmethod.
com but we'll see you inthe next, uh, training.
Be good.
Bye bye.
is cold calling dead in 2025.
I sold a lot of homeswithout cold calling.
So does cold calling work?
I'll get it out of the way.
Yes, it does work.
it is soul sucking in my opinion.
And, um, 5, 000 plus families servedin my journey in real estate sales,
(00:20):
helped a couple thousand, maybe evenclose to 3, 000 agents at this point,
grow and scale their businesses.
predominantly without cold calling.
So none of what we teach a milliondollar agent method is based on any cold
calling, any paid leads, any referralfees at closing, any of that stuff,
(01:13):
all of our stuff is.
generating warm, inbound, organic, leads.
And my philosophy is this, and I'm goingto go through kind of six thoughts I have
here that hopefully will convince you thatthere's a better way than cold calling.
my philosophy is that if I'm going to puteffort into, my business, it's going to be
put into something that allows me to scaleand scaling is different than growing.
(01:38):
So could you grow your real estate salesby getting good enough cold calling
where you can set listing appointments,go on those listing appointments, take
those listings, rinse and repeat, right?
Yes, you can.
Absolutely.
There are entire coaching programs.
Based on this fact, a quick story.
And this is no disrespectto the OG Mike Ferry.
(02:01):
here's a funny story whenI first got into coaching.
So I ran a webinar.
This was my first webinar like, andI think the title was how I sold.
300, how I closed 312 homes workingone day a week, and it was the year.
So the year I did that was 2013and I just got into real estate.
(02:24):
My first full year was 2008, so by2013, five years into the business I
was down to working one day a week.
And that next year we went from three12 to 453 and I was still working
one day a week, 10 producing agents.
So obviously I went down the pathof leverage, I built out lead
generation levers that brought in.
leads consistently.
So this was not a bunchof agents cold calling.
(02:45):
None of it was based on cold calling.
I send out this invitation to a webinar.
Come find out on this webinar, how Isold 312 homes working one day per week.
Mike Ferry gets a hold ofthis email, turns it around.
I guess he like, and paste the emaillike as an image into an email that
he sent out to his, uh, his list.
(03:07):
And apparently it went to thousandsof agents because they all, not all
of them, but a lot of them reachedout to me and say, Hey, listen, just
so you know, got that email fromyou also got it from Mike Ferry.
So he basically said, if you believethat this is possible, if you believe
that somebody can build a businessto sell hundreds of homes per year,
working one day a week, I have some likeland to sell you in some, some swamp
(03:29):
land in Florida or some funny comment.
Right.
So his, worldview is such thatthe only way to succeed in real
estate is to cold call like hiswhole program is based on that.
Does it work a hundred percent?
It works.
Do I know agents that soldover a hundred homes per year?
Cold calling?
(03:49):
Yes.
Are those agents?
a slave to their businessdecades into their business.
Yes.
So I knew when I saw that path, becauseI kind of evaluated the different
ways I wanted to build my business.
When I saw cold calling as a wayto do business, I actually tried
it once and I remember I talked toone expired and he was just ugly.
(04:14):
And I was like, there's no way.
I don't know if he hung up on me orsaid some mean words or, you know,
maybe my, my skin is not that thick.
And if you're a cold caller,you can argue that, you know,
I'm just a wimp or whatever.
But I knew that I wanted to detachthe time I put into my business
from the money that I made.
And so a true business owner isnot tied into their business.
(04:35):
And I didn't know if what I wantedto build was possible, If I was going
to be the, the only one that couldgenerate opportunity in my business
via cold calling, I knew that itwasn't possible for me to scale.
And cause now I've seen teams thathave tried to scale beyond like
the, the Rainmaker, the primarycold caller trying to teach others.
And it's very hard to replicatethat skill set, right?
(04:58):
You can have like 15, 20, 30, 000calls in and the level of skill
you can get lethal on the phone.
But I didn't want to do that.
Like I just, I knew Ididn't want to do that.
So my only option was tobuild a marketing systems.
We call them lead gen levers now.
That generate inboundorganic opportunities, right?
(05:18):
So here are the reasons, six ofthem, why cold calling is dead.
According to me in 2025 and beyond.
And it, and I just think it's somethingthat if you want to have a business
that truly serves you, truly givesyou a life of freedom and helps you
make an unreasonable amount of moneyin a reasonable amount of time.
these are the six reasons.
So first of all, it'sa low conversion rate.
(05:39):
We've got a cold caller, uh, that Iknow he actually came into our world.
He's a cold caller and we're trying toteach him this, uh, you know, inbound
organic and building marketing systems.
And he's like used to cold callingfor like six to seven hours a day
to set one listing appointment.
He's like, yeah, it's totally fine.
I just cold call for sixto seven hours a day.
I get all the rejection and I justbooked my one listing appointment.
(06:03):
Sometimes I can get itin four or five hours.
Sometimes it takes me six or sevenhours, but somewhere in there
and I'm just like, that sounds.
It's awful.
So it's, it's maybe one, 2 percent of theconversations you'll have on a cold call
situation, you'll, you'll book into eithera nurture or, a listing appointment.
So does it work?
Yeah, it works.
But also door knocking worksand who wants to door knock?
(06:26):
Like I don't want to door knock.
Does it work?
Yeah, it works.
