[0:00]We're going to build a script that literally books one in three cold calls from opener to pitch, through objection. We're then going to pick up the phone and make a couple cold calls with those scripts to see how they play in action. And this is the exact cold call script that I used as a 29-year-old VP of sales. It's the exact cold call script that Nick used as a multi-time number one enterprise seller, and it's the cold call script that now over 60,000 sellers have used because they bought the number one book Cold Calling Sucks and that's why it works. So let's start with the opener. So when I first started my sales career, I was selling life insurance, which is frankly one of the hardest sales jobs you could possibly start in. You start by calling your warm network, so like your family, and then you tap out your family, so you call like your barber, and then you call your cousin, and then eventually you run out of people to call, you're 19 years old, and so your only option is to frankly go cold at that point. I made the brilliant decision that I was going to cold call partners of law firms in downtown LA. So I'd pick a building, and I would literally go A to Z, and I would cold call every single partner back to back. And I would use the traditional cold call openers that most people taught you to use. I would say, "Did I catch you at a bad time?" And I'd get eviscerated by a partner. I would say, "How's your day going?" And then another partner would rip me apart. And I remember, I was like pretty broke in college, and I was like one of the few knuckleheads who kept cold calling week after week after week. But for four weeks straight, I made 200 cold calls a week. I did not book one meeting off of cold calling. I didn't book one. I didn't believe it worked, but I had to do something to get a job. And so I remember there was one day where I was sitting on the floor, and I was using my traditional telemarketer opener of, "How's your day going?" And one of the top producers in the firm walked by, and his name was Brandon Matloff. And I'll never forget, I got hung up on, he was listening the whole time, and he looks at me. He goes, kid, like, no one's going to listen to you if you open like that, and if you sound like that. He's like, you're 19 years old, and you sound 19 years old. And so I was like, well, thanks, this is basically useless advice. And I was like, what should I do instead? If I was cold calling these partners, I would pick up the phone, and I would say, hey, "I work with a few other partners in your office. It's Brandon from North Western. Have you heard my name tossed around?" And then I would stop, and I would see what they say, and that's how I would open my cold calls. Is I would demonstrate that I've worked with other people like them. And I was like, well, I haven't worked with other people like them. And he was like, well, I have, and your company has, and so name drop your case studies or your references and then bring me in. And I was like, kind of like skeptic about it, I was like this kind of feels like a flexy line, and he was like, kid, what do you have to lose? And I was like, shit. And so I was like, okay. So I'll never forget, I picked up the phone, and I like dropped my tone a couple notches, and I go, "Hey, Jane. We work with few other uh partners in the downtown LA office of DLA Piper. It's Armand from North Western. Have you heard my name tossed around?" And Jane goes, no, but how can I help you? And I was like, oh, now all of a sudden Jane is all nice. And so at that point, I had never even like gotten that far into the call. I barely even knew how to pitch. I didn't even know what came after that. And so I basically just fumble and I was like, oh, well, we worked with a few other partners on wealth management planning, and I'm going to be in your office next week. And I was wondering if I could swing by for 15 minutes. And she goes, yeah, I should be free around 1:30. And I was like, you got to be kidding me, you bastard. And I booked my first meeting on the spot right there. I picked up the phone again, I go, "Hey, it's Armand from North Western, heard the name tossed around?" Second meeting, do it again, third meeting, do it again. I booked four meetings in a single dial blitz, which was more meetings than I had booked in four weeks of cold calling in just one hour. And the only thing that changed was the way, both the tone and the words that I said when I opened the phone. One of the things that you have to keep in mind is that when you make a cold call, you are battling the telemarketer stigma. When you do what unfortunately you were doing before you learned the, "Have you heard the name tossed around?" opener, which is putting on your sales voice and using the same opener that everybody else uses, "How's your day going?" You get put in that telemarketer camp. No high-value prospect wants to meet with a lowly telemarketer. And so for that reason, everything that you do, everything that you say, and the way that you sound on a cold call has to be different from the other cold calls your prospect is receiving. Otherwise, you get put in that telemarketer camp and you're never going to win over there. And so for that reason, you should never be using, "Did I catch you at a bad time?" Or "How's your day going?" as openers. There are logical reasons that you shouldn't use those openers. Of course it's a bad time, you're making a cold call. Of course, you don't really care how their day is going. You're trying to book a meeting. But even if those like logical objections that I have to those openers weren't true, because every other cold caller is using those openers, you're inadvertently putting yourself in this low-value position relative to where your prospect is and they're not going to meet with you. We're going to teach you what openers to use instead. The key piece about these openers that work is that they lead with something about the prospect as a pattern interrupt and a way to get their attention. So our first opener is the, "Heard the name tossed around?" opener. That's the first opener that I walked you through in that opening story. There are three steps to it. Number one, I'm going to lead with relevant context about working with similar people, and that's going to get them to sit up. Number two, briefly introduce yourself after establishing context. Then I'm going to introduce myself because that's not the most important thing on a cold call. What matters the most is the context, so that's step two, introduce yourself. And then step three is from there, I'm going to ask them, "Have you heard my name tossed around?" Okay. Now listen to the tone on this one. I'm going to switch the example, and the first example I'm going to give you is not going to be an insurance example, it's not going to be a software example. I've sold in both those spaces, it's it's going to be a gym example that I wrote. You've never been to a gym. I can imagine what it would be like to look like Nick, you know? So let's pretend that I'm selling for a gym called Grindhouse, which is actually like a powerlifter's gym in Brooklyn that I like a lot. I might say, "Hey, Jane. We work with a few other folks from the Olympia convention. It's Armand from Grindhouse. Have you heard our name tossed around?" So notice a couple things are going on there. Number one, I'm laughing as I open. It's, "Hey, Jane." It's a familiar tone. That's the first piece to notice. The second piece is I'm ending in an assumptive tone. And so I'm like, have you heard my name tossed around? And it's like, hey, you've heard of us before, right? Now here's the thing. It does not matter if they've heard your name tossed around. I use this when I was a no name 19-year-old selling insurance. I used this when I was the first employee at a company called Pave and no one knew of us before. What matters is they've heard the context, in other words, we've worked with other people at the Olympia convention.
