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So diehard i have a confession to make when i first got into sales and selling i had to make cold calls at the end of my work day and set five appointments before i could go home to people that had just moved into the neighborhood and wanted to hear about a business opportunity.
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And every single day I sat and made cold calls until I finally learned how to do it.
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One of the keys of cold calling is having the right script, having the right frame of mind and making a connection by asking a question.
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And that is what Michael Bedone does.
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And if you go to salesbuzz.com, B-U-Z-Z, slash sell or die, you ll get a download that s worth its weight in gold or actually worth its weight in sales.
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And I recommend that you do it right now, salesbuzz.com slash sell or die.
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Welcome to the Sell or Die podcast.
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I m your host, Jeffrey Gittimer.
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And I m your host, Jen Gittimer.
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On this podcast, we re gonna help you attract more qualified, unbelievable, ready to buy clients.
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We re gonna help you build loyal relationships.
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And the one thing you re hoping for, close more deals.
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Let s get into it.
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It s time to sell or die.
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Welcome, Diehards.
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This is going to be an amazing episode of Sell or Die, because I m with a person who I actually respect for his ability to sell.
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And he predominantly talks about how to do cold calls, which I am predominantly against.
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Not 100%, but just predominantly.
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And so we re going to play point counterpoint today on Sell or Die for your listening and learning pleasure.
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Please help me welcome the great
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Michael Padone.
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Hey, everybody.
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Thanks for having me on, Jeff.
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How many people pronounce your last name Padone?
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Quite a few.
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Idiots, right?
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Yeah, quite a few.
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What are you going to do?
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I m friends with Jeb Blount, and his last name is spelled B-L-O-U-N-T.
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I said, Jeb, how many people call you Blount?
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And he said, only Yankees.
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Nice.
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So, how long have you been cold calling, Michael?
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Dude, ever since I got into phone sales, right?
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So, God, I hate to say it, maybe 30 years.
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And what made you successful at it at the very beginning?
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Well, learning how to do it right.
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Well, in the very beginning, it was just a no-quit attitude.
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And I think that was born from the fact that I never went to college, I barely graduated high school, and I didn t come from a family situation at the time where there was money to float.
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It was like, I was on my own at a very young age.
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I had to support myself, but I also, I had really big dreams.
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And I knew that we live in the greatest land ever and the opportunities out there.
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And if you just apply yourself and you learn and you re not afraid to fail and you re willing to learn from your mistakes and fix things, that s where it all came from.
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And so I was very good at it.
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Let s just say I was extremely bad at it for a short period of time and I kept fighting through it.
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And then I literally learned that there really is a, you don t have to have the gift of gab or anything of that nature.
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You just have to learn the actual steps.
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And then once you learn how to do that and you learn how to execute that, and you just repeat it over and over and over again, and you combine that with your output and your enthusiasm, great things happen.
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And that s how it started.
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So Michael just gave you the formula for cold calling success.
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It helps if you love what you do.
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It helps if you love what you re selling, because then your passion will shine through.
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You have to believe in what you re selling.
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I don t care, even if it s inbound warm leads.
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You have to believe in what you re selling that you re going to be able to help people or help solve a situation.
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Otherwise, nothing else works.
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It just doesn t work.
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Yeah, I got into sales so I can make a lot of money is not a good reason to get into sales.
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Okay.
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I mean, I got into sales because I needed to make a lot of money.
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I wanted to live like a rock star.
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Right.
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And then so I got into sales for that reason.
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But I could I was only successful selling the things I believed in.
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And you know, if that helps clarify things at all.
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I think that helps.
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So I started my career out cold calling like anybody else would.
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I actually started selling encyclopedia Britannica s door to door when I just finished high school.
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And I failed pretty miserably at that job because they would drop you off in a neighborhood and you have to go bang on doors.
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And after my second day, the guy, my manager picked me up and said, did you get the kit open?
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And I said, yeah, I did.
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That s great.
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You re on the right path.
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I m like, it s the biggest pain in the ass job on the planet.
