There are two basic types of cold-call sales, one is the nearly extinct form of salespersons going from house to house, while the other is the much maligned phone practice, called telemarketing. Because of privacy laws and the growth internet marketing, telemarketing is outdated, and as most people who resent the dinnertime annoyances, facing extinction.

Because I'm very old, I can remember clearly, from the '30s and 40s, the ring of the bell or knock on the door of the sales person, usually male, who was peddling insurance, vacuum sweepers, cosmetics, magazine subscriptions and other wares. The earned income from a portion of successful sales. My only personal attempt at cold call sales was when I was a high school student. Whenever our city was hit by a snowstorm, a pal and I, armed with shovels, went from house to house, offering to scrape off the steps and sidewalks. When the snow was deepest, we could charge $5. As the snow melted several days later, we were lucky to get a dollar or two.

You don't see many salespeople walking the neighborhood streets anymore, except one persistent group, the religious zealots. On our street, we still get occasional visits from well-groomed, intense young men who want us to join their church. We always politely turn them away, but I'm sure they take considerable verbal abuse from others in an era when common courtesy no longer exists, especially when it applies to religion peddlers.

The phone salespersons work in telemarketing offices with others also spend their time making cold calls. They're usuallytrained to use a specific script. As with their outdoor cohorts, they earn income for successful sales. In some cases, they are paid for getting potential clients to agree to be visited by live sales persons. Our family had a short experience with that form of solicitation when our then-teenage son got an after-school job with a telemarketing organization.

He worked in a dingy basement, hence the usual nickname of boiler room for telemarketing, and his job was to make appointments for the company's outside sales persons . The potential clients were businesses, stores and restaurants, and the company sold cleaning supplies. Our son was paid 50 cents an hour, and for each appointment, he earned a dollar. He made some impressive bucks until his highly questionable ethics caused the boss to kick him out.

Our son had came up with a brilliant, but slightly crooked, idea of calling owners of Chinese restaurants and laundries. Many of them didn't speak English very well, and no matter what they said on his call, our son made appointments with them. After the outside sales people met with total refusals, the boss discovered our son's game, and the ambitious teenager's telemarketing career was over.

Although we're on the no-call list of our phone company, we still get occasional cold calls. Some of the most persistent, and annoying, in recent days are from political candidates and party officials,. We still get occasional fund-raising calls from both honest and phony charities. Another source, even more annoying, are cold calls from boiler rooms in foreign countries, primarily India and the Caribbean. If cold calling is outdated, those people still haven't heard about it. Maybe I should give them a call.

Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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