[7:05]And what also matters is that I act like they've heard my name tossed around. And so let's pretend Nick says like, no, but how can I help you? Well, I'm just going to transition into what's called a traditional permission-based opener, which is, "I guess that kind of makes this an unexpected cold call. Could I get 30 seconds to tell you why I called? And then you could totally tell me to kick rocks if it doesn't sound like a fit?" And so that marks the transition into the pitch, which is the next step. Notice, again, I'm like laughing and I'm like, kind of acting like I expected them to know who I was. If they say, yes, I have heard your name tossed around, here's the beauty. You can actually skip the entire pitch portion and just jump to objection handling. So I'm going to say something like, "Oh, well, I guess that must means we screwed something up, because we'd probably be working with someone like you, I guess. What did you hear?" And notice like, I actually flubbed my words there a little bit, and I think that's okay on a cold call. Often times people feel the need to be perfect on a cold call, and sometimes if I screw up my opener or if I screw up my pitch, I'll literally be like, I heard your name tossed. And I'll be like, Nick, I can't speak English today. I meant to say this is Armand from North Western, have you heard my name tossed around? Do you want to hang up on me right now or will give me 30 seconds? And like, you'll get sometimes a better reaction than if you were too perfect on your cold calls. So, you alluded to the concept of a permission-based opener earlier, Armand. And there is a really important distinction between a permission-based opener and the tailored permission opener. A permission-based opener, if you all are not familiar, basically owns that it's a cold call and then begs the prospect for, can I tell you why I called? It might sound like, "Armand, you're going to hate me for this. But this is a cold call. Do you mind if I get half a minute to tell you why I called you and then you can tell me if it's relevant or not?" And that's not a garbage opener, it's definitely better than, "Did I catch you at a bad time?" The problem with that static, scripted, untailored permission-based opener is that it's getting more and more popular. And the more popular a static scripted opener becomes, the more prospects are going to realize, oh, that's a telemarketer opener, and they're going to put you in that camp. And so instead, you have to adapt your permission-based opener and lead with, just like the, "Heard the name tossed around?" opener, context before you ask for permission. And so all you're going to do is you're going to front-load that opener with context, and that might sound something like, "Armand, I just finished reading the JD for the AEs that you're hiring in the northeast region, and I'm going to be honest, this is a cold call, but it is a well researched one, and I'm wondering if I can get half a minute to share what I saw in those JDs that prompted me to call you, and you can totally hang up if it's not a fit?" The reason that this is far superior to your normal permission-based opener is it leads with something about you. I'm saying, I just read the job description you posted. And then I'm ending with, can I tell you what I saw in that job description that made me call you? The prospect has context for like, oh, this is not just some like war dial person's making 300 cold calls this hour. This is like a targeted, researched cold call. And your hit rate on yes's there is going to be so much better than your untailored permission-based opener. So, the thing that will never change with a gimmick opener like the permission-based opener where it's like, could I get 27 seconds to call you or whatever it is, is it's always static. But the beauty about a context first opener is that the context is always unique to the person and so no matter what, it honestly doesn't matter a ton if you use the, "Heard the name tossed around?" opener or the tailored permission opener. What matters is the first words that come out of your mouth are something about them, because that is what breaks the telemarketer stigma. From there, you should use the opener between those two that you can deliver most confidently with your tone. Because tone is far more important than the actual words you say. I could use, "How's your day going?" And I don't think that's a great opener, to be clear. But I could use, "How's your day going?" And if I deliver that more confidently than I do the permission-based opener, that actually means I should probably ask, "How's your day going?" Even though I know that is not a conventionally good opener. So, let's talk about how that extends now to when the prospect says, all right, like, tell me what you're selling, I want to hear your pitch, what do we do now? Where most pitches fall flat is they're pitches. In sales often times, there's like this glamorized person who's sitting on the stage who's doing all the talking. And if you're a full cycle AE or account executive or closer, you know that the best sellers are asking questions and understanding problems in discovery before they pitch their solution. Well, what makes a cold call any different? Is, well, the only difference is I probably haven't earned the right to ask them discovery questions to find a problem. So I actually need to suggest a problem or show them that I understand a problem for the solution to make sense. If I just throw a solution at them, like Acme Co's a single source of truth or we're a streamlined support automation platform with buzzwords that no one understands. Number one, half the time people don't even understand what the heck your solution says because it's filled with so many buzzwords. But then number two, your solution has no context without a problem. It doesn't matter how shiny your non-stick aluminum titanium pan is if you don't know why you would even need a non-stick pan in the first place. You need to remember that there's an