Pick Up The Damn Phone! with Paul Neuberger

Study after study tells us that:

– Advisors would rather schedule wholesaler appointments via email versus phone
– Millennials hate speaking on the phone and would rather text
– Cold calling has gone the way of diesel powered cars

In fact many wholesalers, though they may not admit it out loud, are downright afraid of the phone.

Paul Neuberger is the Founder of  The Cold Call Coach.

He works with Fortune 500 companies, professional sports teams, and solo entrepreneurs.

Paul enables professionals to get in front of their Ideal Clients by teaching techniques that make them irresistible on the phone.

How Wholesalers Can be Better Cold Callers Overnight

Cold calling is not some rhetorical riddle that has no answer or solution.  If you break it down to its basic building blocks, focus on best practices in human psychology and use basic common sense, any wholesaler can be an overnight sensation.

In my years as a professional cold call trainer, I have boiled my methodologies into five top tips that any wholesaler can implement to start realizing a higher cold call success rate.

These top five tips are:

• Keep the call short
• Pique curiosity
• Create urgency
• Be sure the call is not about you
• The three worst words in a cold call

From a timing perspective, I am amazed at how few wholesalers pay attention to the duration of their call.  Many simply draft a script, come up with some language, and think about their delivery and how they will blow the prospect away.

To ensure success, a wholesaler should start with time and modify their script accordingly, not the other way around.  By focusing on time first, the wholesaler will ensure that they maintain message discipline, have a script that is as lean as possible, and focus more on the quality of their words.

By obsessing about time first and modifying the script accordingly, the wholesaler will ensure that they are never saying more than they must and don’t deviate from the central message.

Secondly, it is imperative that the wholesaler pique the curiosity of the prospect.  Piquing curiosity is simply advocating that you generate interest in what you are saying.

The mark of a good story teller is to always leave the reader wanting more.  I would argue that this notion is true for a cold caller.  The wholesaler should always aspire to leave the prospecting wanting more to optimize success.

The best way to do this is to treat your cold call like a movie trailer. Why are movie previews so good at what they do?

They succeed for the following reasons, among others:

• They only show you the best parts
• They hit you at a deep, emotive level
• They introduce you to the characters involved

Don’t these also sound like attributes of a world-class cold call?  Treat your cold call like a movie trailer, leave the prospect wanting more, and don’t be shocked when you are running more appointments than you thought possible.

Third, we need to create urgency to compel the prospect to act quickly.  Urgency is the jelly to the pique curiosity peanut butter and, without both, you simply don’t have a sandwich.

Creating urgency is done not so much by what you say, but by what you don’t say, and the operative word to do this is “might”.  Might, when coupled with something of value, incentivizes the prospect to act quickly because the flip side of “might” is “might not”.

If you are offering the prospect something of value and it is not guaranteed to come to fruition, it is human nature for someone to want to lean in and take the bull by the horns, which, in essence, is the definition of urgency.

The other benefit of “might” is that it has an inherent call to action in it.  When you tell the prospect that you “might” be able to offer them something, instinctively they’re asking questions in their mind like:

• “What’s the next step?”
• “How do I get this?”
• “What does he/she need from me?”

In a sense, you are preheating the oven and mentally preparing the prospect for the ask that is about to come.  This mental preparation will ensure that they not only expect you to tell them what the next step is, but that they are open to your ideas and are ready to act.

Fourth, the cold all must be about the prospect.  This makes sense on paper, but how do we define it?  The definition of making the call about the prospect is when the wholesaler offers the prospect something where they benefit first, not the wholesaler.

What separates my clients from everyone else is that the typical wholesaling professional is cold calling to sell something, whereas my clients are cold calling to give something.

If you offer something of value where the prospect benefits first and that value offering taps into the self-interest and self-preservation of the prospect in question, the wholesaler will have much more success on the phone and will see their respective calendar fill up quickly.

Finally, if a wholesaler desires to be successful on the phone, they must get rid of the three worst words that they can ever utter: “My. Name. Is.”

Think about it!  What do the words “My name is…” signify?  They signify that we have never met before.  They signify you don’t know who I am.  They signify that I have never had the opportunity to be introduced to you.

Well, if I receive an unsolicited call from an unregistered number, from a person I am not familiar with, from an organization that I have never heard of, and this person is saying, “Excuse me, sir, we have never had the opportunity to meet, please allow me the chance to introduce myself”, what kind of call is that likely to be?

A sales call!  When is the last time you were happy you took a sales call?  My guess is never.

By getting rid of those three words, a wholesaler has the potential to elevate the mood of the prospect instantaneously, while getting the person to lean in and hang on every word right from the onset.

Any wholesaler can be successful on a cold call if they abide by these five principles.  The next time you sit down to call prospects, remember this list, roll-up your sleeves, and watch the appointments pile up!

Written by Paul Neuberger