Just recently, I had the pleasure of meeting up with “The Negotiator“, Neville Spiers. Neville is an entertaining public speaker and talks a lot of sense on matters concerning personal and corporate debt. We share very similar views on certain cold-calling techniques and he’s this week’s guest blogger.
So I pick up the phone and I hear a foreign accent with the semi-robotic delivery of someone reading from a script. He says “Hello Neville. How are you today?” What’s wrong with that? It’s friendly – we’re immediately on first-name terms. It’s compassionate – he genuinely cares about my health and well-being. So what’s wrong with it? I’ll tell you.
I DON’T KNOW HIM! I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me, so to begin with we are not on first-name terms. I am a different generation to him and I regard his immediate uninvited use of my first name as disrespectful. I’m sorry if that attitude comes across as outmoded but I am representative of a high proportion of the names on his call list.
Far more offensive are the words “how are you today”. He doesn’t know me and he doesn’t care. How I am today is irrelevant to him as he doesn’t know how I was yesterday or last Thursday and he wasn’t there for me during my gall bladder operation in March. He didn’t have to be. He doesn’t know me…..which exposes his enquiry as insultingly insincere. This is what I now do.
I say “thank you for asking” and then launch into a full catalogue of my ailments and their recent progress. He gets to learn of my piles, bunions and varicose veins. We move onto the sporadic migraines, mild nausea and bouts of gout. I reassure him that the swine flu is looking less likely to be fatal. After a two-minute health report I thank him again for his concern and ask if he would like me to go into greater detail. If he is still on the line and if he picks up at the point where he left off – without reference to my reply, I terminate the call.
Why does he ask the question…because it is written on the card. Some clever marketing guru decided that this would be an ideal way to ingratiate yourself with the prospective client. Make him feel that you care about him, that his state of health is high on the list of your priorities. He will immediately believe that you are his friend, keeper of his confidences, repository of his undying trust. That established, he will buy from you anything you wish to sell him.
I want to meet that clever marketing guru. I will advance towards him with a caring smile and punch him in the face. When he goes down, I will kick him in the ribs and then stomp on his head. As he is drifting into unconsciousness I will look down at him solicitously and say “how are you today?”
Away from Wayne Rooney’s hat-trick at Portsmouth, goals galore at Upton Park and the exciting FA Cup 2nd round matches, an uglier side of football showed its face yesterday. The Chester City v Eastbourne Borough match in the Blue Square Premier was abandoned during the second-half. Not because of a sudden downpour but an outpouring of frustration by many dozens of Chester City supporters on the way their club (which is on the verge of extinction) is run.
In October 2001, I was reporting on a match at the Deva Stadium for the BBC. Most CCFC supporters who sat by the press box were concerned then about their club’s future and it would appear that their suffering has continued unabated for the past several years. Dr John Beech in his Football Management blog highlights the recent activity (A) (B) (C) at the troubled Cheshire club.
Readers of Dr Beech’s blog will have noticed that many clubs in the lower echelons of the football pyramid are under threat. In the next few days, we’ll see whether the clubs that represent Weymouth, King’s Lynn and Chester will be added to the list of “gone but not forgotten” which contains previous incarnations of Romford, Bedford and Guildford City together with the totally expired South Liverpool, Lovells Athletic, Rainham & Baldock Town.
Yesterday evening, I received a cold call at home from a young lady with a shrill voice, who was representing a building firm. Her opening line was possibly the worst I’ve ever heard. I’m paraphrasing slightly but in essence she said “Don’t worry, this is not a sales call”. This was swiftly followed by “are you the home owner”.
Apart from the total lack of rapport, poor vocal tone and a meaningless opening statement, my biggest criticism of the caller is this – THERE IS NOTHING WRONG IN MAKING SALES CALLS! The way this country will lurch out of the current recession is by salespeople (and other professionals) convincing domestic and business customers to buy things. And in many cases this starts with a sales cold-call.
It is high time people got rid of the “get yourself a proper job” attitude towards selling and cold-calling. That belonged in the 1950′s not in 21st century Britain.
Over at my other, now defunct site Corporate Presenter, I listed my Top 10 prophecies for 2009. You’ll see that I wasn’t so far out with my 2008 list but with barely a month to go, I’m sure you’ll agree, I haven’t done so well this year.
A. Liverpool to win Premiership
B. Major car manufacturer to go under
C. Conservatives shatter Labour in an autumn general election
D. Sterling will bounce back in 2009
E. Major earthquake in southern hemisphere will kill thousands
F. Political change in Iran
G. Leading sports personality dies unexpectedly
H. U.S. President has mystery illness
I. Major train crash in France
J. Renowned world leader dies
The only success, were the horrific events in the South Pacific at the end of September. The earthquake and resulting tsunami caused 1000 or so deaths.