egg that gets stuck to your pan and it gets like all that crap in the infomercial. So I'll give you an example from the other day. If I do this stupid face with my nose, you were actually there for this. I shattered my nose when I was wrestling, so it looks like I could use a good left hook. And for that reason, I have a deviated septum even though I kind of got surgery on it. And so anywho, at night, especially if I eat spicy food, my nostrils will inflame, and I won't be able to breathe through my right nostril. And it would like drive me insane. Yeah. It's really hard to sleep. And so I was sitting in bed, and normally I don't do this, but I couldn't sleep, and so I pulled out my phone, and I opened up Instagram, and the first thing I got popped with was an ad for these nose strips that like open your nose. And maybe it was listening to me breathe. No, I bet it, this was like a time of day thing. I bet they are strategic about when they run their ads. So this was like night time, I'm trying to sleep. And the ad starts with a guy's face up like this, trying to breathe through his nose, and only one nostril is closing and opening. And the moment I saw that ad, I was like, you got me. And then what the ad did is it just put these nasal strips on the person that like expands your nostrils, and it used stronger and stronger nasal strips throughout the commercial, and you just saw his nostrils expand.
[14:09]And so literally on the spot, it's like 11, I'm like procuring nasal strips in my bed, and I was sold on nasal strips. And the reason for that is if you nail the problem, you barely have to explain the solution. They hooked me with the problem, and then the solution was really obvious. And that's exactly what we talk about with the way that we pitch on a cold call. Is we're going to spend 80% of our time talking about the problem, and only one sentence talking about the solution in what we call a problem proposition. And so there's three steps to nailing your problem proposition, a triggering problem, a one-sentence solution, and an interest-based CTA. So let's make that real and give you an example of what that sounds like for our 30 MPC course and enablement subscription product that we sell to sales leaders. Who want to help their teams get better? I might say to you, Armand, if I call you and you're like, all right, go ahead, give me your pitch. I might say, look, Armand, I I talk to a ton of sales leaders who feel like selling in 2026 is way harder than it was four or five years ago. Outbound is getting tougher because of all the AI out there. Winning deals requires winning over more stakeholders, and buyer skepticism right now is, frankly, at an all-time high. And so a lot of sales leaders try to solve this with traditional sales training, where they bring somebody in for a day. But usually what I hear is that one-off trainings go in one ear and out the other. And so we offer a program that combines tactical learning sessions with ongoing rep reinforcement to actually help your team make it to President's Club. And I guess I'm wondering if you might be open to learning more about that when I'm not cold calling you out of the blue. So what I tried to lead with was that triggering problem of, "Outbound is getting much harder than it was four or five years ago." AI is making it really tough to cut through the noise. Winning over deals, you can't just like get 100k deal done talking to two people at a company, you usually need to win over six, seven, eight people. I'm trying to build up what I feel like Armand and his team are going through. That's the triggering problem that makes him feel that pain. And also shows, hey, I kind of know what's going on in your world, which keeps my credibility high. And then I gave him one sentence, we offer a program that combines tactical learning sessions with ongoing reinforcement, so your team makes it to President's Club, do you want to learn more? I'm not saying, can you pull up your calendar now? I'm not saying, are you free Friday at two or three? I'm saying, was this even interesting? Because if it was, then we can get into meeting booking logistics. Notice, you don't need to explain the solution a lot. Nick talked about a lot of the problems that sales leaders experienced, and we solve it in one sentence. And honestly, there's a lot more detail around how we solve it where it's like, we do these enablement sprints with your team and weekly check-ins and all access to all of our courses and all but that doesn't matter yet. The only thing that matters is they feel like we understood the problem they're experiencing, and we give them just enough proof for them to believe we can solve it. So let's go through another example here going back to our gym example. So I'm literally going to read this off, and I'm going to focus on, even if I'm reading a script, I can inflect in a way that sounds natural. So if you're new to cold calling, like this is how you might choose to read a script. All right. So if I already use my, "Heard the name tossed around?" opener for, you went to the Olympia convention. I might say, well, Nick, "Typically when I'm talking to strength lifters, they're honestly pulling their hair out because they either have to wait like 75 years for a squat rack, or you basically pay like your entire life savings on a premium gym membership with eucalyptus towels." And so look, "At Grindhouse, you'll never have to wait for a squat rack again, and you'll have some leftover money for protein so you don't have to buy the $1 chalk powder." Are you open to try and like a test workout when I'm not calling you on a random Sunday? And so notice, there's literally, like, if you're watching this on YouTube, you like there's a lot of like physical moving back and forth, arms up, laughing. I'm joining the ridiculousness of waiting 75 years for a squat rack or these ridiculous premium eucalyptus towels. And so a lot of times, you can't just deliver a sterile problem prop, you need to join the emotion with your prospect, and