How Do You Make Cold Calling Entertaining?

[SethHorner]

1. Try to imagine what the person on the other end of the phone looks like...

2. Ask them questions about their personal life...within reason of course...some people will spill their guts...I have heard some pretty off the wall stuff out there.

3. See how long you can keep them on the phone...count the objections you overcome.

4. Watch stupid youtube videos and play on facebook.

5. CLOSE THE DEAL! That always works.

 

[BNTRS]

It's such a strange beast isn't it? They can't see you, once they hang up they won't remember your name, and it's not like there some rule against randomly asking someone if they'd be interested in the products or services you offer. Despite all this so many people--and I'm not different--have some mental block about making phone calls.

Seriously what difference does it make if the person is rude or miserable?

It's kind of like making a prank phone call...

Does this mean I'll make more calls tomorrow? No, the holiday after all is coming up and people are going to be busy.

 

[superfly33]

100% of my business comes from cold-calling. I call on business owners for estate planning and for smaller companies (under 5 million sales) I call for general planning. You have to understand that hearing NO is a good thing and the more often you hear it the closer YES is. One thing to make it fun is to just not give a f*@%. What I do sometimes is say things that make it harder to set the appointment for the thrill of the chase.

Hope that helped.

I like your style.

One of the things I like to say is, "depending on your needs, we might not have the right product for you." The reason for this statement is that I just made it harder for the prospect to get an appointment with me. Reverse Psychology says they would want to get an appointment with me.

For real fun, I watch Boiler Room clips from youtube before I start a session.

 

[bluemarlin08]

When I use to cold call I would schedule my calling into specific blocks of time, then do something else and not think about getting back on the phone. I would set an objective of say 8 appointments and stop when I got them, be proud of accomplishing my goal and then go play golf.

 

[Frank Stastny]

I worked with an agent who took a totally different approach to cold calling. His "goal" each day was to talk to 100 people who said "no". He gave really good phone and knew the majority of times he would not accomplish his "goal" before setting appointments.

He knew that by setting a goal for himself of say four appointments that there would be a lot of days that he would not be able to attain that goal for a number of reasons. That many of those reasons would be things beyond his control.

He also knew that on "bad" days if he didn't set as many appointments as he hoped to he could always "feel good" about having accomplished his original goal of 100 nos.

Different strokes for different folks. It worked extremely well for him so his approach isn't wrong, just only different.

 

[arnguy]

That appears to me to be a clever approach, Frank. It is a reverse psychology approach IMO. You know you are going to get a lot of "no's" so it is less threatening than getting psyched up to make 4 appointments. It is turning a negative into a positive or to use an old cliche: "making lemonade out of a lemon." YMMV

 

[Justin Bilyj]

I like that approach Frank!

 

[carroll]

I used to cold call with another person in the room cold calling. We would laugh at each other and have contest as to who would set the most for the day.

If the name on my list says "George" and a lady answers many times I will ask if she is his daughter (knowing it's his wife) and it seams to really lighten up the call while complementing the lady as well.

 

[insureitnow]

I'm on the dialer right now... not by choice..my tele dropped out. Always keep a stable of tele's.

Things that help:

Stand up

Frank is right.. get a script and present it rather then read it.

Uck it up with them.

Been on 45 minutes and have one appointment set for tomorrow so far.

I'll be on for another 2-3 hours if anyone wants to hang around.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Also, tell them you are calling from the federal penitentiary.
New program under stimulus plan......Uno, your tax dollars at work.

Just got another hit.

 

[Pandorian]

At first I was kind of fearful of doing it. However, after getting past the first one or two and getting more confident that you won't flub up your script and sound like a complete ***, it's actually kind of a rush. Kind of like getting past asking the girl out on a date and then having them say yes.

Jeff Gitomer has some funny things, like walking into a business and saying "Hi my name is Jeff and you don't know me from a sack of potatoes."

I don't know how entertaining you can make it. There is a book I read called 'The Entertainer' which equated a lot of selling to performance and acting. Maybe you could wear a bowtie, instead of a regular tie to stand out or a cowboy hat. Something to make you a little different, but still respectable, not goofy.