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And I don t want to sell a set of encyclopedias for $500 to people that have no money.
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So I then went to Baby Pictures, because Baby Pictures, I was selling them their kid.
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And it was so easy.
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I realized, like, if I show them what they want instead of what I want to try to sell, people will buy.
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And that was like a huge breakthrough for me without me even realizing it.
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It took me 30 years to realize, don t sell pictures of your kids, sell pictures of their kids.
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That was like, oh my God, that was a revelation.
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But how did you handle rejection?
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The same thing could have happened in the encyclopedia thing, right?
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If they would have dropped you off in a neighbor that had young kids and you just have to go ahead and paint the picture of, you know, you want little Johnny to be getting straight A s, right?
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You know, so it s just... Well, it sort of dates me to let them know that I was selling encyclopedias, but what did you do with rejection?
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How did you handle it personally?
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So I did, and I go, well, how did I fuck this up?
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What can I have done differently?
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But with that being said, though, so when you re cold calling, you re getting rejected time after time after time after time, you have to go, okay, what am I doing wrong?
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What am I doing wrong?
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And then as you start to fix things, you fine tune them, and then things start to go your way.
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And by the way, going your way means in cold calling, it s like, you re not going to get somebody on the phone every time, right?
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You re not going to get them on the phone.
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So you have to be
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lots of calls until you get them on the phone.
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And when you do get that person on the phone, you have to know exactly what to say in the first five seconds after you introduce yourself to capture their attention.
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And so once you get that and you learn the formula for that, which I can give to you, it s really super easy.
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Once you do that, then you start having a bunch of successes.
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And then you have to know that while you re having a bunch of successes, that one call that you make and it doesn t work, don t change everything.
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You have to flip-flop, so meaning when it s not working, not working, you have to keep fine-tuning until you get it, and then you have some consistency of it working at a high rate, then you have to be confident enough to know that you had the A-factor, what I call the A-hole factor.
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Every once in a while, you ll run into an A-hole that no matter what you said, they blast you, and you just have to ignore that.
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Right.
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Because one of the biggest problems salespeople can make, whether they re just starting out or even if they have some experiences, they re using something that works and then they just call somebody.
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It s just a bad day or whatever for that person.
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And they blast you.
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And now you re afraid to use what was working.
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And then you change up.
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And this is where sales slumps start to happen because you ve changed what happened because of the A factor.
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So to answer your question, you have to keep fighting until you get what works and then you got to stick with it.
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And I can give you the formula for how to get somebody on the phone.
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It s super easy.
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Okay, so I ll get that in just one moment.
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But I do want to say this, the sales person s ability to maintain their sense of humor during this whole process is going to help them overcome almost anything.
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Oh, you re a jackass.
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You didn t tell me you re a jackass.
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Thanks for calling you.
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I usually get two jackasses today.
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You re the first one.
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Do you know anybody else that might be a jackass so I can call them right now and get it over with?
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That is how you handle it.
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No, Jeff, that s how we used to handle it.
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First of all, you ve always had a better sense.
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I m more serious when it comes to this stuff.
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And you ve always, you re the king when it comes to having the right attitude for this stuff.
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But yeah, I could definitely remember times where, you know, in that big phone room, that boiler room situation where somebody next to me would say something similar to that and the manager would high five you if you said it.
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In today s environment, I m not sure if we can get away with that same kind of response.
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I could be wrong.
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I hope I m wrong, but maybe not.
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So what s the formula?
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It s real simple, just like anything else.
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Before anything happens, you have to pique their interest.
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You have to pique interest and gain permission to continue the call when you re co-calling, even if you have to warmly
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You got to do the same thing so we can get intent a little bit.
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But nothing happens if you can t pique their interest in the first few seconds of the call.
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And this is why so many people are so afraid of a data dump where they re trying to do all these other techniques.
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This first step to successful cold calling is out of the gate, you have to pique their interest.
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And how do you do that?
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Well, why don t you start with this?
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It s real simple.