then they're going to be like, ah, that person gets my problem. Now, let's move on to objections. So, you've nailed your opener, you kept your status high. You led with context, you gave an awesome problem proposition that led with the triggering problem, and only a little bit about your solution, and you inched forward just saying, do you want to even learn more what I'm not calling you out of the blue? If you do all those things right, some people are going to be like, yeah. But a lot of people are still going to hit you with an objection. So, let's talk about first, what's going through your prospect's head when they give you an objection, and how you can use that knowledge to overcome any objection. So, let's start with what's going through your prospect's head when they hit you with, "I'm not interested, I don't have any budget, I'm in a meeting, et cetera." I'm going to take you back to about a year ago, a year and a half ago, we were writing a book together, Armand. It was called, "Cold Calling Sucks and That's Why It Works." And I decided one Saturday afternoon that I was going to go through a like a two or three hour writing sprint, where I was going to take this big bulky laptop to my friendly neighborhood Alfred Coffee, an old town Pasadena, and get a little bit of writing done. So I sit down at the coffee shop, I start getting into the flow, I start getting into the groove. I get 15 minutes in, 30 minutes, I'm an hour in, I'm starting to heat up here, I'm getting some good work done. When all of a sudden, I see a shadow loom over me, and I hear, "Excuse me, sir!" And so I looked up, and there's this like college age kid with a little goatee, and he's wearing a bright orange vest and holding a clipboard. I'm like, oh boy, what am I in for? And he goes, "Sir, do you happen to love animals?" And if you don't know me, I do love animals. I've got a cute little French Bulldog puppy at home. I've actually donated to the ASPCA before. But I knew if I told this guy, I love animals, I was going to be signing myself up for a big pitch and an ask to sign his petition or donate money or have a conversation with him, and I just wanted to get back to writing. And so I looked this guy dead in the eye and I said, "Nope, I don't." The key takeaway from this story is that my objection had nothing to do with what he was selling. It had nothing to do with his cause, it had everything to do with the interruption. The objection was to his interruption, not what he was selling. And so the same thing is going through your prospect's head when they hit with you an objection. They just want to get back to writing, or whatever work they were doing when you interrupted them, and they're giving you whatever they can to get you to go away as quickly as possible. And so the biggest mistake that sellers are making is when they get an objection, they're not realizing that the objection is not a logical objection. It's an emotional reaction. And so in order to handle an objection, we actually need to take the opposite approach that most sellers take. So instead of pressuring and pitching, which is going to get you to say, I hate animals, I actually need to agree with the objection or redirect and absorb the direction or the momentum of your objection before I handle it. In other words, I need to wax that objection on and off like Mr. Miyagi does in the Karate Kid, which is why we call the Mr. Miyagi method to handle objections. So there are three steps, and we're going to role play these in order using the gym example. So the first step is when Nick hits me with an objection like I already go to Equinox, I need to agree with that objection. I need to not try to handle it at all. So hit me with that objection. Hey, look, I appreciate the call, but I've already got a membership. I'm in Equinox, man. "Dude, honestly, I was an Equinox member for three years. It is such a nice gym, especially if you love the classes, eucalyptus towels, and God, what I would give for a sauna again." So notice, what's probably going through Nick's head right now is like, wait, why is this guy gassing up the competitor? It removes the pressure of the pitch. And it's like I he tried to sit in a chair and I pulled it out from underneath him. That allows me to ask him a question that he might be more open to answering because I've removed the pressure of the pitch. So step two is I need to incentivize conversation with him. In other words, I need to get him talking more, one, because talking will make him feel more comfortable. Two, I don't have enough information to handle the objection, and I might get some more information. And then three, I can sometimes use questions to poke a hole in his existing solution. So after I agree with that objection, here's what incentivizing conversation might sound like. "Hey Nick, just so no one from my team calls you again. Like, usually people complain about the lack of lifting equipment in Equinox, but you must mostly be doing all, like, the group fitness stuff. Is that right?"
[23:06]I mean, I've been trying to put on some muscle. I I I no, I mean, I mostly do lifting for what it's worth. So notice, I said, just so no one calls you again. And that is the incentive for him to answer my question. And then I pushed away. I was like, you must be totally good at Equinox because you're not doing any of like the lifting equipment or you don't even need a squat rack or anything like that. I'm almost assuming, oh, Equinox is totally the right solution because the reason that people would switch to me doesn't matter to you, right? But in reality, I know that Nick went to the Mr. Olympia convention, and I know that if I'm calling into my ICP, Nick probably likes to lift, and he's feeling that pain. Well, and you also almost qualify out the people that are are more interested in the group stuff, because even if you land a meeting with someone who is like 100% focused on the group fitness classes and doesn't really care about lifting, you're not going to win that deal anyway.
