By Adam Ward

I’ve been thinking about cold calling lately. Because we are a small startup, we have no gatekeepers to manage the phones, so I’m the recipient of many sales calls, most of which are cold. We also make outbound calls to promote our own product, so I’m hoping to avoid using the same annoying practices that seem so common in the calls I receive.

First, let me say I’m not opposed to receiving cold calls. As entrepreneurs, we’re always on the lookout for any tools that will allow us to grow our business effectively. And sometimes the only way I become aware of those tools is by somebody I’ve never heard of calling me out of the blue. But because of that mentality, I think I have more patience with cold callers than most. Still, I do give more attention to cold callers that don’t annoy me.

I searched for some cold-calling blogs to see if I’m out in left field on this one. I found a few that I thought had some good tips, such as Tips for Making a Great Cold Call , Cold Calling – How To Make It Work and I Get Cold Called.

With those as a starting point, I’d like to add my own pet peeves here, in hopes that people who engage in cold calling will steer clear of these pitfalls.

1. Fake pleasantries. I once had a friend from Croatia who asked, “Why do you Americans always ask me how I am when you don’t mean it?” Nowhere is that more prevalent than in cold calling. Nine out of the ten times I pick up the phone from a number I don’t recognize, I hear somebody I don’t know blurt out, “How are you?” That immediately makes me groan and think, “Oh boy, here we go again.” I don’t feel like they really care, and I don’t like that I have to come back with a response that is just as fake. So right off the bat, I’m on the defensive.
2. Not telling me where they got my information. I’m a bit of a privacy freak, and yet my business contact information is right on our website, so I expect that I’m going to get calls from people I don’t know. However, unless someone tells me how they got my information, it still feels a little creepy. I feel much more at ease if they say they got my information from our website, my business card, a trade show I attended, etc.
3. Not listening to me. I like people to ask me questions, as long as they are genuine ones. That gives me a chance to help them understand whether I’m as good of a fit for whatever they are selling as they thought. But asking questions and genuinely listening to my answers are two totally separate things. If they interrupt me when I’m speaking, or only ask questions by rote where it is obvious they don’t care what my answer might be, then I can tell they care more about their product than they do me and my business.
4. Not knowing my business. I assume that if someone goes to the trouble of calling me to tell me why a certain product or service will help my business that they know what my business is. After all, it isn’t hard to go to our website and read the information that I’ve so carefully chosen to put up there. So if someone calls and has to ask about my business, and it is clear they haven’t done any preparation, I’m not as forgiving with my time.
5. Assuming I’m the person they should be talking to. Because our company is small, chances are I am the right person, regardless of what they are selling. But it is nice if they let me know who they are hoping to talk to, and ask whether I’m that person first. It is frustrating to have to listen through four scripted paragraphs before I finally have a chance to insert that I’m probably not the right person to talk to in our company.
6. The stereotypically slick sales personalities. I realize cold calling is something most people don’t enjoy doing, so it takes a certain type of personality to do it. Unfortunately, a lot of those personalities seem to be men in their mid-20s with stylish black pants and shoes, sporting lots of gel in their hair (e.g. the guy in the picture above). I can almost smell their cologne over the phone. They talk too fast, care too little about me, and the excitement they have for their product seems too fake, as though their stimulation comes from the caffeine they are drinking rather than a real respect for their product. Stereotypes are dangerous, so I doubt this is a very accurate description. All I know is that’s how the person on the other end of the phone sounds to me. So when I hear someone that doesn’t sound at all like that, I sit up and pay attention.
7. Talking a mile a minute. I guess all cold callers realize their rate of rejection is high, so they start to expect it and go into each new call armed accordingly. Somehow they think the faster they talk, the more information they’ll get through before getting shot down, and the more info given will somehow translate into the recipient ultimately realizing their folly, remembering what was said, and giving the product a second look. If I’m going to give a caller some of my time, that means I’m willing to hear what they have to say for a few minutes. But they need to be aware of not overdoing it, though, which takes me to my next point.
8. Don’t respect me. At some point in the conversation, I need to make a decision to continue learning about the product or service. I can do that either by answering questions I get asked, or by asserting myself. However I do that, I don’t mind getting a little resistance if I decide to stop the conversation, but I quickly change my tone (and attitude) if it seems like I can’t get off the phone. I appreciate it when people allow me to make my own decisions.
9. Don’t help me understand the benefit. Do I need the product or service? Maybe, but if I can’t easily see the benefits, I’m not going to stick around long enough to find out. And if I do decide I need it, that doesn’t do anyone any good unless they realize I need it. So they should follow up with questions to discern my level of interest.
10. Either no script, or nothing but script. If people act like they don’t know what they are doing, like this is the first call they’ve ever made, I wonder why they are wasting my time. A lack of confidence on their end is palpable on my end. But on the other end of the spectrum, people that are clearly reading straight from a script don’t give off the impression that they are capable of listening to and understanding any responses I may come up with. So the people that resonate best with me are the ones in the middle. They confidently cover all the points they need to, while demonstrating a genuineness that I can respect. That tells me they respect my time and input.