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You ready?
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What problem does your prospect have to have that would make them want to be interested in your solution?
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Okay.
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And let s say that I m calling to sell life insurance.
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Okay.
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And I need to engage somebody because they already have an uncle, a brother-in-law, aunt Ruth, somebody that sells the product.
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What are you going to say to me?
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Okay.
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So first of all, you have to understand out of all the prospects that are out there, you re going to have a certain amount, like you said, that they have to use their family or whatever, right?
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So you re going to run into those, just push those off.
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But there s going to be a whole other Paul, you have to know, just because you re selling life insurance, who buys from you the most.
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And if you re brand new into life insurance, then I would go to whoever the top sales rep is in your organization or in your division, right?
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And find out, you know, in their territory, what do they look for?
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What are the key?
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I call them KPIs, key prospecting indicators.
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Right.
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So we were talking about the encyclopedias.
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I said, well, hey, what kind of neighborhood would you dropped off in?
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Right.
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I mean, if you re dropped off in a fairly new neighborhood, the parents are average, medium ages, 30, 35.
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They have two kids that are certain age.
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Right.
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They re going to, especially back then, because I was one of the kids that the encyclopedias were bought for before Google and all that other shit.
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So if you had to go to a certain pan, I wouldn t probably go to the rich kids neighborhoods.
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I probably wouldn t go to the super poor.
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I d probably go to the middle because they want their kids to elevate to the next level, right?
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It s all about knowing who your target audience is.
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So when you re selling life insurance, you have to find out who is it that needs it.
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And it could be maybe the wives want the life insurance for their husbands.
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Right.
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You have to look at and you re targeting that.
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You re not just going to the man you re talking.
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You know, so that you can say, listen, if God forbids, I know he runs this corporation or something that should happen.
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What happens to you?
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What happens to the big factor?
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That s correct.
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Yeah.
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So this is all part of no matter.
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This is what blows my mind.
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It s the same no matter what you sell.
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You have to start with the same approach.
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You have to know who your target audience is.
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Why would they give a f about you?
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So what would you say to these?
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I have a line for life insurance sales.
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Okay.
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Somebody picks up the phone.
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I say, Mr. Jones, my name is Jeffrey Gitter.
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You don t know me from a sack of potatoes.
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I have one statement to make to you.
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Everyone s going to die.
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The only question is how and when.
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And I want to talk to you today about preparation for your family s security if, God forbid, something happens to you and you pass away before your time.
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And all I m asking for is a minute and a half.
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And if you don t like it, hang up.
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Fair enough.
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OK, and what did you just do?
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If you analyze what you just said, you did two things.
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You peaked interest and then you gained permission to continue the call.
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Right.
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So you can wordsmith it.
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This is why I don t do the sales train.
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I don t even do them live anywhere.
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They re all in the on-demand classes because it s not me having to repeat it live all the time.
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I just have it in an on-demand class.
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It ll show you what to do, what you just did, and you can break it up into any industry.
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You just have to learn how to peak interest and gain permission to continue the call.
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And so you can do this over and over again in any industry.
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It s the same process.
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I m assuming that you don t just have one type of industry that you when you do your training, right?
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You ve been doing this for so long, and that you have multiple, I think that my last check, I had like over 86 different industries, as long as it s business to business, and they all get the same training, and they re all successful.
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Why?
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Because they re learning the formula on what to do, and then they just have to adapt it to their vertical in their industry.
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The problem is, Jeff, is too many people think that they have to have a certain amount of touches.
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They have to have a tweet, a text, a LinkedIn message, an email.
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God forbid they have to phone call, but then there s no intent in their messaging, right?
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There s no intent in their message.
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They re just, they re running through the motions.
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I mean, imagine you go to, you take your kids to Disney in Orlando and if the characters came out, well, I got my head, I got the outfit on, I just walk around.
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No, they have to perform every time they step out.
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And that s like that when it s a sales call, whether it s face to face or over the phone, every time you pick up that phone, you have to raise your intensity level.