[24:10]So you've got even more nuance in here where you're hitting them with how you beat the competitor, and if they like the thing where the competitor beats you, you don't want to waste time on that deal, right? Let's see how you respond when I give you maybe a little bit more nuanced of a response there. So you ask me, oh, I'm mostly am doing the group stuff, I might respond and be like, well, no, I mean I I'm mostly doing lifting, I'm not all about the classes, but um, it is kind of a pain. I do have to wait for the two squat racks, like there's usually a line, but honestly, I travel a lot for work, and so it's really nice that Equinox has multiple locations. Great. And so now, notice Nick actually just gave me a second objection. So the first objection was, I'm on a competitor Equinox, and then the second objection was, no, I I like Equinox because they have multiple gym locations, and I know Grindhouse only has one in Brooklyn, right? And so this is where chain objection handling starts to happen. So the way you chain objection handle is you just repeat the agree and incentivize step of the Miyagi method over and over again. So I'm going to agree and incentivize that objection as well. And so I might say like, "I totally get that too, because hotel gyms are like a special kind of miserable for anyone who lifts more than 25 pounds." I'm going to assume that this one's dead, so just so no one from my team actually calls you is it that you just hate finding the 25 day passes in Arkansas to find a nice gym that's, like, as good as Equinox? Are you just trying to like avoid that entire situation? No, I mean, I just I guess it's kind of convenient to, you know, know I don't even have to think about it, but, oh, I mean, yeah, it's not that big a deal. Well, look, so now two things have happened. Because I've gotten so much information from Nick. He told me he was on Equinox, but now I know that Nick kind of wishes there was more lifting equipment. And on top of that, I know that the main reason he's staying with Equinox is because it's like kind of nice or whatever, but also because they have multiple locations. Right? And so now all I have to do is I need to give him a reason to take a meeting with me that incorporates those two pieces of information. And that brings us to step three, which is selling the test drive, not the car. I'm not going to pitch Nick on my product. I'm not going to try to get him to sign up for Grindhouse right now. All I need to do is I need to poke a hole and get him to sit in the car. Almost everyone will be open to taking a look at another solution. Tesla sells a lot of cars. Tesla sells a lot of cars because everyone kind of wants to try driving a Tesla, because it feels like a rocket ship. Tesla sells a lot of cars to people who had no intention of getting rid of their car, but they wanted to try a test drive. A cold call is not the place that you convince someone to buy your product. A cold call is where you create interest in a meeting. The meeting is when you tell them how you're going to buy out their car and do the financing and all that stuff. So watch this. This is what selling the test drive sounds like. I'm going to say, "Nick, it it sounds like you like to lift, but the lifting equipment isn't all there." And the biggest reason that you want to stick with Equinox is they have a ton of locations, and it's kind of nice. I don't know if you knew, but 95% of check-ins are actually at home locations at Equinox, and I imagine it's pretty similar for you, and you're going to end up saving 200 bucks a month and a guest pass is usually $25 at like a really nice gym that might even be closer to your hotel wherever you're traveling." "My guess is like, you're probably going to stay doing the exact thing you're doing right now. I noticed you haven't even, like, tried out Grindhouse. Do you want to check it out for a workout and see if you like the lifting equipment? Worst case scenario, you'll at least, like, know what's out there." I'm not saying, let's sign you up for Grindhouse. I'm not saying let's do a consultation. I'm not trying to sell him personal training services. I was like, hey, here's what I'm hearing. Do you want to like try it just for kicks? And like that kind of comes across in the tone as well. And that is how you reduce the pressure and get someone to take the meeting, and then the meeting can be the place that you gradually introduce more pressure and still it's not going to be that much pressure when you're actually selling him. Right. But I digress. So let's do one where, uh, I'm trying to sell you as a sales leader our 30 MPC course subscription and enablement product. So I give you a call and you're going to tell me, I'm not interested. Uh, I'm not interested. "Shoot! This one's totally on me, Armand. I guess you probably would have reached out to me if you had been interested. Just so nobody for my team bugs you again, is it that you already have a formal training program that you're running? Or is it that some of, like, the challenges that I shared a lot of sales teams are running into in 2026 aren't happening with your team? Or is it that you just hate getting cold calls and it's okay if that's the case? I I appreciate you saying that, but like it's it's all relevant stuff, but the reality is like we do all of our training in-house. We have a great enablement program. Yeah, that's awesome. Props to you. I mean, I got to tell you, it's like, it's really refreshing to hear that, because you wouldn't believe the number of teams that I talked to where like, they're doing nothing for their team's skill development. I just feel like that's such a big disservice to sellers. And so I guess, what have been some of the places you've been focused on upskilling the team, just so I make sure that, like, we can't help with those at all. Yeah, we're we're really focused on pipeline generation, obviously, especially because email's pretty overloaded. We're like pretty big on the phones. Other than that, like, nailing that first call is kind of what matters the most, so mostly cold calling and discovery. Yeah, awesome. So now what I might do if this were an actual cold call, I'd probably, based on how much you're giving me, I feel like I've got room for one, maybe two more questions to sort of round out where you're focused on with the team.
