Cold Calling - A Lesson on Saying NO Nicely - Check the Anger at the Door

A large part of my job is cold calling, and today I did learn a valuable lesson when it comes to answering a cold call.

I have a stack of business cards from women who run home based businesses, most of which utilize their residential number for business. Presently, I work for a phonebook that offers any type of business a free listing. If a business uses a residential number, a cell phone or is new then their business will not be listed and part of my job is to find these businesses and offer them a free listing. The other part is to discuss advertising and if it makes sense for their business design an ad for them.

So yes, I am calling hoping for a sale but at the same time I am not a pushy sales person, hence the large number of incomplete sales on my desk.

Anyway, the lesson I learned - One card I called on had one phone number on it and I called that number and received a very angry response. Many times I call and have the phone hung up in my ear and I dial again, but every once in awhile I get a response that gets me pissed off, today was one of those days.

Lesson: 1. Receiving cold calls is very aggravating and most people don't want to receive sales calls - so have your number where customers go to find it, ie the phone book.

Lesson 2. Always be pleasant on the phone, the person who is calling to sell you something may be a future customer. I threw out her card after the call with no intention of ever calling again, whether I need her services or not.

Lesson 3. You may not want to listen to a sales call, but they may have something you need or could help your business. Figure out what the call is about first.

Lesson 4. If you don't want someone calling your cell number for a sales call, don't put that number on your business card or any advertising. Or at the very least make sure you have a different number listed as a main number on your business card and as a cold caller, don't call secondary numbers if a main number is provided (which in this case there was only one number).

Lesson 5. Even in a city, the business world is a small place and you may run into the person who called you at a networking meeting and not know it. The person who called you will know you and already have an opinion about you and how you do business.

In many ways cold calling is annoying not only for the person receiving the call, but also for the ones making the call. You never know how the person who called could help your business, so find out first then say no.