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Your intention has to be there to where I m going to get this person on the phone.
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I m going to make something happen.
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If you re just going through the motions, man, you re shortchanging yourself and the company that hired you.
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So the key, Diehard, is you have to transfer your message in a way that the other person displays some kind of interest and will give you some kind of permission to move forward.
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And if you don t do it right away, you re going to lose.
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You got 10 seconds at the most.
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I taught people at the Chamber of Commerce for three or four years in Charlotte to sell memberships when they had their campaign.
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So they re having these banker ladies who volunteer who couldn t sell their way into a ladies room if they had to, and they didn t want to be there.
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So I said, look, here s the very easy way.
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Mrs. Jones, my name s Mary.
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I m from the Bank of America, but I m representing the Charlotte Chamber today.
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And I was wondering, when I say the word Chamber of Commerce, what one word comes to your mind?
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And they re like, it absolutely stuns them.
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They re having to think to respond.
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And so it might be networking and you go, oh, that s close, but that s not it.
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And it s like, you re in this acting.
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Oh, it s so close.
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What one word comes to mind?
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membership.
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Oh, that s so close, but that s not it either.
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Come on, I ll give you one more try.
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And they get it wrong as well.
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And I said, look, the one word that describes Chamber of Commerce is opportunity.
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And I m calling today to find out how you re taking advantage of that.
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Now, they have to listen to you.
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And we get emails from these people going, it works.
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Like, okay, thanks.
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Like, surprise, surprise.
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But the challenge is having the right scripting without it being a script.
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I m against reading from a piece of paper.
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I think you got to speak from your heart.
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If there is a script, learn how to adapt it to your style or your personality.
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How do you feel about that?
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I see.
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And this is where we differ, right?
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And that s okay.
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I absolutely feel that they have to have a script.
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But the thing is this, where we do agree is I feel that one, yes, it has to adapt to personality.
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And two, they should know it so well that they are never reading it.
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I think they all should be able to role play and practice it.
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But here s the problem, Jeff.
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Most scripts, I m going to be the first one in line to say most sales scripts create more problems than they solve.
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usually because it was written by somebody that didn t understand the process, right?
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And then this was the problem that I, looking back, that I ran into with scripts.
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I remember going to my manager, this isn t working, this isn t working, right?
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I would have a top sales rep, they created the script, there s one specific company, and they gave it to you and it worked for them, but it seemed like it wasn t working for anybody else.
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Well, you have to understand that each part of the script, if it s done correctly, has to link one step to the next step.
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And more importantly, the sales rep can t just go, okay, great, I got my script, I m going to go from start to finish.
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They have to understand the purpose of each section of the script and what it s designed to do, and then how it connects to the next person, because you have to learn how to foul off.
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Every time you re about to pick up the phone, I look at it as if you re in the batter s box.
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Sometimes you re going to get right down the middle.
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You have to know how to fell off the curves, right?
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So when you re in a sales conversation, you re trying to get the thing going.
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You have to know a script to start the opening value statement, to peak your interest gain permission.
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Well, then what do you do?
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Well, then you have to go to the next step of the script, which is you have to have your engagement question, right?
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And you have to understand why that s there and then how to execute it.
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But what happens if you ask an engaged question?
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Or they stop you and they go, hey, well, how much is this?
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Or they ask you a question that s out of order.
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You re going to have to know how to foul that off, not go, well, hold on a second.
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Let me get to the pricing part of the script, right?
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You have to know how to foul that off and then get back to it.
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Don t buy yet.
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I m not finished my pitch.
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Listen, there are every once in a while you will get something.
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Well, how much is this?
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And the problem is you don t know if that s a buying signal or if they re just trying to blow you off.
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So you have to know how to foul that off.
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By the way, since somebody is going to ask you, well, how would you do that?
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And that s off topic right now.
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Let me just give them the answer.
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If you ever get that question too early, I would love to get that to you.
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Let me ask you this.
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Do you know enough about our solution that if the price is right, you re ready to move forward now?
