Victim of Own Success?
June 03, 2004
A couple of weeks ago I did a course that was of great value. It was a course in cold calling and really - I don't know how I have survived so long in sales related roles without the knowledge I now have.
The course taught me how to get meetings with people I have never met before - how not to take no for an answer! Being a diligent student, I made the time to put the theory into practise a day or two after the course and I was delighted with the results. I had a success rate of 40%, ie. 4 out of 10 calls turned into meetings.
One of those meetings was with a consultant called Patrick Talbot. His consultancy, imaginatively named Talbot Associates, offers advice to its clients on how to make processes more efficient, so I contacted him to see if we could talk about Brightspark's intranet services. We were due to meet last week, but on the morning of our meeting he called to say he couldn't make it. There and then we re-scheduled for yesterday at 11.30am.
I arrived at his serviced office on Fitzwilliam Square about 5 mins before our meeting and was told he had just walked out the door! The receptionist called him on his mobile and told him I was there. He hadn't got far so he came back to meet me. Get this - he said he could give me 5 minutes, that he had another meeting to go to.
Not only had this man wasted my time not once but twice, but he insulted me by offering 5 mins to me. I am not so desperate that I need to break into people's lives for 5 mins. I told him that my time was as valuable as his, that enough had been wasted, and went on my way.
This has gotten me thinking - the success of the cold call to Mr Talbot has cost me time and money. I don't want my cold calls to bring about time wasters like Mr Talbot who do not have the honesty to say they are not interested in meeting me.
So, Brightspark in this case is a victim of its own success at cold calling.