If I think about it now, on average, I have a 25-30% chance that someone on the other line would pick up… and when they do pick up, there’s the chance that (1) I reached the wrong number, and/or (2) the business I was calling was closed or retired… and when I’m actually speaking to someone from the actual company, chances are (1) they aren’t interested and/or (2) they already have a marketing system in place.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I didn’t get any bookings.
When I expressed my intention to end this run, I went into more in-depth conversations with both my manager and my childhood friend… They pulled up my numbers, and we counted at least 16 people who expressed the slightest of workable interest – these ranged from folks who asked for us to email them, right up to people who actually agreed to a call.
Folks who had their businesses listed duplicate times in the sheet of numbers I dialled got my special attention – For them, I would take more time to look them up online, check if they already have an online footprint; If they had a website, I’d check at the bottom (1) to see who developed their website, so I’d have an idea if they were the ones who built it or if they had Wix or any other marketing/web hosting company doing it for them, and (2) to roughly determine (by way of the year besides the copyright) when the site was last updated. If they had Facebook, I’d check how old the latest post was, how much interaction was on each post, and so on.
Based on my findings I’d give them a call, and give a customized opening – IF they answer.
Most receptionists who picked up seemed to have an SOP to flat out refuse anyone soon as they pitched… but there were others who were nice enough to point me to an email address where I could send an introduction.
There were others who sounded like they just happened to be talking about advertising or marketing when I called… only to find out that, when they were called by my manager, they had other things in mind, the price for our services was too high, and/or they jumped into talks without really thinking about it.
I booked home renovation companies, cleaning services, gardeners, management consultants… even a church, at one point – but all of them fell through, save for a couple that my manager are still following up on… and ONE they brought as far as signing an actual contract.
That’s right… I felt vindication from that one guy who backed out of buying a home water filtration system, by this other food supplier who, when I talked to him, said right off the bat that his site and his social media were (quote) lousy (unquote). And to think, this guy wasn’t even part of my (huge) list – no, I cold-called another food supplier who gave me his name and number to call.
So of the ~10000 dials, out of the thousands of iterations, I had one golden booking. I’m just hoping both parties hold to their ends of the deal because it’d really suck if even that one fell through.
And they told me I’d still get a commission.
…And it goes without saying that if I was 10-20 years younger, I believe I would’ve actually lasted longer.
I realized that it’s been at least 20 years since I took my first calls. Actually, make that 21 years. I remember I started working around the second quarter of 2005; We trained, and got certified. Then we started actually taking calls in gradually longer time durations over the course of a couple of months.
People started resigning as early as training… then more were cut during the certification process, and then, during the transition from training to operations, even more fell off. I remember being legitimately tempted to join the ‘resign’ bandwagon but ultimately decided to tough things out… then I was transitioned into a regular team of blokes on the frontline.
There’s a lot to recall, much more to share, but for the sake of this article I will share one thing – my routines before work. The team I eventually joined operated on a split shift – meaning, for a slight increase in our transportation allowance, we were scheduled to come in from 8 to 12 in the evening, and then 8 to 12 the morning after. I remember waking up before the first half in the evening, setting a pot to boil bath water. While waiting for the pot to boil, you’d think that I would get myself to do other things just to be productive… but I would purposely go back to bed and close my eyes for another 30 minutes, I suppose to prepare myself as much as I could mentally for all the calls to come.
Eventually taking a bath and getting dressed, right before RUNNING from our humble home to the main highway to wait for a taxi. I would usually make it just in time to hear our coach screaming, ‘IF YOU’RE LATE, YOU RUN!‘
I was fresh back then. It wasn’t the case during this last run. I was cold calling for a little over a month, and during the entire time, I was dragging myself out of bed. I’d do the same thing – wake up, heat bath water, and force myself out of bed whole minutes after the time I knew it would take for the water to boil… and because I was working at home, I would drag things to the point that I would ‘log in’ at the very last minute before the shift started.
Perhaps it was because of the nature of the job – the difficulty of the calls, and/or how I mentally make it difficult for myself. But that was a factor that led me to just throw in the towel.
Oh, there was also that one incident where, when I stood up and walked away from the computer, I yanked the PC headset wire with my leg, and effectively tore it away with the USB end still connected. Right then and there I thought that was another ‘sign’ for me to leave. Thankfully, I had a spare headset around to work with.
There was the fact that this one business we waited more than 3 years to start, was actually about to start soon… and we set up logistics so a trip could happen any time this November..
There were the upcoming events that would eat up Friday next week, and then Thursday and Friday the week after.
Finally… there was this friend of mine who we met up with last Saturday; He asked me what I was up to now, and I told him what I was doing; Being someone I knew who served in the same trenches, I thought I’d get validation – but he flat out responded to me in disgust, not to put the job down, but non-verbally communicating to me that, well, I could do so much better.
I told my Mom about this, and surprise surprise, she told me she wanted to tell me the same thing.
Going back. I said I was planning on ending my cold-calling run. When they asked why, I told them I felt I wasn’t adding any value. To this, they responded by showing me my aforementioned numbers, if only to say that my performance was why they called bullshit on my reason.
So the truth was drawn out – I believe that in the span of a little more than a month, and after around ten thousand iterations, I had enough grounds to declare that I just didn’t like cold-calling. I was done dragging my feet to work pretty quickly more than 20 years ago, before taking my first tech support call of the shift… and, here with cold-calling, I was dragging my feet to work the entire time – even during my last day.
They asked if I could stay another month. I was planning to offer to stay until the next payday.
In the end, I threw in the towel last Tuesday – just enough to last 3 paydays.
318095/365000
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