Do You Send Emails When Cold Calling?

I rarely send emails, at least not until after I've given a presentation. Once I go through my process I'll ask for their email address so I can send them contact info, product catalogs, website address, etc but I don't send prices and I always call again the following month to follow up.

I've had so many people say "send me an email" or "send me a fax" in the past and in my experience, I've found that it's almost a complete waste of time. Some guys want prices so they can shop and compare. Some want a price on something with your letterhead so they can take it to their local guy and have them match it and not have to pay shipping. Others just want to get you off the phone.

My objective is to train people to do business how I want them to. I've found that almost every time I start sending emails/faxes that's what I'm asked to do whenever I contact them.

That being said, if it's an expensive item that they may not be familiar with or if they're ready to buy right then but they want to make sure it's exactly what they need, then I'll tell them to go to their computer and hold the phone so I can answer any questions they have while we look at the item at the same time. That way there's no confusion.

Some may disagree, and that's fine. Whatever works for them. I simply refuse to sell emails or faxes. That doesn't pay my bills.

Also, how much time do you waste sending emails? Let's do an example of the time it would take to write and send a simple email. When I say "simple" I'm assuming that you already have a file with pre-written email copy that can be copied, pasted and edited. Then you'd need to do the same with any product or service information and edit that, too.

Let's say that it takes apx 3 minutes to do all that and personalize an email. If you were making 200 calls per day and sent an email just 25% of the time, in this case, 50 calls, that would take 150 minutes per day, or 2.5 hours. Multiply that by a 5 days work week and you'd have wasted 12.5 hours of phone time!

Let's say that you're lightning fast and are able to copy, paste, edit, personalize and send an email in half that time. You'd still be burning 6.25 hours per week by sending emails. That's almost an entire work day!

Once again, email has its place in certain situations, but I don't allow myself to be caught up in all that. I'm a telemarketer and prefer to do as much business as possible by phone.

I don't "sell" emails.

Thoughts?