[29:43]And then selling the test drive might sound something like, once I've gotten a little more information, like, look, Armand, I I really appreciate you sharing this with me. Like, I can tell you're one of those leaders that, like, really cares about taking care of your team. And, you know, there are times that some leaders will actually bring us in to supplement the stuff that they're doing with their team, especially with all the pipeline gen and outbound stuff that you're doing, so that you're able to like, focus more on like the reinforcement stuff as opposed to having to come up with trainings from scratch. My guess is you're not going to buy something from 30 MPC today, but I guess I'm wondering if you might be open to taking a look at what our outbound curriculum looks like, just so you get a sense of what else is out there? Sweet. So, let's do one more example using compensation software that I sold at Pave. So, I'll play the seller at this point. Okay, you're going to hit me with, "Armand, I really appreciate you calling me. This sounds like a hard job and it was a great pitch, but like we're just not interested, so so good luck with your calls, though." "That is the kindest, not interested I've heard in my life, Nicholas. And you probably would have called me if you were interested, so I appreciate you saying that. Just so no one calls you again. Could you be brutally honest with me, is it that you have something in place, you don't think this is a problem at all, or you just hate getting cold calls and you're really nice and it is okay if it is number three?" No, no, I I know, that's okay. I mean, I can give you some feedback. It's um, you know, it sounds like you have a good solution, but we, um, we actually use another service called Compax, and they're doing really good work for us. "Oh, Compax is phenomenal, and I would completely understand that you wouldn't want to switch off them." "You must not be doing stock option bonuses or anything like that, right?" Um, no, we do those. Why do you ask? "Ah, quick pause. The reason I ask is because I know Compax doesn't do stock options, which is a trap question, which is the best question to ask when you get a competitor in the incentivized step. So finishing, I might say, "Well, usually you do cash increases and equity bonuses in separate places, and what that actually causes managers to do is ask for more of both, because they can't see how much cash and equity an employee has together. And so like, look, it's a pain to switch compensation solutions, so my guess is you're not going to leave this thing. But if you weren't in the know on that, would you be open to taking a look at this thing just so you know what's out there?"
[31:53]There's going to be like a written copy of these three scripts and like a Google Doc or something like that in the show notes, and you can go grab those. And at this point, we now need to make live cold calls. So the way we're going to do this is we are going to dial to three connects each. So we're going to keep dialing until we get three connects, and then from there the winner is the one who gets the most out of three. And here's the thing. The first two connects we get, we're going to be calling an easier list. We're going to be calling people who are already on our 30 MPC mailing list, and so they'll probably have heard our name tossed around. The last one is we are going to be calling from a list of completely cold VP plus sales leaders that we literally have like no connection with whatsoever. They might have heard our name tossed around, but the reality is, even though we run the number one podcast in sales, you'd be amazed how many people haven't heard our name tossed around. So that will be the hardest. They're going to be thrilled to be getting a cold call on December 23rd, too. That is correct. And it is December 203rd as of the day of this recording. Um, we love our team for that for making us make these cold calls the day before Christmas Eve. Before we get into this, I'll also acknowledge that like Nick is leading our sales team and then I'm like leading our content machine at 30 MPC. Neither of us have like formally done the daily cold calling thing for a couple years, but I was driving over and I started to get a little bit nervous for this. Yeah, me too. And the reason that happened is because I kind of have like dial rust per se. But what allowed me to calm down a little bit was not focusing on am I going to book a meeting in these three or five connects or whatever it is. Instead being like, as long as I stay cool in my opener in my problem prop and I agree with the first objection that I hear, as long as I stay cool, it doesn't matter if I book a meeting, because you, if you're listening this far, you probably trust us a little bit. And so like, even if we go over three or over five, if we can nail the tonality, hopefully there's something for you to learn out of this thing, and ideally we book a meeting, but even if you don't, you got to realize like, they're a dial sessions where you'll go two, three days without booking a single meeting off of 20 connects, and like that is called being human. So, let's see what happens. Let's do it. All right, so I'm going to make our first dial. And this person, the trigger then I'm going to use in my opener is they have 50 plus reps. Believe it or not, they follow 30 MPC, who at some point have consumed some 30 MPC content, which is pretty cool.
[34:31]Your call has been forwarded to voicemail. You know I I'll leave a voicemail. Kathleen, happy almost end of quarter. Hopefully that means you've closed all your deals by December 23rd. You're not going to believe this, but 50 plus of your sales reps have consumed content from 30 minutes to President's Club. And it's uh, it's Armand from 30 minutes to President's Club. So I'm going to send you an email after this. Um, would you mind just giving me a thumbs up or a thumbs down if it seems even moderately interesting? All right, bye. All right, so a couple things I did there while Nick makes his dial. When you leave a voicemail, voicemails can triple your email reply rates. So always lead with context on your voicemail, because if they say, hi, it's Armand from 30 minutes to President's Club, they're going to instantly delete their voicemail. And always lead with the context and direct them to the email you sent them. Right? So don't try to pitch him over a voicemail. All right, this guy's downloaded some of our Discovery Training.
