Episode #223: Cold Call Questioning Necessities

Suddenly my phone rang and the number was clearly from overseas, because of the country code. It was not a number I recognised. The crackly voice at the other end of the line was unknown to me and they shot out their name very quickly. I couldn’t catch it. The company name was unfamiliar too. Silently, I wondered, “Who is this and why are they calling me?”. Now, our business is global, so there is always the faint possibility it could be a potential HR Director client from overseas calling to seek training for their team in Japan. Naturally, it is better to be patient and treat the call as possible new business, until proven otherwise. No abrupt hanging up on these callers is allowed, until you know better.

Gradually it became clear he was an Englishmen from Hong Kong calling me to broker the purchase of shares in a Chinese electric car company called Nio. He gave me his firm’s URL, so while we were talking, I could pull up information about his firm. This was a good move on his part for building credibility and I thought “well done”. I asked for his name again, but I couldn’t see any reference to it on the website. Uh oh! This was now looking extremely doubtful and I thought, “am I being lured into an international investment scam here?”.

I let him speak, asked for his name again and questioned him on why his name didn’t appear anywhere on the website. Interestingly, he didn’t know where his own name was located on his own website, to guide me where to look. That would be a very basic requirement I would have thought, in his line of business. It turned out I had misheard his name and once corrected, I found out he was a real person working for this company. He was rabbiting on about the 60% to 70% returns on the share price I could enjoy, if I got into the market now, held the shares and then exited in three months. All I had to do was produce $5000 to get started.

We probably had a ten minute conversation on the phone. We ended the conversation with me to consider his information and he would get back to me. I reflected on this gentleman’s sales approach. I concluded that there is what we call in Japanese a hanmen kyoshi, or instruction by negative example, teachable moment here.

At no point in our conversation did he ask me anything about my investment objectives, strategy, preferences, history, current commitments or access to liquid assets. He did ask me if I had experience of buying shares, which I did. His offer was based around the attractiveness of a three month return based on the expectation that this share price would now begin to rise in the next few months. When I searched the share price trends of the Nio company, I noticed that the shares had been fairly flat in their trajectory so far. The best share purchase bargain is of no use if you don’t have the spare five grand to pony up to buy them. He took the trouble to ask whether I had every bought shares, but he didn't ask me about the results I had experienced. What a critical question that is and what a sad saga.

My share market investment history has been miserable. It has been littered with mistakes, losses and dismal performance. Actually, I have always preferred real estate and have had the bulk of my investments focused there. The returns have been outstanding for me, because I have a thirty year plus time frame, which really suits real estate investing. Australians tend to love real estate more than the share market and I am one of them. It also suits my mental acuity, because I am not smart enough to time markets and be as nimble as you need to be with stocks.

You would think that, for a share broker, this insight would be very important to ascertain if I am actually a real prospect or not, but he proffered no questions along these lines. Maybe he was worried about the answers he might get? As salespeople though, we shouldn’t be afraid to ask the hard questions of prospects, because our time is our most valuable resource. We don’t want to be wasting it on people like me, who are not a viable customer to buy speculative shares in a Chinese electric car maker.

This guy said he had been doing this for many years. I wondered then, why hadn’t he learnt to introduce himself properly on the phone? Phone lines are a difficult beast at the best of times, but the unannounced call from a stranger from overseas severely elevates the degree of difficulty. He also spoke with a UK regional accent, which is why I thought his surname was Hull when in fact it was Holt. We want to establish trust with the client, so giving our name slowly and clearly and checking for understanding is absolutely essential. He didn’t bother with any of that. Also, I proactively looked for his personal information on the website. As a best practice, he should have done that, directing me where to find him. This approach would have helped to allay any fears I had this was a scam. I had to do all the work instead. Why would that be?

I am a sales guy, so I am usually willing to give salespeople a fair go on the phone. There is a big exception though - those Filipinas who read their designated script to me. I feel my intelligence is being grossly assaulted by their methodology and I am short in the patience department with them. Apart from that group of toothy sharks being led by total dummies, I will take the call. In all of these years of getting various cold calls, I can only think of one guy who called me, who did it well. Because my information is out there on some database, I regularly get hit up with these types of calls, so I am becoming very experienced with them.

The results show that these salespeople really need to do more work on their cold calling techniques. They are skipping the most obvious requirements. Consequently, they are squandering their most precious resource – their time. Don’t be one of them – get the cold calling training needed.