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Nobody taught you how to handle it when a prospect hangs up mid-pitch. Or when your biggest deal goes dark on a Thursday. Or when you're one call away from quota and your stomach won't stop turning because you don’t know what to do next.
That's the stuff we’re here to talk about. Josh and Eric, two former athletes turned sellers, break down what it actually takes to compete in sales right now. The plays that work, the ones that don't, and the embarrassing stories in between.
No suit-and-tie energy here. We want to help you get your head in the game and make you the hero of your own sales story.
It’s time to get game-day ready. You in?
Josh Rasmussen (00:00):
The biggest thing that I'd recognize the most is the lack of excitement. It is super monotone and it's something that you would think is really easy to fix. It should be easy to fix, but it doesn't show up on the other line of the phone. And again, if you're not excited to talk about your product, then why should the person you're calling be excited about it?
(00:24):
Brought to you by Hero, this is Game Shape, where we teach you everything they forgot to before your first day in sales. I'm Josh.
Eric Salvo (00:31):
And I'm Eric. Last episode we talked about surviving your first week as a BDR. Today we're going deeper on the thing that terrifies new reps the most, the cold call, specifically how to stop sounding like a robot rooting off teleprompter and how to be human in the world of 2026 and AI, which is somehow a hot topic. Let's get into it.
Josh Rasmussen (00:52):
100%. So at least talk about the playbook. When it comes to cold calling, what are some of the things that we can help equip a new BDR, maybe someone that's even a new AE with how they can be successful on the phones. First question to you, Eric. Scripts or no scripts?
Eric Salvo (01:09):
Depends. If your sub two, three months, I like a script as a backbone. It's a nice backbone to have. You start following it, you start memorizing it, and then from there you start to deviate and sound like an actual human being. Because if you just start off and you're just letting rip, it's going to be tough. So I don't mind a script to start, especially fresh, new grad out of school, never made a cold call in their life. Hey, just follow this. This is a template that previous BDRs here have done well with. I like it at the start, but if you're still have the script up at month 10, month 12, there's probably a further conversation to have about, "Hey, you've made a couple thousand of these at this point. You still leave this up?" I don't know. That's my two cents, but that's me as an AE.
(01:54):
Josh, you're a BDR manager. Give me your two cents on that.
Josh Rasmussen (01:58):
No, I think we're in strong alignment here. I think especially starting out, if you don't have a script, you're going to get lost really easily and it's going to feel really, really choppy. At least having a script is critical for guide rails. I think how that script is built, there's obviously some variables that fit into that, but you absolutely need a script. The key to your point is how do you get yourself off the script is just by practicing, practicing, practicing to get to a point where you can deviate off the path a little bit. So I'm curious, you mentioned two to three months, how did you get confident with the script? Was it just jumping in and I'm going to go make some cold calls and read the script? Or were you doing role plays and things like that with your manager?
Eric Salvo (02:42):
Honestly, the best way to do it is make calls. It really is that simple. We talked about it last week too. Role plays are great, but they're not real life scenarios. You know what your manager's going to say. They're going to talk about it after. It's not real. And we talked about the first to fail. This is a perfect scenario where get out, make calls, fall on your face, fail, read the script a couple times. But honestly, I felt like I didn't like reading the script because it didn't sound human. Especially when you're smiling and dialing too is one of the key rules of sales. It's hard to smile and be like, "Hi, I'm Eric and I'm calling from X, Y, Z. Do you have 20?" No. It's much more natural to say some sort of pattern interrupt like, "I'm booking to book a meeting with you.
(03:22):
" Or, "Hey, I know the worst thing in the world is me giving you a call right now, but can I get 25 seconds?" That sort of human humor is going to go a much further distance than a typical script. We'll have you, unless those scripts are actually centered around that, which typically they're not, that's the way to do it in my opinion.That's why I got comfortable was you probably use a script for like a day or two and then after that it's just you just got to let it loose and you just got to feel it out and be yourself out there. You just trained three BDRs, brought them on within the last two months, you've got them on the phones booking meetings. Has that been kind of your advice for them too at this point?