[35:32]Your call has been forwarded to voicemail. Hey, I saw you've been downloading some of our 30 MPC Discovery training content on our website. This is Nick from 30 MPC and I know I'm getting you totally out of the blue. Um, wondering if you got half a minute for me to share why I called you and then you can totally hang up if it doesn't make sense from there. Hey Nick, how's it going? I'm doing okay. Hey, so I've got Armand right here and I was like, how do you say his name? I said, go with Mr. Doggone. I always appreciate just going for it. And I'm always very happy when folks don't give me grief whenever I mess up names. Names are difficult, so all good. Well, look, I mean, look, I saw you were downloading some of our like Discovery framework stuff on our website and usually when I when I see a sales leader downloading some of that stuff, I think you head up, um, business development with the team. Usually that makes me think, okay, you're getting some of this stuff to like take back and enable and train your team. And I've been hearing from a ton of sales leaders that selling in 2025 has felt way harder than it did four or five years ago. And some of that is just because like AI is making outbound more crowded. Winning deals usually requires like winning over more stakeholders, and there's a lot more buyer skepticism. And so a lot of the sales leaders like you that I talk to like they try to solve it with one-off trainings, but usually those end up going in one ear and out the other. And so I don't know if you knew this, but 30 MPC offers a a more formal enablement program that combines tactical learning sessions with like ongoing reinforcement for your reps. And I guess I'm wondering if you might be open to learning more when I'm when I'm not calling you on December 23rd towards the end of your day. You know, my team doesn't do a whole hell of a lot of cold outreach. Simply because our sales funnel is just different. But I sort of cut my teeth building my own book of business doing cold outreach, trying to focus on the phone, emails, in person, on LinkedIn, you name it. And I just never want that skill set to go stale. I love that. I mean, that makes me really happy to hear. One, thank you for the kind words about the content, and like, man, you wouldn't believe how many sales leaders I talk to, like, they get like so wrapped up in the pressure of hitting the number every single month or every single quarter that they don't like invest in their own self-development or their team's development.
[37:40]And like, you can get away with that for a couple quarters, but like, I can tell you're the kind of leader that like, your your team is frankly pretty lucky to have, because you're staying cutting edge on this stuff, and not like, it sounds like you're bringing it back to them to help enable them, um, especially on the outbound side. I love to listen, learn and share where I possibly can. As far as enabling my team, we've maybe had it too good for a while. We have way more accounts than we have bodies to cover. So enabling them is really about getting more creative and building relationships, going deeper and better understanding our customer's business. It's a lot less about, hey, I have this product you should care about, or I have a solution to your issue. That's really what we do, and I try to practice what I preach, so I appreciate the kind words. Yeah, no, that's awesome. That makes me really happy to hear. I mean, you all have a small team, we usually, like, when we would work with somebody like you, it would be in the context of like broader, we work training and enablement. Um, and it sounds like you've got a handle on the outbound front because you personally are staying really cutting edge there. You know, we've got like a full Discovery program, we've got a like a selling to executives and multi-threading program. We've got some negotiation stuff coming out, if that's something that you've been focused on with the team. It would be in the context of like broader rework. And so like it doesn't sound like this is something that you would handle. I guess I'm wondering, you think there's someone in enablement, like maybe an enablement leader, it might be worth me talking to? Yeah, you know, I don't mind asking the question. Do you have my email address? If you want to shoot me any sort of one-pager or overview of your services or products, I don't mind forwarding it along. Yeah, I can definitely do that. I mean, I I think just looking on LinkedIn, it might be like, yeah, hopefully I'm getting her name right. Put looks like she heads Global Sales Strategy and Operations. That makes me think that's probably the person I need to talk to. So maybe I'll like write a message that's tailored to her, send it to you, and if you're open to putting it in front of her, that might be the right path. Yeah, I'll send it across. Thanks, Cheers. I failed. Nice work, though. You know, that one I was going back and forth on, so like, okay, so up front, he told me he's only got three people that report to him. He he gave me two things that or like making me think I, what do I want to do with this call? One is, he's like, we got a small team. We've only have three people. And then he also gave me an objection, which is like, oh, I'm doing all like, I'm staying on the cutting edge of outbound, so like, I don't know if I want someone to come in and train, because then I'm going to become rusty. That's an objection that we can overcome. And I spent some time like trying to explore it, because I was trying to figure out, do I even want to book a meeting with this person? Because I've got the context if I want to beat you in the competition, but I don't want to set up a meeting with someone who's only got three people on the team. And so, I think I could have pushed and gotten a meeting with this guy, and like sold him on the whole thing, and tried to get to the head of enablement.
