37 Minutes of LIVE Cold Calling

0:00Is that fair? Yes! It's just a little... Every time we turn... We're live. We are live. I'm just checking. In fact, someone else has gone live at the same time. That's quite annoying. But you don't tell them. They've called theirs first sip pump day. Don't know what that means. First sip pump. Sip pump. Sip pump. i don't know oh and we are live as well apparently we are live so if you are watching this um we've had some comments in already which is lovely let's let's see we can't see them i might know they are coming through thick and fast um but maybe it's because we don't pay for stream yard anymore that the comments aren't coming in thick but uh if you're here let us know we've got some people in the room already which is brilliant to see um and i'm sure more people are being notified and are going to be joining us for nooks present cold calling live with jack frimston and zach thompson yeah thompson can you tell us the premise of live cold calling and how it's going to work and what we're going to be doing today jack has created a list of kebab shop owners um retirees people with dementia and we will be ringing through that list to baffle and confuse them into maybe bitcoin or something like that we could sell bitcoin if you want to sell it people talk about uh i think it's cryptocurrency and i think it's i don't think it's i think you mean it's crypto currently that people talk about crypto that's the kind of jokes you can expect from us for the next how long am i here for with you uh let's see how the next five minutes goes okay um right we've got people in the room they're here people are saying they're first what's their reward you don't get a reward here we go you can see the the comments coming through now yeah beautiful abdullah in the house peter there we go stefan nosky stefan nosky um how i'm gonna be honest with the audience because i'm feeling a little bit nervous because my body doesn't actually know the difference between they my body thinks i'm going out to hunt a lion now but actually i'm just going to be calling a couple of people that work in manufacturing so it's not that scary but the body is moving how are you feeling uh i've got the initial like shit man people are watching me call feeling so yeah let's see how we get on okay do you want to rock paper scissors for who goes first or do you want me to go first rock rock paper scissors show oh show rock paper scissors show rock paper scissors show defeat defeat right i'll go okay mate you ready yeah yeah here we go right let me just remove this let's get started oh you're live make your first cold calls out topton let's do it this is the exciting bit did you hear that i heard that that is nooks getting ready to go

3:23the nervousness what are you parallel are you parallel dialing five at a time three at a time so i thought you know the people at home don't want to be sat around waiting too long to see me get rejected right no we've got we've got a few hundred contacts let's see if it lasts the hour we might be done in ten minutes when nooks parallel dialing five at a time you can see it going through hello that's not James is it yeah hello James you're probably gonna hate me for this but I'll be very honest it's actually one of those bloody sales calls so I don't you want to hang up on me immediately or let me have 30 seconds then decide it's totally up to you okay it's a very strange introduction but okay Do I have 30 seconds?

4:04Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. So I normally get welcomed in by chief marketing officers who are a little bit concerned when it comes to the new business side of things. So they probably recognize there's not enough new business meetings in the diary of potential customers. And as a result, the pipeline looks a little bit bleak or they are meeting people, but the deals never seem to go anywhere. And they're always trapped in deal cycle and not converting into new business. I've got a feeling though you might tell me neither of those are problems that you experience and I need to let you crack on with your journey no I've got more business I can handle oh really what do you think the secret is you might be one of the lucky ones work with the US okay work with the US okay fair enough the UK as we know is a bleak place so I live here but there's not really much to do Where do you live though?

5:02It might only be bleak where you are if you live in Blackpool I'm up north, where are you? I'm down south, I'm in Bournemouth so on a day like this it feels like it could be Yeah, exactly Do you mind if I ask you something before I let you go James? Is that okay? I don't suppose you know anyone who's maybe less fortunate than you or a high school bully that I should bother with instead?

5:29Who are you and who are you calling from? I don't know, I quite enjoy your approach. Who are you calling from? So my name's Zach and my business is called We Have a Meeting. So I don't want to panic you and think that we have a meeting, but that's the name of the business. So we're effectively an outsourced sales business for people who absolutely hate prospecting and want to give it to me and make me suffer instead. Okay. Where did you get my details? I'm wondering which. I got them off a list of the most ambitious forward-thinking chief marketing officers in the north of the UK. Would you believe that?