Josh Rasmussen (03:59):
Yeah, I think it'll lead into our next subject on this, but I think I gave them, here's what works for me. I've been using the exact same talk track for probably the last six or seven years and it's changed from organization to organization that I've been at, but I prefer a permission-based opener. And so here's what I use. You guys can test this out and try it, but I'm a big proponent on letting your personality bleed into your prospecting. And so you as a BDR are not going to have the same personality and prospecting style that I have. And so create a script that works for you that you can follow and that can be your guide rails, but it doesn't have to be exactly the same person to person. I like that cold calling's a game. They hate cold calling with a passion.
(04:43):
If you can try to make it fun and enjoy it, I really do think it makes the biggest difference to make it a little bit of a game and that will help with the confidence. We talk about failing fast and just falling on your face. How can you actually practice or is there a framework in improving getting better at cold calls?
Eric Salvo (05:00):
So there's like two ways for it. The most obvious answer we're going to say at 14, 15 times today is like reps are up, steps, up, steps. Absolutely. The second one to that is calling on multiple personas. I think for us, we sell go to market tech, calling into sales leaders. If you only call on sales leaders, you're only thinking about that person's pains and you're only reacting to how they're going to generally respond to your product. But if you're not having those same sort of conversations at different folks within that same organization, RevOps, enablement, product marketing, whoever else might be under your products umbrella and might care about it, then you're going to lose and you're not going to have the chance to build that sort of diversity that's required. So A, it's reps obviously, but B, it's actually having a multi-persona approach because when you do that, you become more comfortable, you become more savvy in having those conversations with different folks and organizations.
(05:56):
And it sounds simple, but I think there's a lot of folks that get stuck in, "Hey, I'm selling security. I'm only calling CSOs or I'm only calling Director of IT." And no, you have to call everyone else in the org because that guy's going to have a different rejection than that woman will and vice versa and all over the place. So that's I think the best way to do it in my opinion. But I'd be really curious on your thoughts here too, because we can talk about reps all day, but there is the other side of the coin, how do you change the general behavior of what a BDR is supposed to do?
Josh Rasmussen (06:27):
Yeah. I think it kind of leads off of something we talked about last week of learning from top performers. If you're in the office, you got to go sit by the person who's booking the meetings over cold calls. If you're not in the office and you're a remote seller, you have to be on Zoom at least a couple times a week just ripping cold calls with your peers. I think I remember when I was onboarding, I had a guy, he was a natural born salesman. You could just tell everything you had these little one-liners that he would use. I think that really helps, but it's also a really easy way to get feedback from somebody who's been there and done that. I spent every single day during COVID remote work. We were on Zoom, me and four or five of my closest colleagues. We were on Zoom for eight hours a day.
(07:10):
We would throw on a random music mix and we would make cold calls. That's all we did. Really easy way to practice. You're learning what top performers are saying, but truly if you're not learning from your peers, you're going to be left behind. So either in the office or over Zoom, find a way to learn from somebody else. 100%.
Eric Salvo (07:28):
That's honestly something I probably didn't leverage enough. We did those here and there, but it wasn't a consistent thing. I probably suffered a little bit from my own development, honestly. When you were doing that, out of curiosity, because when we did it, some got to pick up, everyone kind of stops, right? We all listen in. Was that the same case for you all too?
Josh Rasmussen (07:47):
Yeah, exactly. It's an easy way to connect and talk with people. So we're all off mute. And then as soon as somebody would have a conversation, everybody else goes quiet, you listen, time out, let's hear what they're saying. I think a lot of people tend to get ... It can be a little bit scary when now your front end attention in front of all your peers. Listening to you basically have a presentation in front of the class can be a little bit scary, but I think the more you get comfortable with it, again, that helps build confidence. Even if you're on a sales floor, there is no better feeling than crushing a cold call. It's a great feeling and so it's no different over Zoom. But again, when you can get that real time feedback, it's extremely critical to the development and cold calling.
Eric Salvo (08:28):
Out of curiosity too, was your manager ever on those or was that kind of like a, "Hey, me and the buddies are going to go do the fellows are going to go and do our own little thing off to the side." Was that sort of the thing or the manager pop in every once in a while, check in how you guys are doing?