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And if they go, yes, it was a buying signal, then you move forward.
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But if the answer is no, go, well, let me just make sure it s the right fit for you.
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Is that OK?
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OK, great.
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And then you get right back on track.
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But this is, you have to learn how to think on your feet, but you have to know the process.
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You re not allowed to buy Mr. Jones until I m finished.
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Is that fair enough?
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SPEAKER_01
Oh my God.
0
SPEAKER_01
I ve seen that happen.
0
SPEAKER_01
I ve seen that.
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Salespeople do not realize why they re hired.
0
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They re not hired to sell.
0
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They re hired to think.
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And if they can think, the other person will buy.
0
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But you have to be able to think on your feet, and you have to be able to think about the responses as they come back to you.
0
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And the guy says, well, I m not interested.
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I m so happy.
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I was hoping you d say I m not interested.
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That s one of the best things that people say to me.
0
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Instead of saying, well, OK, well, think of us.
0
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Can I leave my number that you can never call back again as long as you re alive?
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there has to be a rebuff that s fun.
0
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So here s the thing.
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If you re getting not interested a lot and you re making your outbound calls, that s a symptom, right?
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And so one, what you re saying is not resonating.
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That s probably the chances.
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What you say after hello, my name is, is not peaking interest.
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It s not agitating, pain, scratching.
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Correct.
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So that s usually the number one issue.
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The second thing it could be is that you re calling the wrong type of target audience, right?
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You didn t get a list of highly probable prospects that are in there.
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And then the third thing could be your tone, like you re just mailing it in, right?
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You re just going through the motions.
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So it s usually one of those three if you re hearing it a lot that, hey, I m not interested.
0
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But then again, I ve seen too many salespeople where they get somebody on the phone and they do an entire presentation within the first minute or so.
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And then they re nice and I m like, well, you blew it.
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You re not supposed to say so much.
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You d have to peak interest first, gain permission, and then ask them any questions to get them into the sales conversation.
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When you follow that process, you re going to be golden.
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Too many salespeople blame the customer when someone says they re not interested.
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As you said, it s a symptom.
0
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The problem is you re not interesting.
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And if you were a little more interesting, maybe people would respond to you in a different way.
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Don t blame the other guy.
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Take responsibility for the fact that they said this and figure it the hell out.
0
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that you re better than that.
0
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You know, but let me for diehard that are listening for Michael has amazing insight.
0
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Just realize that he s a champion cold caller and cold call trainer.
0
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But if he wasn t a champion cold caller, he could never be a champion trainer.
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That my fair to say on that.
0
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Yeah, absolutely.
0
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And that s the problem with today s world is too many people are acting as if they know what they re talking about.
0
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They don t have the skills to back it up.
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We re going to ignore those.
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We re going to ignore those people are idiots.
0
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And there s plenty of them.
0
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Anytime they re followed with the word guru, you know, they re idiots.
0
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When I cold called in Manhattan many years ago, I never made an actual cold call without a specific target.
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I used targeted cold calls in order to be able to make that happen.
0
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And I think that that s a way
0
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to put it in perspective that if I know I want to call all dentists, if I know I want to call all lawyers, if I want to know I want to call all small retailers, that s a target.
0
SPEAKER_01
And then I would take it down to something specific where I had an idea for somebody and I would go in prepared with an idea and then make a cold call.
0
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That s right.
0
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I could get literally in New York City.
0
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I get through 100 percent of the time because I had an idea and I knew who I wanted to talk to.
0
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But if you re on the phone and you re trying to make connections,
0
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you better have a specific thing to say to that target for that target in order to gain their interest.
0
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And I d like you to talk about gaining interest for just a minute or two.
0
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Yeah, it s it s the same process that you use in New York door face to face that you do on the phone.
0
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You have to peak interest and gain permission.
0
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So too many people think the definition of cold calling is just blindly calling.
0
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You know, listen, when I got started, it was, hey, there s a phone book, go at it.
0
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Yeah.
0
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And that s how we had the
0
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learn.
