🗓️ Idiom: Cold Call (v)
💬 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.
ℹ️ Other Useful Pages
👉 Marketing and Sales Idioms 👉 Marketing and Sales Vocabulary
👉 Business English Idioms List.
👉 Student Space
👉 Tutor Toolkit