Chapter 2. The PLAYING Process

IMAGINE YOU ARE at a French Quarter jazz club. There is a man playing a saxophone, or a trumpet, or maybe a guitar. He’s alone, or there might be a single accompanist on a keyboard or drums. A stranger crosses the room from the bar, opens a beat-up instrument case, pulls out a guitar, and sits down next to the guy playing, looks at him, and gets a slow nod.

The guitar’s sounds immediately blend with the other player’s, and the two define harmony and melody in creative but perfectly attuned combinations. One leads, while the other pauses; then they take turns—leading, following, pausing, playing—always perfectly complementary, always without any notes on paper to guide them. They call this jamming, and it defines the perfect synergy that occurs when musicians and music come together in both creativity and respect.

If only all our phone sales calls went as well. We fight voice mail, Caller ID, and gatekeepers in order to reach busy customers, who feel harangued all day by other people calling them from both inside and outside their companies. It almost feels like we have to scream to get above the competition just to talk to a potential client! In music, they call that screaming cacophony, and it’s pretty much the opposite of harmony.

People who know how to jam read the musical messages sent by one instrument and answer those messages by perfectly matching or blending responses. When was the last time you felt that a phone-selling situation was harmonious? And how would you like to have all your calls blend smoothly into closure?