Cold calling (from the callee’s perspective)
February 6th, 2008 by gregr
My office phone rings a LOT. And at least 50% of the time, the person calling is cold-calling me, hoping to sell whatever product or service they offer. And since the more enterprising of these folks at least glance at my blog before calling me, I thought I’d write some tips for them here.
Be aware I have no idea how to actually do a cold call. There is likely no one in the world worse at that than me. So everything I write here is from the perspective of the callee, not the caller. I’m sure this will read like “10 steps to fewer sales” for experienced sales folks. :-)
Imagine this, which seems to happen most of the time:
Greg: “Hello, this is Greg…”
Sales guy Bob: “Hello, Greg, this is Bob WannaSellYa. How are you doing today?”
11 words, and this already puts me in a bad spot, and instantly annoys me. First, I have no idea who Bob WannaSellYa is or what company he’s with. So I’m either annoyed that he wants to know how I’m doing even though I don’t know him, or I’m horrified that I might have met him yesterday and forgot his name. Could go either way. If you have some connection to me - if say someone I know gave you my contact info - then say so right away, and I’ll pay much more attention. Otherwise, my usual response to this:
Greg: “Fine.”
And I’m sorry to admit, it’s not a polite “fine” - it’s more of an annoyed, who-the-f%@!-are-you “fine”.
I don’t want to be mean, I really don’t. It’s not my nature. But I have a lot to do today, and talking to you wasn’t on my list. So please, do what you can to get to the point quickly.
Ok, so now Bob knows I’m doing fine, and if he’s really listening, he knows I’m already somewhat annoyed about the call. Now comes the meat of the conversation, I guess. I’ll give a hint at this point - if I don’t know who you are, then don’t pile on any more small talk; asking me about the weather in Denver will not help your chances. But assuming we’re past that:
Bob: “Great, glad to hear it. Greg, I’m with AcmeServices here in Dallas, TX, and we’ve got 90 of the Fortune 100 as clients. Do you currently host your own information systems?”
Greg: “I’m sorry, who did you say you were with?”
Bob: “AcmeServices.”
Greg: “And what do you do?”
You see, I’ve probably never heard of AcmeServices, I don’t know what you do, and I’m not likely to have a conversation with you about what I might or might not be hosting until I know what you’re after. Are you a managed service provider? An edge network provider? A consultant? A hosting company? Give me one or two sentences about what exactly you do, and maybe even how you think it might fit with what I do. Even if you get the second part wrong, I’ll know two things:
1. I’ll have a general idea what you do.
2. I’ll know that you spent at least 5 minutes looking at what I do, so I don’t have to explain that we sell enterprise software AND operate an online hosted system.
Based on #1, I’ll be able to triage the call. Either tell you a) I’m not interested, b) I’m not the one to talk to but perhaps point you to someone else, or c) I’m indeed the guy and let’s spend a few minutes talking. And if you also did #2, we’ll be able to jump right in if there’s something here.
And if I know enough about what you’re saying to tell you I’m not interested, then you’re just not going to be able to talk me into it right then on the phone. It’s never happened. If I don’t really know, then I’ll say so and you can tell me more. If, for example, you sell solid-state storage, and I use regular disk storage, then I’ll pepper you with a bunch of questions to help me understand whether I might be interested…but if I’m not interested from the get-go, then you can save us both some time, and you can save me from feeling like I’m being rude by trying to end the call.
(aside: if you do sell solid-state storage, please do call me, because I do have some questions. :-)
Let me try to boil all this down to a few tips, if I might:
- Get to the point quickly; small talk is awkward when we don’t know each other.
- If we have some mutual acquaintance or connection, say so quickly, and I won’t blow you off. Better yet, ask them to introduce you to me via email.
- If I don’t answer your voice mail, you don’t need to leave 8 more messages - I got the first one. I probably just don’t need what you’re selling at the moment. It’s no offense.
- Don’t ever say we’ve chatted personally in the past when we haven’t. I have a bad memory, but I remember things like this. This is a sure-fire way to make sure I will never return your voicemail or email. You’d be surprised how much this happens.