Josh Rasmussen (08:43):
I was lucky enough when we first started, I was in office. I had my manager sitting right behind me so I was able to get some more of that real-time feedback from them. Once we got into the remote COVID world, it was just me and the boys. We were on there ripping all day, every day, kind of like a little secret society of people on Zoom, but eventually we would add more people to it. So I think it started with three or four of us and then you're like seven or eight. And then some days we would just have a massive group of people on there ripping cold calls listening to music and it was a good time.
Eric Salvo (09:15):
It's a cool way to change the environment there and bring that office culture out of office. And it's so funny now because we're seeing so many folks go back into office. They're having more of those experiences. A lot of those BDRs are leveling up their backend seat. But yeah, there's a lot of good stuff to talk about there.
Josh Rasmussen (09:32):
I think the biggest piece is cold calling, it's a high energy activity because
Eric Salvo (09:38):
If
Josh Rasmussen (09:38):
You want to be good at cold calling, we talked about sounding robotic, but if you're not in the frame of mind to be like, "I'm super hyped up and jacked up to make some cold calls," you're going to sound like a robot. You're going to sound boring and uninterested. And so I think it helps elevate the energy with the people around you. Throw on some music or do something that's going to help you feel a little bit more energetic and then you just got to grip it and run it. You got to smile, you got to dial, you just got to get through it and that's really going to help elevate it. I told my team, my biggest thing when they start is you got to fake it till you make it. So if you tell yourself that I'm going to do this and I'm going to crush it, the person that you're calling on or talking to, they don't know if you've been at the company for one week or one year.
(10:18):
So just like be confident, follow the script until you can deviate off of it and then just make it fun. Find ways to make it fun. If you got to play bingo, make a little bingo card or do something to find some incentive to make cold calling fun, it will help make you better at the process.
Eric Salvo (10:34):
I see a lot of more like the B2C world right now where it's life insurance sales or whatever. They're playing music, they pause the music as soon as the pickup happens. Fun, fun stuff, right? It's making it more enjoyable and that's the way to do it too. Like you talked about the virtual Zooms or in Office. Most meetings booked today, boom, you're going to get $100 gift card or whatever. Drinks are on you at the happy hour. I actually have something else for you too, Josh, but one that I'm curious on your thoughts as a longtime BDR manager, do you prefer the BDR to match the tone of that process so they get on the super monotone? Again, this also depends on the persona you're calling or, and I think I know your answer, or is it, "Hey, I want super high energy smiling to the phone, we're coming up like that, " or is it matching the tone out?
(11:29):
I'm just curious on your thoughts on that.
Josh Rasmussen (11:30):
Yeah, I think it's a little bit of both. I think initially I try to teach people scare them with excitement because again, most people that are getting cold calls, it is super scripted and monotone boring. I get cold calls and answer them all the time just to see if people ... When are they good? Is there a new opener that I could try to steal from somebody? But most of the cold calls I get, they have no oomph to them. They're just like, they're boring, they're slow, they are robotic. It's the same thing with emails or whatever type of channel you're doing prospecting. If you're not pattern interrupting and breaking through the noise, you're going to come off and it doesn't matter what you're selling or trying to sell, you're going to show up the exact same way somebody else. I think the initial opener, you got to scare them with excitement.
(12:13):
Why are you so excited to be calling me about whatever you want to talk to me about? And then from there, I do think it is important to mirror and match the tone of the person you're talking to. If the VP of Sales who's a little bit more direct and really trying to get you off the phone in this quick, then maybe you scale it back a little bit, you're a little bit less excited and really peppy and like, "Oh my gosh, this is exciting." And match that tone and pace a little bit more versus you get the marketing person on the phone who's a little bit more open to chatful, they're jazzed. I think matching it is really critical, but I also think keep that positive energy, just change your tonality to reflect and mirror them a litle bit more closely, but never fall back into, "I'm going to sound like a robot," because that's not fun for anybody.
Eric Salvo (13:02):
I love it. So you get cold call all the time. I wanted to hear what works. We talked about it a little bit, but what are you hearing today and then what's something that would actually catch your eye? And I might actually be setting you up for someone to cold call you next week with this exact line, but I just want to hear what are you hearing today and what do you want to hear?
