How to Be a Heartwarming Cold Caller
September 29, 2008
I managed a fellow by the name of Ben at Time-Life Books, and this gentleman was special and very much worth remembering and emulating.
He loved touting our art library, especially to folks such as himself, who were retired or at least of that age.
Hed get on a call and rhapsodize about Monet, Picasso, and some of the lesser-known greats that we sent into homes, one every other month on a 10-day trial basis.
Ben was, possibly, the most respectful telephone sales agent I ever worked with. Polite beyond the call of duty, he would always convey the impression he was a modest guest in homes, and it was a privilege to be speaking to each individual.
Ben would call some of his prospects Dear and Maam and My Friend, and you got the impression he could have been a country doctor or a country squire, for that matter.
Because he invested so much time on each call, his raw sales numbers were just about average, but his collections, the proportion of people who agreed to review books and then who purchased them, was beyond compare.
He was the leader in keepers, in dollars that came into our coffers, without any need to use dunning letters or evening reminder calls.
Sometimes, as a manager I wondered if Ben was going overboard, especially in sharing the details of his physical ailments with his buyers. But he was just being genuine, making cold calls, but warming hearts, including many lonely ones, day after day.
When the Do Not Call Registry was created, that list of tens of millions of Americans who formally said, Never darken my telephonic doorstep, Im sure not a single one had ever spoken to someone as congenial, knowledgeable, and memorable as Ben.
If more callers were like Ben, and if more firms were like Time-Life, which sought out and cultivated callers like Ben, then that opt-out list wouldnt have been necessary.
Now that the Do Not Call Registry is coming up for legislative renewal, lets resolve to be so good at what we do that folks will hesitate before placing their names in that book.
Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top trainer, conference and convention speaker, and sales, customer service, and negotiation consultant. A frequent expert commentator on radio and TV, he is also the best-selling author of 12 books, more than 1,000 articles and several popular audio and video programs. His seminars are sponsored internationally and he is a faculty member at more than 40 universities, including UC Berkeley and UCLA. Gary brings over two decades of sales, management and consulting experience to the table, with impressive academic credentials: A Ph.D. from USC, an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School of Management, and a J.D. degree from Loyola Law School, his clients include several Fortune 1000 companies..
His web site is: http://www.customersatisfaction.com and he can be seen on CNBC at: http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=417455932# and reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com His blogs include: YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS! and ALWAYS COLD CALL! at: http://www.alwayscoldcall.blogspot.com
Why Cold Calling is Such a Waste of Time
Cold calling is a selling method wherein the salesperson makes unsolicited calls with the help of a phone in most cases to prospective clients. The adjective cold is used because of the initial treatment of recipients towards the callers. Although ...
Cold Calling 101: How To Get More Sales Reps To Cold Call You
Busy business executives like yourself dont have time to pick up the phone book or yellow pages to find products and services that you need for your business. You want sales reps to call YOU! Being on the receiving end of cold calls makes your valua...
Generating Leads Through Telemarketing
Telemarketing is one of the most common ways that a business can generate leads. It is a versatile approach. Lead generation telemarketing can be inbound or outbound, meaning that systems use prerecorded messages and can dial either random numbers ...
How To Go From Shivers to Chivalry in Cold Calling
Having been in telephone selling, telemarketing, tele-selling, telephone soliciting, inside sales, call center management, or whatever else you want to name it, for decades, Im always returning to the foundational question: Why do people freak-out ab...
Your Telephone Personality
You may not have thought of it this way, but the telephone is just another sales counter. The customer at the other end of the phone is just like the customer at the counter, with one big exception: The customer cannot see you!This means you have to ...
Self Storage And Secret Shopping
A secret shopping evaluator knows that a good salesperson does not talk a customer into getting something. The good salesperson does not try to shove something down the throat of a customer, or try to trick them into a purchase. A good salesperson is...
Telephone Etiquette Sounds Right
A true story: In the course of sending out a mailing to prospective clients, I found it necessary to verify some addresses. I called the main telephone number for one of those prospective clients. The receptionist answered the call, and a conversatio...
Reach Sales Prospects Through Team Cold Calling
What is Team Cold Calling? This far out, but ever so magnetizing technique integrates teamwork with cold calling. When these two forces are combined they have the potential to dramatically increase your call to contact ratios! When and how is this te...
Knowing Who You Are
Every now and then I will be surfing the channels and come across one of those nanny shows. You know the type, the parents cant control the kids and they call in the nanny. At the end of the show the nanny saves the day and the family lives happily...
Cold Calling Script Death - How to Generate Sales Leads with Ease
Cold calling scripts are dead and they have been for quite some time now. Im here to tell you that its a good thing and you shouldnt be worried at all. But first lets look at why its dead.To begin with a cold calling script makes you sound like a rob...