The King of the Cold Call

The show was a little sedate today. My good friend @ChrisRussell went to a meetup and saw a young guy named @GeorgesJanin speak about cold calling. George is a recruiter who teaches a course on cold calling so Chris referred him to me.

The problem was that we discussed the basic cold call and that didn't please my audience which is full of experienced (and jaded) recruiters. And for some reason they just sat there quietly. Only Amy Ala finally chimed in. The others saved their complaints for the aftershow which was very interesting. But why they didn't share their ideas about cold calls during the show, I'll never know.

Another problem was that Georgie was not prepared to recount any war stories of cold calls that went well or awry. The need for examples is something I cannot explain to my guests no matter how hard I try. So, we mostly discussed cold calls in the abstract.

Many callers complained that they don't need someone more junior than they are to teach them about cold calling. But why not? If a young person is a gifted cold caller you can learn something from him or her even if she is only 18.

Storify - Twitter Chat during the show

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Comment by Derdiver on June 19, 2013 at 7:27pm: OK so a couple of things. One, for some reason my computer at home has been acting wonky with cookies and all and I need a new one so I have been having site issues. This put me in a bad mood. Two your show did not help my mood. I am not a prick about things but being challenged by an AI. THEN by a kid who TEACHES a how to cold call only fail on the show both technically, IE Skype, then by cell, at times in the first few minutes was too much. My office line is based on ancient technology whose identity code is still buried in the tombs with Pharaohs so me calling in is near to impossible. So I tweet. Badly spelled but I do so.

I was harsh. I know. I am not going to apologize for that or the fact that internet talk radio decided to tap in to the Egyptian telephony that broadcasts the show and cut us off. All the better I was tweeting.

So all and all a decent show, kid took his licks. Will the guy succeed maybe? He has guts. I will give him that.

Comment by Mitch Sullivan on June 20, 2013 at 8:44am: Cold calling is old hat.

Sending spammy emails is the next big thing.

Comment by Sandra McCartt on June 20, 2013 at 2:31pm: Mitch, for some reason that made me laugh out loud. I could go on for 14 paragraphs as to why but mainly that is just damn funny.

Comment by Cathy Mannis on June 20, 2013 at 5:48pm: I've been cold calling like crazy for the past two days and it's been working like a charm. What I resented was that this guest had only been in our industry for a year (if that) and he seems to be more suited for sales (and not in a good way - he would give sales a bad name as well). How he gets people to actually pay for his services is beyond me. I felt as if he was trying to scam all of us and it just wasn't going to work. I applaud your audience for remaining silent until the after show. It took a lot of restraint to do that. However, we do know when to keep our mouths shut, unlike your guest....