I‘m not sure there’s any activity more closely associated with sales than cold calling. It can be the trial by fire that preps SDRs for a career in the field, the day-to-day responsibility that keeps reps diligent and engaged, and the basis for a ton of sales org's prospecting infrastructures.
It‘s been a staple of several salespeople’s professional lives — one that can be every bit as obnoxious as it is essential. But where does it stand in 2025? And where might it be headed in 2026 and beyond?
Well, valued reader, we here at the HubSpot Sales Blog — the literal hub and/or spot that every last sales professional can (and should) rely on for sales-related insight online — were really stewing on those questions and more. That's why we surveyed 379 sales professionals to get a pulse on all things cold calling in 2025.
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We answer questions like:
- Do sales orgs still cold call?
- How much do salespeople still cold call?
- What resources do salespeople use for cold calling?
- When is the best time to cold call?
- Why do salespeople cold call?
- What results are sales orgs seeing from cold calling?
- How can you get better at cold calling?
- What might the future of cold calling look like?
- What is the state of cold calling in 2025?
Important Context
You're probably wondering where this data came from? Well, we leveraged Panoplai — an AI-driven research platform (that‘s amazing and I can’t plug enough) — to glean all of this wonderful insight.
We surveyed 379 sales professionals of various backgrounds across a wide range of industries. They‘re employed by businesses of virtually all sizes. Here’s a look at that distribution:
Our respondents also had varying degrees of seniority within their organizations, but they predominantly identified as being at the associate and management levels. Here's a look at how that shook out:
Ultimately, the base represented a diverse but solid array of sales professionals — one that we...
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