Five Lessons from a Pushy Cold Call

I just experienced one of the pushiest sales calls of recent time. In 10 seconds I was offended. But given my interest in sales and marketing I couldn’t help but want to see how far this train wreck would go. I considered it my sacrifice for furthering the craft of non-pushy sales.

This was the conversation as best as I can recall. ”Ring Ring……”.

“Good Morning this is Pat Helmers”

(ROBOT VOICE) “ATTENTION WE ARE CALLING TO WARN YOU THAT YOUR GOOGLE BUSINESS ACCOUNT HAS NOT BEEN CLAIMED”

I don’t recall the exact wording but it distinctly gave the impression “We are Google and you better fix this or else…. ”. I was skeptical, this doesn’t sound like something Google would do. I didn’t trust the call and I disliked how they were leveraging fear. But I persevered.

“IF THIS THE SALES BABBLE BUSINESS? PRESS 1”

“IF YOU ARE THE BUSINESS OWNER OR MARKETING DIRECTOR? PRESS 1”

Hmmm what impersonal way of qualifying I thought. I wonder if this works? Finally a click and a click then the long pause…….

“Hello this is ACME Marketing is this Sales Babble? We need to verify some information….”

I was right, it wasn’t Google. I felt tricked. Well sort of since I didn’t think it was Google from the get go. At this point, a normal person would have hung up. But I’m interested in the babble of sales. I’m masochistic in this way.

They asked a number of fact based questions they could have gleaned on my Google Business account. It was clear they wanted to give me a sense they were “fixing” my business account. But why ask dumb questions like “what’s my phone number” when I’m thinking “Dude you called me”.

Then they started the pushy CLOSE:

“What would people enter to search for you online…..”
“I’m typing in sales consulting and not seeing you in Plano….”
“You want to go to bigger markets and not limit yourself in Plano ….”
“People aren’t going to find you that way…..”
“Are you in front of a computer…. type this in right now……”

By now it’s clear this marketing company is pushing SEO. And I’ve actually been working on SEO just this past month, and making good progress. But I was aghast how they failed to care about understanding MY business concerns:

my Avatar
the places my ideal clients hang out
my marketing desires
my thoughts on the value of having a web presence
how I leverage the Sales Babble podcast
how I promote my Selling WIth Confidence Sales System training course.

So I told the guy:

“You know what really bugs me is how you’ve not listened to anything I’ve said, you’ve not asked me what what I’m interested in doing to promote Sales Babble. Since the beginning of this call you’ve interrupted and pushed your marketing services on me. You were dishonest misrepresenting yourself as Google …..”

At which he started arguing with me on semantics and how he hadn’t done that blah blah blah ….. Never catching the vibe that I was deeply offended and that he should back off, apologize and ask me about my online marketing interests.

Five Cold Calling Lessons

So to be clear, here are the five lessons I tried to share with this cold caller:

Take the mindset of helping, not selling
Understand your clients fears and desires BEFORE posing possible products and services
Never interrupt
Never argue with a prospect
Never pretend to be someone you’re not. Trust is a precious thing, don’t squander it.

Most likely this poor soul is told what to do and not allowed to go off script. Some pugnacious sales manager has bullied him and his peers into submission as they grind out one annoying cold call after another.

Because he we wouldn’t stop interrupting, I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. So I did the only thing I could do to control the conversation. I hung up.

Yes I hung up.

I hate doing that. Especially given how much I love sales and how much I respect those in the craft of persuasion and influence.

But it was clear he didn’t want to learn the greatest lesson I could have shared.

“You can do better. You have talent . Quit that job. Take a hike. I can help you secure a better position. Let me help you.”

If only he had listened.

Cold Calling Resources in Sales Babble

We’ve interviewed a number of people who are EXPERTS at cold calling. They wouldn’t be caught dead making these kinds of mistakes. Grow you confidence in sales and listen here!

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