Josh Rasmussen (13:21):
Yeah, I think the first critical piece is there's no such thing as a silver bullet. I think you can scroll on LinkedIn and everybody's quick to share like, "Here's what's working for me. " Or what we're seeing now is like, I booked how many meetings last quarter, here's a link to my core to comment. Claude, Claude. Great. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many different ways to find success. You just have to figure out what works best for you. And so I think again, I use a permission-based opener. I think Josh Braun has really good talk tracks, but I think it's like how I structure it is make the assumption that the person that you're calling is the person you're calling. So it'd be like, "Hey, Eric, this is Josh from Vivint. I'm giving you a call out of the blue. Do you mind if I just take a second to tell you why I'm calling?
(14:05):
If it sounds interesting, we'll find time next week to reconnect." So that way I'm giving them an out. I'm telling you, if you don't think this is cool or sounds interesting at all, no sweat. 99% of the time people say, "Go ahead and tell me what's up." And as long as you've done your research on that person, the company, and you have the conviction that your product that you're trying to sell is actually going to help them, it lands really well. And so I always tell people, if you can get through that initial opener and then they say, "Tell me why you're calling," and you can crush that value statement, the cold call doesn't start until they give you the first objection because that is super repeatable, you practice, practice, practice and then it's basically etched into your brain and then it's really easy to come off and sound confident.
(14:52):
So that's where that script goes from you have the script to now you've deviated off the path and you can have a litle bit more fun and flexibility with it. But if you can nail that initial opener, here's why I'm calling and here's why you should care about it, if you can crush that, that's really all a cold call needs in my opinion. So again, I don't think there's a silver bullet. There's no perfect way to do it, but as long as it's not like some long monologue and you're not adding any value, you should get there.
Eric Salvo (15:17):
So we talked about good common mistakes and you just talked about it too. How many calls are you getting on an average week?
Josh Rasmussen (15:24):
I think a lot of them do show up as spam. I had my first VP of Sales. They used to tell me the only time people leave voicemails is if it's something important. Nobody ever leaves voicemails anymore. If you're not leaving any voicemails for your cadence, I think you're missing out, but I think I'm definitely not getting as many as a VP of Sales or other sales leaders or other. I would say I probably get 10 a week, but most of the calls I'm getting are not that good, unfortunately. I don't know if they're not getting feedback, but the biggest thing that I'd recognize the most is the lack of excitement. It is super monotone and it's something that you would think is really easy to fix. It should be easy to fix, but it doesn't show up on the other line of the phone.
(16:09):
And again, if you're not excited to talk about your product, then why should the person you're calling be excited about it?
Eric Salvo (16:15):
Exactly. You hit it on the head right there. I can't believe it's only 10 a week. I know we're at a smaller company where you're probably not getting as much. Are they using provision-based openers today or are they just jumping right in? Or are they saying, "Hey, is this Josh?" I'm just out of curiosity.
Josh Rasmussen (16:32):
There's a lot of ones that float around LinkedIn and I think people tend to use them or overuse them. Same thing with emails. If something gets floated around in some of those communities and everybody starts doing it, then it starts to become a little bit too diluted and dry. And so you're not getting to that point. And so I hear that the 27 seconds one, you can immediately understand what's about to happen. You're about to pitch slap me. It doesn't feel great. So I think find something that, again, I think personality is critical. So whether it's enablement or your manager or another BDR who's built a perfect script, take that and make it feel like you and then practice that thing until it feels comfortable. But I wouldn't copy and paste like, "Here's Eric's talk track, now it's mine." Practice it, make it feel comfortable and then let that work for you more consistently than, "Hey, Eric, do you have 27 seconds to tell you why I called?" Because then you're immediately like, "All right, this is a SDR who's trying to book a meeting." So we're talking a lot about things that work, mistakes that happen and with both of us making a ton of cold calls, I'm sure Eric, you probably have a story where this has come to life.
Eric Salvo (17:49):
Yeah. I've actually been trying to ramp up my cold call usage or whatever you want to call it the past couple weeks here because I really want to start to rebuild that muscle for me. And last week was perfectly encapsulated this. I used the same opener, two different prospects, same title actually. First guy is like, I say, "Hey, X, Y, and Z, this is Eric calling from Vivint. I know the last thing you want on a Tuesday morning is a cold call, but can I get 20 seconds to just tell you why?" He chuckles, which is one of the first things I look for in any of my openers is that if you catch humor or any sort of laugh in that first couple seconds, you've already secured the next minute of that conversation or more. So I said that. We went through the call flow, was really good.
