Most advice on cold calling is about the script. This page is about what comes before and around it: where phone numbers come from and how many you can expect to find, how many dials one conversation costs, whether calls help or compete with email, and what the rules say in the UK and Czechia.
What is cold calling?
Cold calling is an outbound phone call to someone who did not ask to be called. In B2B sales it is usually done by a sales development rep working through a list of named people at target companies. The aim of the first call is the same as the aim of a first cold email: a short conversation and a reason to meet, not a sale.
The phone has one property no written channel has. A conversation either happens or it does not, within seconds, and the caller hears the objection directly. The cost is time: most dials end in voicemail or no answer.
Where do phone numbers come from, and how many can you find?
Phone numbers come from three kinds of source:
- Company websites. The switchboard or general number published by the company. Cheapest, and enough when any line into the company will do.
- Premium direct-number sources. Services that look up a mobile or direct line for a named person, often by cascading the query across many data providers. The most expensive tier and the highest hit rate.
- Cheaper lookup services. Lower price per lookup, with correspondingly lower hit rates.
How many numbers you find depends far more on who you are calling than on which tool you use. Senior, publicly visible roles are easy to find. Roles that rarely appear in public are hard for every provider.
| Target role | Typical hit rate for a direct number | What it means for the list |
|---|---|---|
| Senior management in active industries | around 70 % | Most of the list is callable |
| Individual engineers and IT specialists | around 30 % | Plan a second channel for the rest |
Leadspicker knowledge base, August 2026. Pending clearance; the knowledge base gives no sample or method for these rates.
How many calls does a conversation take?
About ten. The Bridge Group's 2025 SDR report puts the median SDR at 44 dials and 4.1 conversations a day. Teams built around the phone make 56 dials and reach 4.6 conversations. Doubling the dials does not double the conversations.
| Step | Per day | Per five-day week |
|---|---|---|
| Dials (median SDR) | 44 | 220 |
| Conversations | 4.1 | about 20 |
| Meetings | Your own conversation-to-meeting rate | Conversations × that rate |
Dials and conversations: The Bridge Group, SDR Metrics and Models report 2025. The week column is simple multiplication.
Use the table backwards when you plan. If a rep needs four meetings a week and one conversation in five becomes a meeting, that rep needs about 20 conversations, which is a full week of median dialling. A list of senior people with a high hit rate makes that week possible. A list of engineers with a low hit rate does not.
Does calling help email, or compete with it?
Calling helps email. Gong's 2024 analysis, drawn from what it describes as 300 million calls, found that prospects who also received a cold call replied to email at 3.44 %, against 1.81 % for prospects who were only emailed. That is close to double. It is vendor data from Gong's own customers, so read it as direction, not a benchmark.
The practical pattern is to call the people a sequence has already emailed, and to call fast when someone replies. A reply is the warmest moment in the whole process, and the number in the replier's signature is often the best number you will get.
What are the rules for B2B calls in the UK and Czechia?
The two countries take opposite starting points. This summarises the regulators' own guidance and is not legal advice.
- United Kingdom: the ICO's guide to PECR allows live marketing calls to businesses without prior consent, provided the number is first screened against the Telephone Preference Service and the Corporate Telephone Preference Service, and the caller identifies themselves.
- Czechia: since July 2022 marketing calls need the called party's prior consent. The telecoms regulator ČTÚ states in its interpretative opinion that the rule applies without distinction to individuals and to companies.
Leadspicker draws phone numbers from three tiers of source, from published company numbers to a premium direct-number lookup, and finds a direct number for around 70 % of senior managers in active industries and around 30 % of engineers.
Frequently asked questions
Is cold calling still worth it in B2B?
For senior buyers, often yes. The Bridge Group's 2025 median is about four conversations a day per rep, and Gong's vendor data shows that calling roughly doubles the email reply rate of the same prospects.
Where do sales teams get direct phone numbers?
From company websites for switchboard numbers, and from enrichment services that look up direct lines for named people. Hit rates depend mostly on the role: senior, visible people are far easier to find than engineers.
Can you cold call businesses in Czechia?
Czech law has required prior consent for marketing calls since July 2022, and the regulator ČTÚ applies it to companies as well as individuals. In the UK, the ICO's PECR guidance says live marketing calls to businesses can be made without prior consent once the number is screened against the TPS and CTPS registers.
- The Bridge Group, 2025 SDR Metrics and Models Report
- Gong, The hidden power of cold calling: insights from 300M calls (2024)
- ICO, Telephone marketing (Guide to PECR)
- ČTÚ, Výkladové stanovisko k telemarketingu a FAQ (2022)
- GTM playbook for 2026 by Leadspicker, chapters: Finding phone numbers; CRM and chat integrations
