Picking Up The Phone, part 712, a

How many times in my career have I had to grapple with the lack of telephone activity from a rep?  Like just about everyone of us, the answer must be loads.  Even to the extent of having days when you yourself just can’t seem to get motivated to have a cold call blast.

I remember a winner of a fella, Richard Lowther, now amazingly successful running Oracle’s HR, summing it up beautifully for me right after trying to perk himself up by donning a bushman’s hat, complete with dangling corks, and pitching away in an Aussie accent.  His remark was that if you’re not interested, it’ll come across and you’ll be a loser. In his best Crocodile Dundee, he’d start off like this;

“I’m pretty sure you won’t be interested, will you, but just in case, by the way I’m not bothering am I, as I say, this probably isn’t for you, but…”

and so he went on making the point juicily.

I’m reminded of this, as I fancied introducing something into my guys’ cold call sessions to add a touch of sparkle.  So I started listening to my current ipod playlist marvelling at how good the long version of The Cult’s 1985 classic ‘Rain’ actually is and that it sounds good next to Justin Timberlake’s ‘My Love’ (wierd I know) and found one of the squillions of blog search engines, thinking a fellow blogger would have a fresh calling idea.

I’ve not found anything earth-shattering just yet.

Although, I did come across this one, from someone calling themselves “A&P”. The gist is that telemarketers do their thing on the phone, reps face-to-face and never the twain skills shall meet.  I just can’t agree with this.

There’s simply got to be a link between accountability and responsibility.  What rep anywhere wouldn’t feel better with an extra entry or two on their forecast?  And what’s the reward that’d be achieved?

I’m reminded of (the brilliant) Robert Carlyle’s line (to Mark Addy or Tom Wilkinson) in The Full Monty, when the other guy is wavering at the prospect of ‘performing’ for cash, something like:

“folk’ll a lot less laugh at yer when you’ve a grand in thee’s back pocket”