Every year someone writes a post declaring cold calling dead. The market for those posts is people who are doing it wrong and looking for permission to stop.
Cold calling is harder. The math is leaner. But for lower-middle-market M&A outreach, where the prospect pool is smaller and the deal size justifies more expensive outreach, phone still outperforms every other channel on one metric: it is the only touch where a real conversation can happen.
Email gets replies. Phone gets conversations. In M&A, a conversation with an owner who has never talked to an advisor is worth more than a reply rate benchmark.
01. The Connect Rate Reality
The benchmark most teams use is too optimistic.
The Bridge Group's SDR research shows B2B cold call connect rates — the percentage of dials that result in a live conversation — average around 6 to 8% across industries, with meaningful variation by company size and direct-dial quality. Smaller companies answer at higher rates than enterprise targets. A predictive dialer running through a cell phone list will connect differently from a VoIP line dialing Salesforce decision-makers.
For lower-middle-market business owners — the proprietors of manufacturing companies, distribution businesses, and service firms in the $3M–$50M revenue band — connect rates depend heavily on two things: whether you have a direct number and what time you call.
Direct-dial data changes everything. If your list has cell phone numbers sourced from Secretary of State filings or enriched through a contact data provider, your connect rate on those numbers will run 15 to 25%. If you are dialing general business lines and asking to speak with the owner, expect 3 to 5%.
Calling time matters more than most teams track. Research across B2B calling programs shows late afternoon — 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. local time — outperforms morning for small business owners. They are not in back-to-back meetings the way enterprise buyers are. Many are wrapping up field work or settling in before the end of the day. Morning calls catch people walking in the door.
02. Voicemail: A Channel, Not a Waste
The assumption that voicemail is dead is wrong in one specific direction: voicemails do not get returned. But they do get heard.
A voicemail, left at each step of a multi-channel sequence, functions as a brand impression, not a callback request. It tells the owner your name, why you are calling, and that you will follow up. That context makes the next cold call warmer. It is why calling rate data shows higher connect rates on the second and third attempt versus the first when a voicemail has been left in between.
The voicemail should be eleven to fifteen seconds. Not a sales pitch. A reference to why you are calling and a signal that you will try again.
"Hi [Name], it's Ava Kelly with Axia Growth. I work with PE firms and advisors on finding off-market acquisitions in [vertical]. I'll give you a call again later this week, or feel free to reach me at [number] if the timing works better your way."
No urgency. No pitch. No "I'd love to connect." The goal is to make the next call feel like a continuation, not a cold start.
03. The First Twenty Seconds
The first twenty seconds of a cold call determine whether there is a conversation or a hang-up.
Most SDRs are trained to open with a positioning statement and a discovery question. That structure works for SaaS outbound where the prospect is used to being sold. Lower-middle-market business owners run a business. They pick up an unknown number and decide in the first three seconds whether the call is worth thirty more.
Two things damage that decision immediately: a long pause from a predictive dialer (the prospect says hello twice before a voice appears), and an opener that sounds like a script.
Gong's research on cold call opening lines — based on analysis of millions of recorded calls — found that asking "Did I catch you at a bad time?" reduces the probability of booking a meeting by 40%. The question invites the answer "yes." A better opener acknowledges the cold nature of the call without putting the prospect in a defensive position.
Openers that work:
Lead with a specific reason. "The reason I'm calling is that we work with buyers in the [vertical] space, and your company came up in our research." Specificity signals preparation, which signals a targeted call.
Reference what you know about the business. Skip the basics any database returns. The number of years they have been operating, a recent hire or expansion, a product line that suggests scale. This is why good list-building matters for cold calling: it gives your callers something real to say.
Ask a question that assumes relevance. "Have you given any thought to what you want the next chapter of ownership to look like?" is a better opener than "Are you interested in selling your business?" The first assumes the owner has a future they are thinking about. The second asks them to opt into a sales conversation.
04. Handling the First Objection
Most calls convert on the response to the first objection, not the objection itself.
The three objections that come up in M&A cold calling:
"I'm not interested in selling." Do not push back on this directly. Acknowledge it and reframe: "That's fine — most of the people I speak with aren't either. What I'm trying to understand is what ownership looks like for you long-term, so I know whether there's a reason to follow up down the road." This keeps the conversation alive without arguing about a decision the owner has not yet made.
"I already have a banker / advisor / relationship." Respect it. "Got it — happy to keep it there. Just out of curiosity, when you eventually do go to market, is that relationship set up to generate proactive buyer interest, or is it more of a traditional process?" This often opens a real conversation about what they are getting from their advisor.
"Send me something by email." This is usually a polite exit. The correct response is to treat it like one and use it to extend the relationship rather than resist it: "Sure — what's the best address, and I'll keep it short. I'll follow up in a few weeks after you've had a chance to look." Then actually do that.
05. The Metrics That Tell You If It's Working
Cold calling programs die because nobody is measuring the right numbers.
Dials per day is an input metric that measures effort, not effectiveness.
The metrics that matter for M&A cold calling:
- Connect rate — live conversations per dial attempt. Below 5% means list quality or timing is off.
- Conversation-to-qualified rate — how many live conversations progress to a qualification call. For M&A outreach targeting owners, expect 5 to 15% depending on criteria tightness.
- Touches-to-connect — how many attempts before a live conversation. This tells you how to structure the sequence. If the average is 4 dials per live conversation, a sequence with 3 call attempts is systematically under-touching.
- Qualified-to-meeting rate — how many qualified conversations convert to a booked call with the advisor. This is where script quality, SDR skill, and criteria clarity converge. Expect 40 to 65% on a well-run program.
Track these by caller, not just by team. Variance tells you who needs coaching and where the script is breaking.
06. Where This Fits in the Sequence
Cold calling in isolation underperforms cold calling in a sequence.
The model that produces consistent results for M&A outbound: email first (day 1), first call attempt with voicemail (day 3), second email (day 6), second call with voicemail (day 9), third email (day 13), third call attempt (day 17), final email (day 21). Total: 7 touches over 21 business days.
The phone touches give context to the email and vice versa. Owners who do not reply to email sometimes pick up the phone. Owners who miss the first call are warmer on the third when they have seen the name in their inbox twice.
The channel mix finds the right access point for each owner. Some read email at 6:30 a.m. Others pick up an unknown number at 4:45 p.m.
Sources
- The Bridge Group, SDR Metrics Research (connect rate and activity benchmarks across B2B SDR programs)
- Gong.io, Cold Call Opening Lines Research (analysis of opener effectiveness and booking rates across millions of recorded sales calls)
- Gong.io, Cold Call Statistics (call length, timing, and multi-touch data)
Our SDR team runs cold calling and email sequencing for M&A clients across buyer and sell-side pipelines. See how appointments work here.