In a few weeks’ time and on this site, I’ll be posting my Top 10 prophecies for 2010. One of them maybe ‘England to Win World Cup’.
Content is key as far as search engine optimization (SEO) is concerned. This sound advice from my website designer has helped me increase my overall Google ranking and number of daily unique “hits”. The crawlers or “spiders” from the search engines visit a blog or website and checks out the content. They don’t seem to be concerned by colour, graphics or whether there’s a wonderful customer experience. There’s buck-loads of blogs and sites out there with superb designs and pretty graphics, but do they really have great content?
If you add blog section to your website and start writing interesting articles centred around strong keywords, “spiders” from search engines come to your website, pick up those keywords then list them in their database along with the URL of the website.
When the searchers use those keywords which have been positioned in your website, the search engine would add your website in the search results – the relevant keyword and the corresponding URL.
Over time, your website will slowly climb the search results but you must keep up the article writing. After three years of posting at Corporate Presenter, a Breast Cancer blog, and here at Jeremy Jacobs.com blogging for business or pleasure can be fun and rewarding.
Earlier this week, I was event host for a fashion show organised by Fila, the top international sportswear brand. Fila distributors from many parts of the globe were there to see the latest range which goes on sale in 2010. If you’ve seen “The Firm” you’ll be aware of the connection with the Fila brand
TV presenter and blogger, Craig Doyle, vents his spleen at Thierry Henry after the debacle at last night’s World Cup play-off in Paris. Photographs and video footage clearly show the former Arsenal star handling the ball twice before crossing to his team-mate William Gallas to score what turned out to be the decisive goal for France against Ireland. Richard Williams of the Guardian examines further and concludes that Henry missed a wonderful opportunity. I particularly liked this:
“Henry was a hopeless captain at Arsenal and he is a hopeless captain of France. On Wednesday he did not have the gumption to say, “OK, that wasn’t a goal” – an admission on which the referee would have been obliged to act – “but we’ll use the remaining quarter of an hour’s play to demonstrate that we are better than the Irish and more deserving of a place in the final 32 in South Africa next year.”
David Ginola, the former French international star, said earlier on radio, “I’m very embarrassed by the situation”. “This is a pure injustice”.
The World’s football governing body, FIFA, have already ruled out a re-match but will they punish Henry for cheating? I suspect they may make an example of the Barcelona striker but I cannot see the Irish having another opportunity to play France. For one, there’s too much at stake and it would set a precedent for future play-offs. Besides, do we really want a re-match when ever a team feels hard done by?
I think this affair will re-ignite the debate on the use of video technology in sport and the beautiful game may end up like American Football or basketball – all time-outs and little play.
If you pay a visit to the News page on this site, you’ll notice I’ve added a tag cloud. Nothing new about this type of site “add-on” but are they of any value?
Although I quite like how the various key words like presenter, business and corporate host buzz around, just how many more unique hits will I get on the site because of the cloud’s existence ?
Website and blog aesthetics are important but not as important as SEO, viewer engagement and regular blogging.
A number of topics will be discussed at the cold-calling for business workshop this week. One of which will be what is best time to cold call prospective customers. Mel Stanton, a colleague of mine at a well-known photocopier supplier, used to call businesses before 9 o’clock in the morning and on many occasions after 5pm. Does this work for you? Sure it can minimise customer interference but how responsive will your prospective be after a difficult journey into the office or after an exhausting day? One great advantage of phoning out of normal working hours of course, is that you’ll probably bypass the gatekeeper or PA.
Whichever time you choose to cold-call, you must still have something worthwhile to say. In my experience, you usually have 20 or 30 seconds to do it, so be ready to think fast. When you get a positive response, you must ask for the appointment right away. Ask “‘Would Tuesday at 2.45 be suitable, or would Wednesday morning at 11.00pm be better?”
According to the Times On-Line newspaper this morning Britons are feeling very optimistic about the future. And so they should!
Being an optimist in your chosen field is pivotal to business success. Having a cheery rather than a nervous disposition will help you meet the challenges opportunities ahead as the country moves out of recession and into some sort stability and hopefully, economic growth.
I’ll be touching on this subject next week at my D-I-Y cold-calling workshop in Central London. Overcoming fears and anxieties about cold-calling or gaining new customers, as I sometimes like to call it, is crucial if you’re going to get your point over in a clear, confident and professional manner. It’s really all about making a favourable first impression. And in business, as in life, you rarely get a second chance to impress.
Share on Twitter
Rss Feed
Login
Rss Comments