Cold Calls

I am thinking I should blog about this, but I didn’t want people to think I am a bigger ass than I already am. I have been assured that is not possible, so here goes.

Just a quick note to all those sales-persons out there that have me on their list of call to make. Stop wasting my time, you are only making me want to avoid answering my phone. If there is one thing I cannot stand, besides cold calls, it is when someone on the other end of the line is not being honest with me.

Just last week I had this piece of work call me up exactly two minutes before I was due to be in a meeting. The poor guy had no idea who he was calling. After all, I am the guy that once told a saleswoman that called my home one night “…no, but what are you wearing”. Hey, it can’t be harassment if they call me, right? She then asked “…did you think this is a sex call?” I told her “Why else would you be calling this number? Look lady, it’s your $6.95 a minute, I don’t care what we talk about.” She hung up and never called back.

Anyway, back to last week. I was heading to a meeting and my phone rang. I did not recognize the number but I think I was expecting a call so I decided to answer anyway. Then again, perhaps it was just fate that brought us together. After I answered the voice on the other end started talking about some “…BI solution that would be right for you…” and my eyes went into the back of my head. Now, I wanted to be fair, so I let him talk for a few more seconds, but nothing came out of his mouth that made me any more interested. So, I took matters into my own hands.

I interrupted him and asked him to repeat his name. He did. That was his first mistake, as now I was controlling the conversation. A conversation that would be over very soon. I followed up with two more quick hits, first was “who do you work for again?’ He told me. The next question was “and what was this about again?” He started to repeat that script about a BI solution, but I cut him right off with the knockout punch:

“How did you get my name?”

“Um, well…uh, this list here…”

“List? What list?”

“It’s just a list.”

Game over. I ended the call right there by saying “I really appreciate your call today but I am late for a meeting, thanks again for your time.” I can still hear his voice talking as I hung up the phone and left for my meeting. The lesson here, as always: don’t waste my frakkin’ time and you better be able to tell me how you got my name.

It reminded me of the time a while back where a certain software company (hint: rhymes with ‘breast’) asked for my help with a training program for their sales associates. I was on the phone for about two minutes before I hung up on the trainee. The reason I hung up? He was not prepared to answer the question “how did you get my name?” Now, to be fair, I was told to make things difficult for the trainee, to treat it as if it was a real call. Well, I did. Too bad the recruit was working from a script and had no idea how to respond to my abrupt questions.

I passed along my feedback, telling them that above all else you need to be honest with people. Last I heard the recruit I hazed that day is one of their top performers. I would like to think it is because he establishes relationships with people, is honest with people he contacts, and that no one has ever been as difficult on a call as I was that day.

Can you imagined if I cold called people at work? How ridiculous would that be?

“Hi, this is SQLBatman. I’m calling you today to talk about getting you into the right BI solution for all your business needs”

“Uh…OK. Why are you calling me?”

“Because you were recommended as a person that would benefit most from our new BI solution.”

“OK. How did you get my name?”

“From a list.”

“A list? What list?”

“A list of people that accessed the database today.”

“So, because I ran a SELECT statement against a database, you want to sell me a BI solution? It would seem that you hardly know what my needs are, yet you already have a solution in mind?”

“Exactly. How soon can we meet to discuss this in more detail? I only need about an hour of your time.”

“Let me get back to you.”

If it seems silly for me to contact people that access a database in our shop and try to make suggestions to them on a set of tools to help them do their job, why does anyone still do cold calls in today’s markets? Is it really effective at all? Or is it just a numbers thing? You know, make a thousand calls and generate one new lead? How depressing. I would think it would make more sense to interact with people socially first and build relationships in order to generate sales. If you are cold calling me, and cannot tell me how you got my name and number, then I know you could care less about me, I am just a number on a sheet to you.

Sure, you could argue that you are calling me in the hopes of establishing a relationship. OK, I can buy that. Except for one small thing. I hate being called at work by people I don’t know that want to establish relationships with me. Other than that, we’re good.

Then again, I rather enjoy asking people what they are wearing. Perhaps that is how I will respond to all future cold calls. I bet I will get dropped from a lot of these lists, and fast.