Tell 'Em We've Got Their Kids

MSM in the form of London’s Telegraph broadsheet this week carries a Sales related ‘workplace fable’.

Should the link be awry by the time you may click, let me précis.

It concerns a cold caller aiming to reach a prospect CEO.

(The author of this particular ‘fable’ appears to have compiled a hundred such generic business salutary lessons.)

The telesales approach recounted here is to downright lie in order to gain the desired access.

“Do they know you?”

It’s a common response from any gatekeeper that first time you ring up.

This particular case shows the idiocy of trying to claim that you’re a pair of old friends.

Sadly, I once answered ‘yes’ to this very question myself. Ah, those cubrep days…

I mistakenly thought as I’d been sending faxes (ask someone with grey hair if that’s a new word to you) that naturally, my senior prospect exec target would delight in recognising my name instantly. I was sorely incorrect.

“Will they know what it’s about?”

Is cut from the same cloth.

I’m rolling my eyes as I recall one early-90s sales training session where I was taught this response; to reply with only the technical spec name and numbers of an obscure element of our ‘sell’. “The XY123ab”. Seriously, do not do that yourself.

Even at the time, my co-learners smelt a rotten fish. One joked, “tell ’em we’ve got their kids”.

I suspect the trope is well-known now. Having been public for over a decade. The actual ideal revolves around mentioning the problem you resolve. And seek less an audience, but crucially a real-life conversation. The intricacies of that can fill an entire year’s worth of blogs. For the moment, at least you know what not to do.