(18:36):
He's like, "Hey, this is actually really important for us. We're looking into something like this. Let's set up time for next Tuesday." Booked. Five minutes later, I kid you not, five minutes later, different company. I have research on both of these companies, leveraged both during the call, same thing, same opener, click halfway through my opener. And I texted vibes right away. I was like, "You'll never guess." Because we were doing actually a live call block together, that same thing he had just left and that same call opener did not work. Guy hung up on me right away. And it just goes to show, I think there's kind of like an A, B, C and D testing method to this. We talked about this, right? I like the close opener. He gives you that chance to give the prospect an out and most of the time I think they're going to give you the yacht, say it's probably about an 80% chance you'll get the extension of time, but it really just depends.
(19:29):
And so when we talk about like, hey, making it fun, trying different things like, all right, I'm going to try that 10 times and then I'm going to try another opener 10 times and do it throughout the day and see what works best. Maybe at certain times different openers work best or I'm not exactly sure, but that was one of the key examples I had last week and it just goes to show you how a single opener can either turn the prospect in the right direction or turn them completely off and you'll never hear from you again. But that was my recent story out in the ether, out in the world of sales and cold calling. But Josh, you're a traveling man right now. So I know cold calls are hard to come by for you, but what's the latest win or even loss that may have come by for you?
Josh Rasmussen (20:12):
I think it's really similar. I think it goes back to the point I made earlier. There is a zero cold call talk track that's going to work 100% of the time. There's no silver bullet in anything you do in sales. I had saw someone else try a new opener and I was like, "I'm going to give it a go just for fun." And so I tried it, it worked tremendously. I was like, "This is insane that it works." And crushed it, booked a meeting and then I tried the exact same talk track on a different person and got the completely opposite reaction with the F you, never call me again, remove me from your list. And so I think it's just again, nothing's going to work 100% of the time. And so the more you can try to iterate on what you're doing and try to find success.
(20:57):
Again, I'm a big believer. Make it fun because if you don't look forward to making cold calls, you're going to continue to hate it, you're not going to get better. And so try to perfect your craft, make it enjoyable. And when you can learn from those moments of maybe I shouldn't have tried a funny opener on a VP of Sales, okay, maybe I shouldn't try that again and I'll stick with my permission-based opener. But that person who's got a little bit more fun looking LinkedIn and looks like they'd be open to a little bit of a silly opener, you try that because again, the more that you can break that pattern of being the same person that shows up on the phone with every cold call they get, the more likely you do get that chuckle in the first couple of seconds and that really, really diffuses the situation and opens it up to feel more like a genuine conversation and less like a sales pitch.
Eric Salvo (21:47):
If you get a prospect to laugh during your opener, 95% of the time you're doing something right there are going to be times you're not, but you're doing it right, you're buying more time, you're allowing that conversation to go on more and ultimately that is the pattern interrupter we look for because at the end of the day, I'm probably not laughing that often, but if a prospect calls me and makes me laugh, it's probably going to be a decent startup to a call. I love that though. So we got some good stories on there. I did have one other thing too. When we think about manufacturing and that same sort of energy, we talked about energy. We talked about reps like dial 47, dial 48, dial 150 in a day. What are you doing to keep the energy going? You got a monster, Red Bull sitting next to you.
(22:33):
What's going on? Are you sitting in the bathroom splashing water on your face to get you amped up? What's kind of the play for you and advice you've given other reps?
Josh Rasmussen (22:41):
A big thing that I try to encourage, one that I do myself and then I encourage my reps to do is like set a specific goal. Either give yourself, "I'm going to make a hundred dials today and that's your threshold or I'm going to call until I book two meetings." Set a specific goal for yourself and then don't stop until you get to that goal. So I think a lot of people will oftentimes just sit down and I'm going to make a bunch of dials and that feels very, very mundane. And if you don't have a specific target or thing that you're trying to do with that activity, then it could feel like a litle bit of a waste of time. So I try to set goals. So am I going to make 50 dials in the next hour? Am I booking three meetings today?