0
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But yeah, listen, when you know who your target audience is, and then you have to understand what problems would they have to have in order for them to be at least interested in what I have to offer, then you have to know how to agitate that pain, scratch that itch in the beginning, in the first few seconds.
0
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And then instead of using the 1990s playbook of asking them a probing question so you can take control of them, you want to gain the permission.
0
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So just like what you said, when you said fair enough,
0
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right?
0
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That made it easy for them to go.
0
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They saw the benefits for them.
0
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They go, okay, sure.
0
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Mine is this.
0
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If I caught you at a good time, I d like to, let me just give you the whole thing.
0
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If I call a sales director and do my research, I see they have a decent sized sales team.
0
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I go, hey, this is Michael Padone with salesbuzz.com.
0
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The reason for my call, I specialize in helping outbound sales teams overcome call reluctance.
0
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And if I caught you at a good time, I d like to ask a few questions just to see if what we have to offer might be of some help to you.
0
SPEAKER_02
Would that be okay?
0
SPEAKER_02
Now, listen, a VP of sales or a sales director, they got 10, 15, 20 sales reps, probably half of them, if not more, have call reluctance.
0
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So they almost always go, like 90% of the time or more, I get, yeah, sure, I got a second, go ahead.
0
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Their ears are up, their guard is down.
0
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That s the formula.
0
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You can use different words.
0
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Jeff did the same thing with his opening for the life insurance, it was phenomenal.
0
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And then you end it with, well, you know, fair enough, you re gaining that permission.
0
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But if you look at both scenarios, it was
0
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The step before that was you piqued their interest with a what s in it for them value statement.
0
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If I would have called and said the reason for my call is I provide online sales training, I would have heard no thanks, no shit, we re all set, we have something in-house.
0
SPEAKER_02
Now, I could call a company that has sales training in-house already, but if they still have a problem of call reluctance, they re going to want to talk to me.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
0
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Right?
0
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So the question is, can you make it fun?
0
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And I m going to give you a specific example.
0
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I happen to be a world-class expert at copy machine sales.
0
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arguably one of the hardest things to do.
0
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And every guy has to go cold call his ass off, try to get through the gatekeeper to somebody that could potentially decide.
0
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So this is what I did.
0
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It requires four pieces of paper and a small bottle of perfume.
0
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And you walk into the gatekeeper and you say, hey, I m Jeffrey.
0
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I m with ABC Copier.
0
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I m going to lay these four pieces of paper out and a bottle of perfume.
0
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If you can guess the two copies and the two originals,
0
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I will give you the perfume.
0
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If you cannot, then you have to put me through to a decider.
0
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Fair enough.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s beautiful.
0
SPEAKER_01
No bullshit.
0
SPEAKER_01
No, I m with the ABC copy.
0
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We re the best fucking cop here on the planet.
0
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I d like to talk to the person.
0
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Go away.
0
SPEAKER_02
Let me tell you a story, Jeff.
0
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Before COVID and all this other stuff, when we had offices, I used to share an office with my wife s business that she had.
0
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And we would hear when a copier person would come to the front desk, right?
0
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And try to introduce themselves.
0
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And the next thing you would just hear our doors shut.
0
SPEAKER_02
We don t want to see this.
0
SPEAKER_02
Like it would just, that would be the sign for the gatekeeper front.
0
SPEAKER_02
Like we re not fucking talking to this person.
0
SPEAKER_02
I have no time for the stupid, hi, we re this and we re, you know, we want to earn your business and we re the number one copier.
0
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I got no time for it.
0
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, but an intro like what you did, that s getting creative.
0
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And now here s the thing, Jeff, you have a very natural, unique way that works for you with that sense of humor, which is amazing since you re from Philly.
0
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And so I don t know how you got that.
0
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But with that being said, we get it from losing and not losing our heads.
0
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So I m more intense and serious on this stuff.
0
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It s hard for me to, I get a laugh every once in a while, cause a lot of people that actually know me know I m a lot of intense.
