Sales Leaders’ Insight into a Skill They Trust Least: Cold Calling

Ask a sales leader how their reps handle cold calling, and you’ll get a wince. Ask the reps the same question, and you’ll get a shrug and a “we’re fine.” That gap between what leaders see and what reps believe is a critical finding from the new research conducted by ValueSelling Associates and Selling Power, because it’s the part most sales organizations are missing.

We surveyed 153 sales leaders and reps across industries and asked many of the same questions that we asked in our 2018 survey. The headline result got attention: cold calling still ranks as the second most effective way to reach a new prospect, trailing only client referrals, and it beats AI-assisted personalized email six to one. But, although cold calling still gets high marks, only 19% of leaders rate their reps “excellent” or “very good” at cold calling, while 43% of reps rate themselves that way.

The Confidence Gap Is the Real Story

That 24-point spread is a signal that the people doing the work and the people managing the work are looking at two different pictures. Cold calling is the one skill in our study where reps grade themselves higher than their managers grade them, and it happens to be the skill managers rate as their team’s weakest across the board.

When a rep believes they’re already good at something, they stop practicing it. They stop asking for feedback on it. And they keep making the same calls the same way, convinced the results will eventually turn. Meanwhile, the leader watching the pipeline knows the calls aren’t landing and can’t figure out why the rep isn’t adjusting.

B2B Buyers Are Tougher to Reach

The confidence gap would matter less if the job had gotten easier, but it hasn’t. In 2018, most sellers needed one to five touches to land a meeting. In 2026, the most common answer is six to 10 touches, and the share of reps who need 11 or more touches to land a meeting has nearly doubled. Buyers are more guarded, more distracted and harder to reach than they were eight years ago.

Today’s sales professionals are facing a longer, tougher prospecting cycle, and they seem to have forgotten the old-school tactic of cold calling, even though it’s a very effective method of outreach. Our research shows:

• 46% of sales leaders say their reps give up too easily on cold calls.
• 40% point to weak objection handling.
• 39% say reps are simply afraid to pick up the phone.

None of that is a targeting problem or a data problem. It’s a coaching problem.

Training Exists on Paper More Than It Exists in Practice

Eighty percent of sales leaders say they provide skills training on cold calling. Yet, only half of reps say they actually receive it. That gap tells you training is being scheduled, announced or assumed rather than delivered in a way reps notice and retain. If your team can’t confirm the training happened, it didn’t happen in any way that will change behavior on the next call.

AI Is Working Hard in the Wrong Places

Sales teams have not been slow to adopt AI. Sellers use it to draft prospecting emails (55%), research prospects (55%), personalize outreach (46%), and build call-prep notes (43%). AI is showing up everywhere except where a major skills gap exists.

We’ve focused on teaching AI to write a better email, while ignoring AI as a tool that could rebuild confidence on the phone. That’s the paradox in our data: 77% of respondents say AI has improved their prospecting effectiveness, yet the capability with the most room to help, coaching reps through the moment of fear before they dial, is the one getting the least investment.

Close the Gap Before You Set Next Quarter’s Targets

None of this means cold calling is broken. It means the skill is under-coached, the confidence around it is inflated. Unfortunately, the tools that could close both problems are focused elsewhere. Before you set next quarter’s outbound targets, here are three things to review:

• Check your reps’ self-assessment on cold calling against your own assessment of their skills. Treat that gap as a coaching priority.
• See if your training is landing, measured by behavior change, not what got scheduled on the calendar.
• Evaluate whether the AI tools your team already owns are being leveraged for call preparation and live coaching.

Client referrals and cold calls led as the most effective methods for reaching new prospects in 2018. They lead again with our new research in 2026. This shows that cold calling hasn’t lost its power. What’s changed is how much confidence and coaching it takes to use it well, and the challenge now is to help sellers build the confidence and skills to implement cold calling effectively.

Julie Thomas is President and CEO of ValueSelling Associates, creator of the ValueSelling Framework®. This article is based on new research ValueSelling Associates conducted in partnership with Selling Power, surveying 153 sales leaders and representatives on prospecting effectiveness in the AI era. The full findings are available in the ebook “Cutting Through the Noise: Prospecting in the AI Era.”0505