(23:18):
What is my goal? And then I usually just, I throw on music and sometimes whether it's with my individual team, I'll still get on Zoom, I'll make dials with my reps. I'll also still dial with some friends that are making cold calls at other companies. I know some of my AE friends, they're making cold calls and it's like, "Hey, let's get on a Zoom and shoot the shit with each other and make some calls and book meetings together." So I think again, having community is key and then set a goal for yourself, but you got to get in the zone. I do like to hide myself up. I think also one thing that I really, really love to do is positive self talk and affirmations. And the more that you can tell yourself that a positive and specific outcome is going to happen, it usually does show up in that activity.
Eric Salvo (24:04):
It was something my wife actually instilled in me. She's like, "Hey, four big interviews or even before calls, maybe a practice I probably need to bring back to be honest, but is stand in the mirror, your power pose."That does help. It does help. It really is a mental game at the end of the day and visualizing success is something we probably did out in the sports field or track, wherever the hell we were. Same thing, not really setting expectation, but believing you can do it is half the battle. And the same thing when it comes to sales here too and cold calling.
Josh Rasmussen (24:36):
Small tip I think on top of that that you talked about like the power stance. I'm lucky I have a standing desk at home. If you don't have a standing desk, 100% should invest in one, but when you can stand and get into a power stance, for whatever reason, it feels more comfortable and you're owning the situation. So I think if you're not standing up, smiling, dialing, listening to music, you got to give it a try because I think it will enhance whatever you're doing by 10X.
Eric Salvo (25:04):
I stand every cold client block I've ever done. I'm standing. I'm standing to my feet are like falling off. Same thing with even every prospect call I take today, unless I'm somehow five or six in a row, which is rare, I'm standing up the whole time, you feel more present in the conversation, builds confidence and it just feels more natural. Yeah, I'm in full agreement.
Josh Rasmussen (25:24):
So you're in a positive situation. You're like, "I'm going to make a bunch of cold calls. I'm going to book this many meetings." And then within that hour you talk to five people and everybody's like, "Never call me again." How do you keep yourself in a positive frame of mind when you've gotten four or five objections in the same day and you've still got to book meetings? How do you keep yourself rolling and in a positive state of mind that I got to keep going?
Eric Salvo (25:52):
There's so many ways to answer this. I could tap into motivation for my own personal goals of building a family. I just bought a house so it's expensive. I got to go book some meetings. I got to close some deals. That's part of it. And then the other part of it too is that I had a BDR interview recently and it's one of my favorite sayings in sales. Every note gets close to a yes. So personally it's simple and it's cheesy, but knowing that when you hang up or get hung up on, that wasn't the call for you and it just is what it is and you've got 400 other prospects in your cadence, just keep dialing something's going to go right because at the end of the day, the utter joy of booking a meeting, it makes your day. Made my day many times in SDR where book one or two, especially after a hard day, it's like I did my job today, I won.
(26:46):
I won the battle. I got won today, which really, if you do that every single day, you're going to be an AE, you're going to be a BDR manager. Things are going to be good. I'm trying to think of the ... I'm going to tap into my Patriots fandom here and tap into Will Campbell talking about, "Hey, that D lineman get a sack every game. He's going to be first pick in the draft, but old lineman, we give up a stack every day. We're going to be working on Amazon." That sort of mentality of like, "Hey, if I just get my on a day, life's going to be really good for me. " So I think that's what you're shooting for as a BDR is just try and get one. If you get one, it just kind of snowballs into the next. So yeah, that's my mentality with it, especially after you're getting hung up on so much.
Josh Rasmussen (27:28):
Yeah, you're going to get objections every single day and you're going to get prospects that could care less to talk to you. I think one thing I struggled with early was that I was taking every objection personally. I was like, "This person has it out for me. They don't like me. " I did something wrong and I think it's really easy to think that way when you're starting out. One, that person probably has a shit ton of other things that are going on either in their personal or professional lives. So again, it's not personal just because they gave you an objection, maybe they attacked you or whatever happened because I know we both have those stories where it's like somebody just blows up on you and it's like, I need to go for a walk now. But again, that is the truth. Every node does get you closer to a yes and the more you're chasing nos, that meeting is going to come eventually.
