Pilates Soulful Sunday: Cold Calls and How to Handle Them

Angry reaction to a cold call as a man grips his phone mid conversation indoors.

Cold calls interrupt your day. You answer an unknown number and someone launches into a sales pitch while you are busy. The reaction is irritation, raised voice, and a demand to stop calling. Then the phone rings again. Solar panels. Again.

This week I was speaking with a marketing specialist who said something uncomfortable. Cold calls still work. Not emotionally. Not politely. Financially.

So here is the uncomfortable truth. Cold calls exist because they generate money.

What cold calls are:

They are unsolicited sales calls to people who never asked to be contacted. They sit alongside email campaigns and social ads as part of outbound marketing. They feel outdated, but they persist.

Do they work?

The success rate is low. Most studies show only a small percentage of calls lead to any positive outcome. Often between two and five people out of every hundred calls respond in a way the business values.That sounds pointless until you scale it. Large call centres operate on volume. Hundreds of calls per day multiplied by small percentages still produce revenue. That is why they continue.

In business to business environments such as Pilates Studios, results improve. When calls target specific roles or decision makers, more people agree to conversations or meetings. Not because they enjoy the call, but because timing and relevance occasionally align.

Why companies keep using them

Cold calls force attention. Emails sit unread. Adverts scroll past. A ringing phone demands a decision. Answer or ignore.Sales teams also receive immediate feedback. Rejection happens fast, but so does progress. From their perspective, speed matters more than comfort.

Why blocking numbers feels useless

Many call centres rotate numbers. Some use spoofed local numbers. Blocking one does nothing when the next call appears from a different line.Lists also circulate slowly. Your number often remains active long after you object. Anger on the call does nothing. The system does not care.

Do people buy from cold calls

Yes. Some do. Not many. Enough.Most people never buy on the call itself. The goal is not an instant sale. The goal is a follow-up, a meeting, or permission to keep selling. A small win counts.

How to reduce the calls

The main opt-out list in the UK is the Telephone Preference Service, TPS.

What it does

• It lets you register your landline or mobile number.

• Legitimate UK marketing companies must not cold call numbers on the list.

• It applies to live sales calls, not market research.

There is also the Corporate Telephone Preference Service, CTPS.That covers business numbers.

What it does not stop

• Scam calls.

• Overseas call centres ignoring UK law.

• Recorded or automated messages, which are illegal anyway but still happen.

Why you still get calls

• Some companies break the rules.

• Some calls come from abroad.

• Some use spoofed UK numbers.

• Blocking one number does nothing when they rotate thousands.

What helps

• Register with TPS.

• Use your phone’s spam filtering.

• Do not engage on the call.

Reality

TPS reduces volume. It does not deliver silence.

Cold calling survives on loopholes and scale, not goodwill.

If cold calls disappeared tomorrow, nobody would mourn.

Not even the people making them.

Yes. Here is the main UK contact for TPS.

• Phone registration and contact: 0345 070 0707 Citizens Advice

• Quick mobile register by text: text TPS and your email address to 85095 from your mobile. Telephone Preference Service

• Website to register or complain online: tpsonline.org.uk Telephone Preference Service

Use the phone number or website to add your landline or mobile number to the official opt-out list. It may take up to 28 days for the effect to reduce most sales calls. Citizens Advice