Cold Calls And How Much I Dislike Them

I’ve had to make many cold calls in the past few months.  And I’ll have to say it’s firstly not what I expected, and that I have much more sympathy for telemarketers now.

My phone voice kicks in, strangely always an octave higher than normal, whilst my palms turn into a water reservoir. And sometimes I sit there thinking, ‘Please don’t pick up, please don’t pick up.’

When I got chatting to my co-worker about this she reassured me that she still gets nervous from time to time when making calls to journalists, with the same thought process of please-don’t-pick-up! when the phone rings out. It’s a little comforting to know I’m not the only one. I think it’s also nice to throw all those jitters into trying your best and just being as nice as possible to the person on the other side of the phone.

I’ve now created a couple of databases of important contacts that we could potentially reach out to for our clients. In these cases where my manager will eventually have to make a cold contact to that person, it’s vital to be able to grab someone’s best (and correct!) contact details. Building mutually beneficial relationships sometimes start with a little bit of creative stalking. Which means trawling online through company websites, media releases, LinkedIn accounts and so on.

Photo: Anthony Burrell

At one point I spent three days calling schools, councils, law firms, mining firms, accounting firms and banks for contact details. I’ll say the kindness of strangers always surprises me. And, it’s probably not much of a surprise to anyone but big mining firms really don’t like giving out any details. But I was also surprised with the rudeness of receptionists who I sometimes wonder what a huge proportion of their job is, if not to answer telephones and provide good customer service.

My sister, who works in luxury fashion marketing, has reassured me, “Don’t worry I’ve been called a [use your imagination] by a supplier on the phone.” And even then, she had to remain professional with a, “Thank you for your time.” So even with the instances of unhelpful people, it really consolidates the saying of: “Work hard and be nice to people.” You never know what kind of day someone is having, you don’t know if you’ll come across them again, perhaps they will be your client one day, or they may need a favour from you? Perth is pretty small after all. Moral of the story? Professionalism and kindness always wins out.