(28:12):
And unfortunately, sometimes they come and goes in waves. There's some weeks where you can make 300, $400 a week and you don't talk to a single person and then all of a sudden next week it's like everybody wants to talk to you and having conversations. I try to just ride the wave, don't get too high, don't get too low, maintain that calm, cool and collectedness and you just got to stay persistent and keep picking up the phone.
Eric Salvo (28:35):
Tell it to all my buddies at a BDRs, I say pride the wave all the time. I love it. I think we got a very similar mindset of a lot of that stuff, but you just got to ride the wave. It's the highs and lows of tech sales. It just ebbs and flows and you never know when the week's going to happen and some weeks it's going to be great and other weeks it's not. And if you're able to hang tough and continue to try and book that one per day or hit your numbers per week, life's going to be pretty good for you. All right, Josh, great segment here. We got Close, Stall, Kill, perfect for what we've got going on here. Three openers you've definitely heard or said we each decide independently close it, use it now if it's legit, stall it if it's situational or keep it in your back pocket, kill it to retire this thing forever.
(29:20):
What is the best opener from these three I'll read you here? I'll start off and I'll ask for your answers at the end. We'll go number one, is now a bad time? Number two, I'll be honest with you, this is a cold call. We know where that's going. And number three, I know you're so busy so I'll keep this super quick. We've heard all of these, we know them all. I'd love to hear close stall kill.
Josh Rasmussen (29:43):
Yeah, I think this one is pretty easy. I'm going to start with the kill. Is now a bad time is like the single worst opener because it's always a bad time. You're interrupting somebody with what they're doing in their day. So absolutely kill that, throw it out, never use it. I think I'm going to stall on, I'll be honest with ... With you. I think it's something I need to try depending on what comes after, I'll be honest with you, because that's a completely blanket statement. And then I'm going to close on. I know you're busy. I'll keep it quick. Do you mind if I just tell you real quick the reason why I'm calling and we can find time next week to reconnect? So I'm killing bad time. Stalling, I'll be honest with you. And then closing on, I know you're busy. I'll keep this quick.
(30:25):
Is that the exact same as what you're doing or do we have differing opinions on the stall and the close?
Eric Salvo (30:31):
We are differing opinions because I've tried the honest approach and boy it does work. People really enjoy it. I've honestly got hung up a lot when I've said, "I know you're super busy. I'll keep this super quick." Click. I've had that happen to me more often than, "Hey, I'll be honest with you. I am cold calling you, but I have done my research. Let me tell you why. And if it doesn't work in 25 seconds, let me go. I'll never call you again."That has worked for me more often than not. So for me, we're killing the same one is now a bad time. Of course it's a bad time. You are making a call to someone that's in most cases, high level, has a lot of things going on. They could care less about what you have to say. So yes, that's obviously the kill.
(31:12):
For me, the stall is, I know you're super busy. I've tried both and I've had less success with that one and I have had a lot of success with the honest approach. People enjoy it. Maybe it's because I've sold the sales leaders and presales leaders the past two, three and a half years, so they understand what I'm doing. Probably harder in other sectors or other segments, but that one's worked really well for me. So that's my close personally.
Josh Rasmussen (31:36):
I think both of them can work well with each other. I think the most important thing is what comes after that? I'll be honest with you and then I know you're busy, I'll keep it quick. What comes after it? Again, I think it comes back to that as long as you include the reason I'm calling you and it's super specific and personalized to that person, I think you can get away with both of them, but I think as long as you're killing is now a bad time, that's a recipe to get hung up on immediately. So as long as you have that, the reason I'm calling you, Eric, is for X specific reason. I think you're going to have a lot more success regardless of using either of those two statements.
Eric Salvo (32:13):
Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.
Josh Rasmussen (32:14):
So getting into our next segment here, possibly my favorite segment that we got, we got flagged on
Eric Salvo (32:20):
The
Josh Rasmussen (32:20):
Play.
(32:21):
Last week we threw a personal flag targeting. We ejected the cold email. This week we're going to review a piece of sales content and make a snap decision on the call. First down, is it legit? Flag on the play if it's a violation. And so today's piece of content we found a real cold call opener shared by a sales coach as a killer opening cold call talk track. And Eric, I want to hear from you. Is this a flag or is it a first down? So cold call goes like this. Hey, Eric. I know you weren't expecting my call today. I'm going to take 27 seconds to tell you why I'm reaching out and if it doesn't land, I'll let you get back to your day. Sound fair?