- Email is a much better way to get ahold of me, frankly, than the phone. If you’re obviously selling something, then I might not respond, but I do at least read the first sentence or two of every email I get. If I don’t need something now, but think I might in the future, I’ll save your email, and remember you later (I usually don’t reply until I’m ready to actually dig in). But - if your email reads like spam, as opposed to a personal note, it’s much less likely that I’ll save it or respond.
Anyway, I’m sure I just offended most of the sales people who read my blog, and perhaps others as well…and like I said, I have no idea what kinds of things actually work and what doesn’t. I just know what I personally respond to. So if you want to sell me stuff, this will probably help!
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 5:27 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 10th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I couldn’t have said it any better. In my case, I would also add that you can leave a voicemail, but unless you actually catch me when I’m looking for what you’ve said your selling, I will never return the call. If you want to talk to me, you need to catch me in person. And then all of the above applies, especially, “Don’t ask me questions about my company or my setup until you’ve told me who you are and who you represent.”
February 12th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
A great tactic is to simply cut the call short by saying, “Sorry, I’m really busy right now. Send me your marketing material by fax at (…).”
Giving out an email address is too error-prone and time consuming (”At what? Is that a p or a d? Wait, dot org? No? Dot com? Okay.”) and gives them an opportunity to try and stall you. You shoot off a 10 digit phone number and you’re off the phone.
As antiquated as fax is, I still like it because it still _costs the sender something_. Email is too cheap–it doesn’t set the bar high enough.
March 12th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Hello,
I am a professional Sales and Marketing Promotions Specialist and I absolutely agree with your point of view. Cold calling sales calls have to change.
All businesses have a valuable service or product and all businesses have their own way of prospecting and expect their own sales people to carry this out or hire a third party to do this for them. Unfortunately most businesses prospect/cold call in the wrong way. It is annoying and intrusive just as you have descibed in your description.
However, if your sales people didn’t cold call or whatever they do to find new business opportunities, where would you stand in growing against your competition. That remains a very important part of business. What doesn’t belong is what you have said and that is a sales person that doesn’t know how to cold call and only wastes time annoying busy people like yourself and that is not OK.
I have spent 14 years thus far undoing the damage left by cold callers who simply did not do the job right and now teach it and carry out cold calling services for businesses that not only build new business opportunities, but leave the callee happier and less annoyed with something valuable to consider.
I wish more people like yourself would come forward and really say what annoys them about cold calls.
June 17th, 2008 at 8:09 am
I’m in sales and appreciate your input greatly! I’m in the insurance business(OK I’ve already lost about 1/2 the readers now)and too have had to adjust after so many previous cold callers have tainted the phone presentation practice.
This is a necessity in our business to increase our customer base and our sales objectives. This kind of approach needs to be taught with care and an understandable objective before you let the leash go on those that want to just “dial for dough”. Seniors make up the majority of my business and they are unfortunately the ones that have been abused the most.
Any tips or suggestions from anyone on the other end of the phone line is greatly appreciated.
June 18th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I am in insurance sales also. I do not see a way of cold calling that does not annoy the prospect, make them suspicious, or cause them to be rude. I deal with people who actually request the information, and 90% of them still yell and hang up.
Just as you do not want your time wasted, we do not either, so bogus excuses such as “mail me the info” “fax the info”, “I’m too busy” are silly and waste both of our time. Give the person enough time to explain thier purpose and then be honest. Say that you don’t want to be called again or whatever it is that you feel. if you do not feel like dealing with it, then don’t pick up the phone. Put yourself on the Do Not Call list. Also, try to remember that we are people, not dogs! Don’t play fax machine games, we are just trying to make a living.
July 18th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
I have been in sales for a long time and am always open to new ideas regarding cold calling. One thing that works for me when you get the prospect on the phone for the first time is this: “John? Blah Blah with XYZ Company. I bet I caught you at a bad time.” This is not what anyone expects from someone cold calling. If they say “yes” then ask them when a better time to call would be. If they say “No, not too busy,” then do your thing!
I have learned recently that doing the opposite of what the prospect expects is the best thing to do (throughout the whole sales process).
Peace!