Audio:
CLIP Bowmer on Cold Calls

 Animal:     You described yourself as a Cold Call Machine. How many cold calls a day were you making?

Jimmy:    I didn't have a number. I just made cold calls until I was able to hit my target of 15 appointments a week face to face with clients.  I knew that if I saw 15 clients a week I'd get one new account.


So I would make cold calls until I had 15 appointments and then for the next three days I would hop in my car and drive around and see them.


If I was in a building somewhere and across the street I saw a company that I wanted to go into, I'd cold call them as well and put them on my call list.

You've only got 8 hours in a day when you can talk to customers. If you do all of your admin outside of those hours, you can be successful. It's about how hard you work and managing the numbers. It's not necessarily how smart you are. It really is about just wanting to be successful.

You've got to have the drive and passion to just get out there and take the hits and take the rejection.

Animal:     True or False, the most exciting thing you can ever do is call a lot of strangers on the phone.

Jimmy:    True.

Animal:    Do you know the song, Love Is A Losing Game"?


Jimmy:     No

Animal:     Would you say that cold calling is a losing game only sometimes you win?

Jimmy:     Yes

Animal:     Are you a natural cold caller?

Jimmy:
    I had to train myself to be one. When I started I hated picking up the phone. I had to train myself and be disciplined and make myself do it. I've only ever met 2 or 3 natural cold callers in my life.

Animal:     How did you do it, Jimmy? How do you turn yourself into a cold call machine?

Jimmy:    It's discipline. You've got to sit there and be able to take the rejection and just keep smiling and dialing. And you know that for every call that you make you're one closer to getting the yes.
So you've got to just let yourself not worry about getting the no.

Animal:     Now, you see yourself also as a good sales person obviously. You'll walk into anybody's door and try to sell them.

Jimmy:     Not necessarily try to sell them.


Animal:     So you're not a high pressure closer? You're just a "Hi, I'm Jim. Do business with me."

Jimmy:     I'm a "Hi, this is what I can do for you. If I can do this for you is it going to change your life? Yeah."

Animal:     Change your life? Are you selling to clients or candidates?

Jimmy:
    Clients. In terms of working through what they've currently got and see if I can show them a better way to do it. Is it going to help them get promoted? Is it going to make them look good in front of their boss?  Does it mean that they're not going to have to work extra hours or work on weekends to get stuff done.

Animal:     What's the worst thing that ever happened to you on a cold call?

Jimmy:     I was thrown out of an Equity building for soliciting. Three days later, I was doing the same thing in another Equity building and a guy came up to me and said, "You've been warned before about coming into our buildings and soliciting."

I said, "I"ve never been in this building before." The guy pulled out video camera evidence of me 3 days earlier. That was pretty uncomfortable. I had to suck it up and leave.

Animal:     And did you go right to another call? Or did you have to go to go to a Starbucks and cool off?

Jimmy:     I went to another building but let's just say it wasn't an Equity Office.

Animal:     And how about this? "A loser is someone who is afraid to say something wrong." True or False?

Jimmy:    True

NOTE: Jimmy is the President and CEO of Workway