Last week, I decided to make a few cold calls. Believe it or not, this is something I miss when I don’t get around to it as often as I would like. After a few calls, I got a business owner on the phone. What ensued was something I had never experienced before.
With this call, I had to first get through the receptionist. She asked my name and I told her who I was and what I do. With no resistance, she passed me through to the company owner. Wouldn’t it be nice if things were always this simple?
Soon enough, I was giving the owner my pitch. After about 15 seconds he cut me off and said, “I really don’t have time for this today. Why would a need a writer anyway?” As you can imagine, this is a common response so I fired back with a quick “thank you for your time” and waited for his response. “What is your number, just in case I need something later this year?” I gave him this information and we parted ways.
Now for the funny part. It was not five minutes later when my phone rang. Guess who it was? He had overlooked the fact that he needed brochure content for an upcoming tradeshow. Not only did he need the content written but he was on a tight deadline. After a few minutes of discussing the project and negotiating a price, he told me to get started. I cannot help but wonder how he overlooked this detail during our initial conversation.
The moral of this story: don’t get upset or angry when somebody is rude to you during a cold call. You never know when they will need your services in the future.
Too funny, Chris! There are lots of reasons to remain cool, calm and polite when someone is unreceptive to a pitch, but this is outstanding. I imagine you just caught him at a bad moment. In any case, I’ll be interested to hear the followup, particularly whether he’s pleasant to work with or…mercurial.
That is funny! Business owners and professionals have a lot to do and may be too stressed out to take a phone call. It’s important for them to communicate that to their receptionist. I’m speaking from experience. My first ‘real job’ was as a receptionist for a small family business. The president of the company would let me know he didn’t want to be disturbed. I put calls directly to voice mail.
BTW: I prefer to receive an email because I’m always online during the day. It’s easier to get a hold of me through email.