Ask HN: Do you cold call?

1. They waste my time (which is also a waste of their time).

That is, they are selling something that I don't need, generally because they don't know anything about me. If you're cold calling me, you should have read through our company's web site already. It's only fifteen pages or so; you can skip the press releases. You don't know what business I'm in? Why should I bother with you?

2. They are wasting my time.

Frequently I get called by salespeople who don't know what they're selling, except the name of it, a two sentence description that they memorized but don't understand, and they want to set up a meeting. You have a software product? What OS does it run on? Does it have a web interface? You're selling consulting services but you can't describe them because your answer for everything is "we can find people to do that, they are experts!"?

Go away.

3. They are wasting my time.

I already talked to you yesterday, last week, last month or last quarter. We discussed your product or service and it was clear from that phone call that we would never be a good fit for each other. (Your product only runs on Windows. Your service is Exchange consulting. You want to help process our customers' confidential data...)

I will repeat this in the end. But learn who you need to talk to. (Don't accept a no from someone who cant say yes) a lot of your time will be spend with finding the right person.

Here is my advice.

1. Write down a sales pitch with some alternatives depending on what the answer is. It should be structured something like this.

Step 1 Who you are, who you want to talk to.

Once you reach the person you need to talk to:

Step 2 Who you are, why you are calling, what your product do, what your offer to them is (always have some kind of offer like 20% off or something like that)

Step 3 Answer questions, write down customer skepticism and learn from it. (you will become better and better at answering these questions and even able to forsee patterns)

Step 4 Close the deal, tell exactly what is going to happen next. Follow up with what you promised.

2. Practice this again and again.

3. Make sure your goal is to close something. (either a meeting, sales or sending more info)

4. Create a sales funnel where you places your customers depending on how close they are to a sale.

5. Make sure you understand who you need to talk to (never accept a no from a person who cant say yes)

Rinse and repeat.

Keep in mind cold calling is a numbers game.

And the more people we have playing it, the more those of us trying to accomplish something outside of sales have to deal with inane pitches by people who refuse to accept "no" as an answer unless they hear it repeatedly while wasting our time.

Please don't encourage this behavior. It's good that you feel you got something out of that experience, but if no one solicited your call and you're calling anyway, you've joined a deservedly-loathed lower class of humanity.

Without a referral or lead, if you're cold calling, you're calling someone who not only hasn't inquired about your service, but whom you have no reason to believe wants to hear from you. In my opinion, you have no place calling that person. If you choose to do so anyway, it's your responsibility to waste as little of their time as possible in as cordial a manner as you can. Hard sells are absolutely awful.

I only get upset with cold callers that don't quit the first time I say no. No matter how qualified you believe a lead is or how it's been validated/verified, if the person on the other end says no, don't push it. Maybe they'll just keep saying no, but maybe they'll remember you as the pushy jerk whose product/service they'll now never consider.