0
SPEAKER_02
So when I do throw a joke, it s like, it really lands.
0
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It s like, it s out of character.
0
SPEAKER_02
But for, so what would you say to somebody that likes what you re saying, but it s not a good fit for them?
0
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Like it s, it s not in their natural ability.
0
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Oh, I would say this.
0
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I would say it s going to take you a longer time to get through those doors.
0
SPEAKER_01
And you might want to try exposing yourself to more humor.
0
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Because YouTube s got everything you need for free, clean and dirty.
0
SPEAKER_01
And if you become a student of humor, which I did, by the way, when I was in the seventh and eighth grade, a bunch of guys would get together and all we would do is listen to records of funny people.
0
SPEAKER_01
And you can t help it.
0
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You gain the sense that you gain the understanding of what makes people laugh.
0
SPEAKER_01
And once you have that, it becomes part of your own physiology.
0
SPEAKER_01
And the more you do it, the more you feel better about it.
0
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It depends on how you were raised, you know.
0
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I think the thing that salespeople that are struggling that want to get better need to hear is that the linchpin, the things where we overlap is no matter what style it was, it piqued the interest because it had the what s in it for them.
0
SPEAKER_02
You use more of humor.
0
SPEAKER_02
I use a little bit more of a direct, right?
0
SPEAKER_02
And I only bring that up is because I don t want somebody to hear like, oh, all I have to do is make them laugh and they ll give me the appointment.
0
SPEAKER_02
Well, if you make them laugh-
0
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If you can make them laugh, you have a better shot of making them buy.
0
SPEAKER_02
Absolutely.
0
SPEAKER_02
Right.
0
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Humor lowers the guard a lot.
0
SPEAKER_02
And I still think that it s important for them to realize that they have that what s in it for them.
0
SPEAKER_02
And if you want to use the humor, it s even more to your advantage as far as that goes.
0
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So diehards, we re listening to Michael Padone.
0
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He s literally one of the few people that I respect in our industry.
0
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He s not just here because he s a good guy cold calling.
0
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He s here because he s fucking good at it.
0
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And you need to understand that if you re in the cold call business, that Michael can help you make it easier, smoother, faster, and more successful.
0
SPEAKER_01
I would record that as a testimonial.
0
SPEAKER_01
You can use it forever.
0
SPEAKER_01
I appreciate that.
0
SPEAKER_01
This is the challenge.
0
SPEAKER_01
It s frustrating.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re going to get rejected.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re going to get hung up on.
0
SPEAKER_01
People are going to swear at you.
0
SPEAKER_01
If you re that weak of a human being, sales may not be for you.
0
SPEAKER_01
You may want to go to Walmart and get a job as a greeter or get a job at McDonald s.
0
SPEAKER_01
With the closing question, do you want fries with that?
0
SPEAKER_01
But if you re going to be great at sales or you want to succeed at sales, it s about how you believe and your perseverance factor, how you can take it, your resilience, because you got to kiss a lot of toads to find the prince.
0
SPEAKER_02
With that being said, too, though, I mean, yes, I have the background experience of
0
SPEAKER_02
you know, having to make not just tens of thousands of cold calls, hundreds of thousands of cold calls.
0
SPEAKER_02
And here s the thing, Jeff, I don t want sales reps to have to make cold calls, right?
0
SPEAKER_02
I mean, I would rather them have inbound warm leads that are hand raisers from qualified prospects.
1
SPEAKER_00
all day long.
1
SPEAKER_00
The good news here is when you learn to master the cold call that I have, like this process that I have, you use the same steps and techniques on an inbound warm lead, your close rate goes up because you re not skipping steps, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
And so it s the same process.
1
SPEAKER_01
I have said for years,
1
SPEAKER_01
Cold calling is a lousy place to make a sale, but it s a great place to learn how to sell.
1
SPEAKER_01
And if you have the perseverance to go through, you re paying thousands, maybe hundreds of thousand dollars for a college education, and it s going to teach you to get a job at Xerox selling copy machines.
