Cold Call

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🗓️ Idiom: Cold Call (v)

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💬 Meaning

• To contact a potential customer or client without any notice or appointment, typically to sell a product or service.
• To reach out to someone, especially by phone, in hopes of beginning a business opportunity or sale.

🧠 Example Sentences

• The sales team spent the morning cold calling potential leads from a new list.
• I used to dread cold calling until I built up more confidence.
• She cold called several companies before finding one interested in her proposal.

🏛️ Origin

The term comes from sales and marketing, where “cold” implies a lack of prior contact or relationship. It contrasts with a “warm” or “hot” lead, where the prospect already knows or expects the communication.

📝 Practice Exercises

1. Fill in the blank:

We didn’t have any appointments, so we just started to __________ local businesses.

Answer

cold call

2. Choose the correct meaning of “cold call”:

A) To respond to a customer’s inquiry
B) To make a call to a previous client
C) To contact a possible customer without any previous interaction

Answer

C) To contact a possible customer without any previous interaction

3. Rewrite the sentence using the idiom:

“They contacted the company even though there had been no previous communication.” → Change the sentence using: cold call

Answer

They cold called the company.

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ℹ️ Other Useful Pages

👉 Marketing and Sales Idioms 👉 Marketing and Sales Vocabulary
👉 Business English Idioms List.
👉 Student Space
👉 Tutor Toolkit

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