Eric Salvo (33:04):
It all depends on how you say this. If you say it the way you just said it right there, first down we're going the other way. But I think if you say it with any sort of hesitancy in your voice or a little stutter, it feels more to me like that is very reminiscent of a very simple cold call opener. And again, if you don't say it's super confident, it's not going to work. So I'll call first down and if you do it right, but realistically this is more of like D-line jumps the gun here. Off sides, we're going five. We're just getting five out of it. We're not going to look the full 10.That's my two cents. It's not perfect, but it's good enough that if you do it right, first down.
Josh Rasmussen (33:42):
I think I agree with you. I think this is a first down. Again, it all comes back to the mechanics we talked about in the beginning. How's your tone, your pace, your energy? All that's extremely critical. I think for just this being a talk track, I think it's pretty solid. Obviously I think I know whose sales coach this is and I think I agree with a lot of their content. And so I'm a big fan of it. The 27 seconds aspect has gotten a little bit played out and it is that pattern interruption of like instead of 30 seconds, it's 27 so it sounds a little different. What do you think about just jumping straight in to the talk track?This doesn't say like, "Hey, Eric, how's your Monday going? " Or yada, yada. It's like immediately, as soon as they pick up the phone, it's right into the meat of the conversation.
(34:26):
What do you think about that?
Eric Salvo (34:28):
Love this question because I used to do this all the time and I felt like more often than not, after about 15 seconds, the prospect was like, "What the hell are you talking about? What is going on? " Sometimes when you make that call, I like the permission-based opener because you then ground them and saying, "Hey, I am calling you. This is a cold call. I am going to tell you why I'm calling." Ready? Ready? Okay, go. Versus, "Hey Josh, this is Eric calling from Vivid. I'm looking to talk to you about blah, blah, blah. It's your post about X, Y, Z, X, Y, Z." At that point, again, I'm saying it faster, but to someone who's just picking up the phone, who's walking out of a meeting or going to their car or picking their kids up from school, that's what it sounds like.
(35:10):
And so I had way less success jumping right into it, but I know and we've talked about it, it's very subjective what's going to work best for that prospect or how they like to do it. Personally, I'm definitely more permission-based opener. I don't like to go right in because I felt like it just felt rambled every single time, but that's my two cents.
Josh Rasmussen (35:30):
Yeah. I think I'm in agreement with you. And I think if you were to add one sentence in there that was like, "Hey, how's your Monday going? I know I'm calling out of the blue. Can I tell you the reason why I'm calling?" And then you get straight into that exact talk track. I think it bumps it from a seven out of 10 to a 10 out of 10. You're not trying to take up the time. You're recognizing I'm interrupting your day and you're busy. At the same time, I'm calling you for a very specific reason. I think a lot of times people think you've got a list of a thousan contacts and you're just one at a time ripping down it. And so if you can clearly state in that opener that here's the specific reason I'm reaching out to you, it's going to land a lot stronger than if it's just the generic templated script that somebody's using.
Eric Salvo (36:13):
Certainly. I'm in full agreement.
Josh Rasmussen (36:15):
All right. And that's today's episode. Here's one thing from this week. Record yourself on your next three cold calls. Don't judge yourself, just listen. You'll immediately hear every every flat moment, your tone, your pace, and you'll be able to fix what you can't hear live in the moment. Three calls, hit record.
Eric Salvo (36:36):
And next week, what do you do when a prospect asks you something you have no idea what to say, recovering the phrases that buy you time when redirect and how to follow up like a pro, don't miss it.
Josh Rasmussen (36:48):
And that's a wrap. You just got a little better at your job. You're welcome.
Eric Salvo (36:52):
Man, we are so humble.
Josh Rasmussen (36:54):
I'm just saying.
Eric Salvo (36:55):
Follow the show, share it with someone you know who's on your team, maybe needs a little help with cold call advice and come back in two weeks because we're not done with you yet.
Josh Rasmussen (37:03):
This is Game Shape brought to you by Hero. Now go close something.