1
SPEAKER_01
So you might as well learn how to sell along the way.
1
SPEAKER_01
in order to be able to become more successful.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is a matter of persuasion and perseverance and resilience in order to be able to get to that next level.
1
SPEAKER_01
And Michael will help get you there for one hundredth of the college tuition.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that s what you know, he s going to teach you that even if you don t have balls, you can gain them by learning how to cold call man or woman.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
1
SPEAKER_00
That s right.
1
SPEAKER_00
Plus, you just make a lot more money.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I couldn t be in the position I am today if I didn t want to sell.
1
SPEAKER_00
I don t work for anybody else.
1
SPEAKER_00
I haven t in forever.
1
SPEAKER_00
I built one company and sold it, but that was all I was.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was starting my first company in a marketing company after I decided to stop being a straight commission salesman for somebody else.
1
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to win it for my own business.
1
SPEAKER_00
built that.
1
SPEAKER_00
Within five years, I cashed out, sold it for a seven-figure deal, and then I started salesbuzz.com.
1
SPEAKER_00
I wouldn t be able to do that if I didn t know how to sell and be able to hit the phones, make that happen, build the company.
1
SPEAKER_00
But when I got into sales, like I said, I wanted to live... I actually wanted to be a rock star growing up with the guitars and the bands and all that stuff.
1
SPEAKER_00
But then when that wasn t working out, I needed a backup.
1
SPEAKER_00
And since I didn t have a college education, I barely graduated high school.
1
SPEAKER_00
And
1
SPEAKER_00
And it wasn t like I was born with a silver spoon by any stretch of the imagination.
1
SPEAKER_00
It s like, I m going to have to make it happen on my own.
1
SPEAKER_00
And sales was just that lifeblood.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, the better you get at selling.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I have never worked for a company that said that they had a cap on their commissions.
1
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I guess there are some out there, but the majority don t.
1
SPEAKER_00
So the better you are at this, the more money you can make.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m not in it for the money.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m in it for the options that the money buys and gives.
1
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, there were times I was cold calling and I freaking hated going to work sometimes because it was tough.
1
SPEAKER_00
But then I got good.
1
SPEAKER_00
I just you had to persevere.
1
SPEAKER_00
For me, I had no alternative.
1
SPEAKER_00
There was no, well, I ll just go to Domino s and deliver pizzas.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m not going to do that because I m not going to make money.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I had to persevere and push through.
1
SPEAKER_00
But when you keep failing and you learn from it, you get to a level.
1
SPEAKER_00
Now, all of a sudden, you re making money, you re being successful at it, and you grow from there, and it s worth it.
1
SPEAKER_00
Everything worth having is going to be a struggle.
1
SPEAKER_01
We are going to have Michael Betton back again.
1
SPEAKER_01
To talk more about cold calling diehard this has been as good a lesson as you possibly can get in cold calling if your manager tells you that you have to call call say i m more than happy to do it i just need michael to teach me.
1
SPEAKER_01
And to me, the best answer you possibly can get.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m prejudiced because I actually like him.
1
SPEAKER_01
But if you re from fucking Pittsburgh or something, it s very hard to do.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I want you to keep an eye out.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re going to put all of this information in the chat so you can be able to get ahold of him anytime you want.
1
SPEAKER_01
I hope you do.
1
SPEAKER_01
But in the meantime, Michael, thank you very much for being here today.
1
SPEAKER_01
Thanks, Jeff.
1
SPEAKER_01
It s a pleasure.
1
SPEAKER_01
And die hard.
1
SPEAKER_01
Go out there and make a few cold calls, even if your ass falls off.
1
SPEAKER_01
Thanks for listening to the show.
1
SPEAKER_01
Don t forget to like, share.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, share with both your friends.
1
SPEAKER_01
And subscribe to the podcast.
1
SPEAKER_01
And remember, we have a free 22 day sales challenge.
1
SPEAKER_01
Just go to gator.com slash sales challenge to start you on your way.