But I don't want to like,it was 27 degrees today in
Charlotte, North Carolina.
You know, I don't want to be outin 27 degrees or if it's raining,
like what you don't do business.
If you're a doorknocker, like you'renot gonna, you know what I mean?
So, so those methods are just notanything that is viable in my opinion.
So number one, low conversion rate.
(06:47):
Number two, who reallylikes a cold caller?
Like raise your hand.
And there are a few of you outthere that are just sort of weird.
and I'll do this.
From time to time.
Very rarely though.
you'll kind of get a cold call andyou'll, you'll have a conversation,
conversation with them andsort of push them a little bit.
but consumers hate cold callers.
So why would you want to do somethingthat people don't like anyway, you
(07:10):
know, even if you were like resilientand you're thick skinned and like, I'm
going to do it, it's going to be fine.
There's nobody that like gets a cold call.
Oh man, my home did expire and oh, you'rethe, you're, you're the 17th agent.
Let me entertain thisconversation with you.
Right.
Why would you want to put yourselfin a position where the person
on the other side is not goingto have an affinity towards you.
They're just not going tolike the whole situation.
(07:31):
So that's just another thing.
Number three, it's not agreat first impression.
how do you generate businessfor, for as a real estate agent?
I call complete strangers, Idon't know how to market at all.
So the only thing I know how to do is.
Put a headset on and I justcall complete strangers.
we have this expression, youknow, a blood and guts approach to
business or more elegance and ease.
(07:53):
I just choose not that my ways areeasier because in a lot of ways,
they're harder to build the systemsand slow down and do that work.
but the blood and guts like this, I justthink it's a horrible first impression.
It's like you get into someone's houseand like, uh, you know, you met them.
Just like banging the phone over thehead via a cold call and it's like
(08:13):
well, how do you market my home?
It's like clearly you don't know howto market yourself because you're cold
calling, if you were a good marketer,you wouldn't have to cold call people,
So I just think it's a bad firstimpression number four there's way better.
And this is where my brain goes.
I just think there's way betterthings to spend your time on.
And that's what million dollar agentmethod, if there is a plug ever, if
(08:35):
there was a plug for million dollaragent method, it's on this one point.
Time is better spent on buildingscalable marketing systems.
Right.
Whether it's our database touch blueprintor our brand authority builder, or
we've got eight or nine other lead genlevers that take some work to implement,
but leads are coming to you, right?
(08:56):
For sale by owners.
Yeah.
Do we, have a for sale by owner system?
Yes, but they call us.
Or we follow up with them because weprovided some valuable bit of information.
Same thing with our expireddirect response system.
Do we work expires?
Yes, we work expires, but they callus because we mailed them something.
Is there more effort involved?
Yes, but it's a 20 X return oninvestment and it takes some time
(09:18):
to set up, but you can outsourceit to an, an administrator or high
school kid to do your mailers, right?
So I just think there's time better spenton a whole bunch of systems build outs.
You know, building out systems versus justpicking up the phone and cold calling.
number five, your time is worthmore than rejection, So just
because you could grin and bear itand smile and dial, why would you?
(09:42):
if you are a cold caller andthis rubs you the wrong way.
But don't you think you are worth morethan just getting rejected all day long?
But yeah, but the numbers, you know,I, I know that I've gotten good
enough at it where I can say this oneliner and, you know, I can basically
get through, you know, X number Istarted out as this and like, okay,
great, but your time is worth more.
(10:04):
There are way more efficient waysto generate business, And there's
gotta be better things that youcan spend your time on than just
getting rejected all day long, right?
Three, four, five hours of cold callingand getting rejected to find that one or
two that are going to allow you to comeand present to them That's number five.
Number six is, once you figure outthe inbound lead generation, You
(10:27):
know, building out those systems,they convert at a massively,
massively higher rate, like four tofive times higher conversion rates.
Well, way more than that.
I mean, these are like peoplethat are in your network.
You're expanding.
Basically, there are people thateither know you or don't know you.
The goal in our world is to generateinbound leads, organic inbound leads.
(10:51):
That go into your, now they're sortof in your world and you're just
following up with them with valuableinformation and they're raising their
hands when they're ready, right?
That's our lead generation, leadconversion system build out.
We do that within 90 days atMillion Dollar Agent Method.
and if there's a bonus one,a number seven, is that cold
calling is not scalable, right?
So there's no way that youcould scale cold calling.
(11:12):
what are you going to do it forfive years to get good enough at it?
And then teach another way lessmotivated agent how to do it.
Like there's no way it doesn't work.
It does not scale.
But you spend 90 days building outsystems in milliondollaragentmethod.
com.
Go check out the seven minute video.
You spend 90 days building out systems.
You have what it takes to generateone, two, three closings per month.
(11:37):
Without cold calling, right?
So cold calling worksfor all you cold callers.
Go to million dollar agent method.
com suspend disbelief.
There is an easier way to do this.
I'm living proof that you do not to be,you do not need to be a cold caller.
And the only true way to scale yourbusiness sustainably without it relying
(11:58):
a hundred percent on your efforts is tofigure out a way to build lead generation
systems that do the heavy lifting for you.
if that is you and you want to figureout how to build out those systems
together, go to milliondollaragentmethod.
com but we'll see you inthe next, uh, training.
Be good.
Bye bye.
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