5
Cold Calling
SO YOU NEED to remove the trust gap and get people to try you. Now, how exactly are you going to do that? Good question. Almost 10 years ago I was sitting in a friend’s office talking about typical guy stuff15 when his phone rang. He picked it up, listened for a few seconds, and began to berate the caller on the other end. My favorite line was, “Don’t you have anything better to do than to try to sell me your crap?” After he slammed down the phone we agreed on how big a pain it was when people would cold-call us, interrupting our day. We finished our chat then he excused himself with the line “I gotta go Scott, I have to make my calls for the day.”
I just stared at him with one eyebrow up.
“Chris, you just raked that guy over the coals because he cold-called you, and now you’re doing it yourself?”
“No, no, Scott, I’m calling these leads to introduce them to a product they need!”
I could already feel the migraine coming on.
And this is where the idea of UnMarketing all began. I had the realization that most companies are guilty of hypocritical marketing. Why do we market to people the way we hate to be marketed to? As business owners or employees we make sure to hire “gatekeepers” who don’t let pesky salespeople get through, and then we make quotas on how many calls our own representatives have to make.
According to the 2009 Economic Report of the President, 72 percent of Americans signed up for the National Do Not Call List. Two hundred and twenty million16 people collectively said “Stop it!” Yet companies try to get around these loopholes so they can still interrupt our day by trying to pitch their wares.
People still teach courses on how to cold-call better! That’s like finding a better way to punch people in the face. People won’t like it, but darn it, you can do it better! You hear phrases like, “Every no leads you closer to the next yes!”17 I know people who become physically ill at the thought of making “their calls.” You don’t have to do this. If you hate doing something, you will never do it well. In this book we talk about alternatives to cold-calling that are more effective and based on engaging with your market at every point of contact. There is nothing engaging about a cold call.
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