[40:17]The reality is, is like this is a huge global company, and this guy is like a s runs a smaller team. So I think the approach I was like, okay, cool, I'm quickly going on LinkedIn, I'm typing in like, who heads up sales enablement globally for this company? And I think this will give me a shot at getting a message in front of that person. So, that was my strategy there, where it was like, it's a fight to go up two or three or four levels from like a frontline leader like that all the way to a company this big. And so I would rather put my calories in one good targeted message that goes in front of the head of sales enablement, and then invest those calories in calling some other people. 100% I think not booking the meeting with this person was the right decision. Well, that's just because you want to beat me. Well, let's go on to the next one. Come on. Your call has been forwarded to an automated voice mail. All right, normally I wouldn't do a double dial, but that didn't even ring. So I am going to double dial. He might be on DND. I don't think this phone number's good. Your call has been forwarded to. Okay, the guy I'm calling, Community Sourced GTM playbook. What the hell is this? This guy was VP sales at Wow. And he just started this new job. Hello? Alex, I just read about the new sales job that you started. And I'm going to be honest, this is a cold call, but it's a fairly well-researched one. To Nick from 30 MPC. I'm wondering if I can take half a minute to tell you why I called. All right, I heard. Hit it. Sorry, who is this? This is Nick Celski, 30 minutes to President's Club. What's up, man? I listen to your stuff. I'm a big fan. I've been in this role for a few years, though. Oh my gosh. So okay, so it says on LinkedIn three years. And I thought it said three months. And I'm like, okay, cool, like just. So I feel silly. I'm sorry about that. Um, well, can I tell you why I called anyway, and you can tell me if my pitch is good or not? I'm off. I just had a kid about a week ago. Congratulations. Go go spend some time with your family. You don't need to listen to my sales pitch. I'll be back at work like mid-January, if you want to. This is my cell if you want to text me or something. Go spend some time with the family. Expect some melatonin delivered to you via Sendo. So, happy holidays. I'll see you, man. Cheers, take care. So there's a prime example of one, don't congratulate someone on starting a new job when it says they've been there for three years and you misread it as three months. But actually, like, we fumbled that and he still was like, it didn't ruin the thing. Like, you have to be able to laugh that stuff off. Like, as a new seller, I would have totally frozen in like, uh, uh, uh. And I also would have pushed this guy really hard for a meeting. He just had a kid a week ago. And so instead, I got permission to text him. And we're going to send him a really funny gift as a way to stand out from everybody else. Can you hear me? That is a great sales leader who's closing out the end of the year. My friend, uh, you've got a bunch of sales reps who actually consume some of our content. It's uh, it's Armand from 30 minutes to President's Club. Have you heard our name tossed around? No, I have not. Oh, no, that that means you just downloaded our cold calling and discovery script, but you actually didn't remember who we were, so that's a bummer. Um, look, man, I I know it's going in the holidays and you were probably having your team make a ton of cold calls yourself. Could I could I give you like the 30-second reason that I called you and then let you get back to egg nog? Of course, absolutely. The reason that I reached out is I was looking at some of the content that you were engaging with and your team was too. And it clearly seems like you're the type of leader to like really be pro your team's professional development. And often times, when it gets to like sales kickoff season, people are bringing in like expensive trainers and all that stuff kind of goes in one ear and out the other. And so we've actually built enablement programs using all of our courses that teach your reps how to do literally anything from cold calling to cold email step by step. And then we work with your team over a year to make sure it actually sticks. And so it's basically like bringing 30 MPC to your team. And I thought you all would be like the perfect fit to learn more about that type of thing. So, I know it's like going to the holidays, but would you be open to hearing about it? I actually planned on reaching out to you guys next year anyway, because I was brought on to stand up this motion and prove it, and I've done that. And now that I've done that, they're probably going to give me a little more freedom with the budget next year. And so listen, just so you understand, we are [company name] customers. So we're very get the phone number, get him on the phone type of mentality. We are also [company name] customers, so it wipes out half my database. And we've also started doing some really interesting direct mail pieces from the SDR team that's killing it. So you have to make sure that if you're making cold calls, you're actually getting connects and everything else is, you're it sounds like you're doing some pretty high-touch stuff. So it's not just like spray and pray email volume. What's prompting all of these like creative strategies versus what most SDR teams do, which is just like volume for volume for volume? You guys are telling us to think out of the box. You can't be like everybody else. You can't have the same script, you can't have the same email. And then I lay at night thinking, what can I do that's different? So I thought, why don't I take it back to old school? I remember back in the day when someone sent me a pair of socks and said, if you take the meeting, we'll send the shoes. That's the kind of stuff that we're going to be doing. So why don't we do 9:00 a.m. with Nick and then our lead sales rep McKenna on Tuesday the 13th or on Wednesday the 14th? Yeah, the 14th is better. Thank you. Cool, easy. We got one. Let's go. That's five connects down, and we got one meeting out of it. That's not bad. I'll take it. The other thing that I will say, folks, is I think both Nick and I were like kind of dreading this thing, it's December 23rd, we're driving. We don't want to do this. We also did it after delivering a 45 minute breakdown on cold calling. And we're not cold calling every single day. But what I'll say is once we got past the first five dials, it was kind of fun, and it was also a lot of fun like riffing on it with each other. And so, when in doubt, start picking up the phone and try to find a way to make it fun. Usually, it can be fun when you get five, 10 dials in, especially if you're doing it with someone else. So, folks, if you like this, the number one way that we teach people how to cold call is we send them to our cold calling course, cold calls to President's Club. Whether you are a rep trying to cold call better on your own or if you're a leader that wants to teach your entire team to cold call, one of the hardest things to do is to really break down the cold call step by step and make sure that you're mastering both the words you're saying and the way it sounds. And so every single module is designed to teach you exactly what to say, how to say it exactly for your product, and then gives you action steps so that you literally go and do this stuff, because a lot of times you'll consume some content like this, but you won't actually change the behavior. If the course that actually gets you to change your behavior. So go check it out at the link down below. We'd really appreciate it, and hopefully we'll see you on the inside. Peace out.