6:08What a great line. Thank you. Most of my time I spend working with a recruitment company and I say we do. We've got more business we can handle and then I've got lots of other freelance projects and again i've first been going too much to gamble as well so i don't know i guess the secret is just do a job do a good job and you get the other your reputation yeah okay or do a lot of work in america where they pay a lot more um yeah is there ever a point in the year where you think bloody i wish we had a few more meetings in the diary and that is that guy bob again absolutely not never wow okay Are you hiring?

6:46Can I come and work for you?

6:52Have you had me on LinkedIn? No. Can I? I've been on LinkedIn. I quite enjoyed this conversation. I don't really have any use of it for the service, but I've just enjoyed your overall approach and general vibes. It's just been quite funny. Okay. I'll add you on LinkedIn and I'll message you. It won't be a selfie or a voice or anything. I'm far too ugly for that, but I'll do that now.

7:16what's your name again sorry zach is that a c it's been nice speaking to you zach and you enjoy your journey you too take care cheers bye that was brilliant you froze then i locked you you were i could hear you were locked in i couldn't see your face so i don't know if you were enjoying yourself Mate, I was enjoying it so much. I've got a new friend that I'm going to add on LinkedIn. That should be your bio. General vibe and you're funny. Oh, God. I'm so tired. I've just been talking to qualified prospects all day without any wait time. How have you been doing it? Because I've been cold calling people on my mobile, and I reckon I've spoke to one person.

8:04No, no, no. Stop that right now and use Nooks.ai. Why? What does Nooks do? It finds me the right people to call and it calls them and it connects with them over and over and over again. So you're saying it's Nooks.ai and I can just be speaking to qualified decision makers all the time. No other better connection, right? Wow. Nooks.ai. Good second name. Woodhead. Wow. Yeah. True or false. I really like that. That was good. I just know that the next person that I'm the person I'm going to dial is going to bollock me you get somebody really nice but I think were they nice because they were a nice person or were they nice because you were really nice right maybe the coolest lucky fellow I've ever seen as well I won't obviously I can't share his details or his name but didn't look like you would expect at all that bloke wow I just looked him up cool guy cool guy right it's your work next then mate and I know someone's going to absolutely bollock me.

9:07And this is what I'm here for. Right. Let me add it. Beautiful. You ready? I'm ready.

9:19Can you hear that? No. Oh, I can now. Don't try and get out of it. It's technical difficulty. Here we go. Original pirate material. Oh, that's not David. Yeah, who's that? Sorry. Dave, we've never spoken before. I guess, can I fly through in 30 seconds why I've chosen to call you? And then if it's not relevant, we can leave it there. Is that fair? I'll give you 10. There's a sales pitch, so let's go for it. You'll give me 10. All right, I'll try and do it as speedy as I can. So, Dave, I mean, we typically get invited in by ambitious businesses who, if they're honest, they might be having some frustrations when it comes to the new business and growth side of things.

10:01So it could be quantity and you want to bring in a few more prospects because the pipeline's looking bleak. It could be quality and you want to focus on bringing in more of the right clients to your business because you find yourself trapped in those never-ending deal cycles. I do have a feeling, Dave, you're probably going to tell me that none of those problems exist and actually everything's running perfectly at the moment. Nothing's ever perfect, but it's actually pretty good. and we've got decent CRM and processing systems and structures in place and just recruited a few bots. So, timing-wise, from your guys' point of view, it's probably not great because we're fairly well geared up at the moment.

10:42Okay. I mean, I expected that to probably be the case. Nothing's ever perfect, but it's fairly good. I guess out of the two things that I mentioned there, like the quality or the quantity, what one do you think would have stood out to you the most? To be honest, actually, we always want more and better data. The quality is actually fairly good. We've just enhanced and reinforced maybe our final execution closing process, which is working well at the moment. So we've had a bit of a recruitment drive and a change in personnel, which has helped us. I think our actual problem was our final close bit.

11:24So as I say, we're in fairly good shape in recent changes. Okay. So the more and better data in the CRM, that feels like it's maybe like on the targeting side of things. There might have been some challenges around there in the past, but it feels like they're moving in the right direction. The final closing part, is that deals actually like coming in? What could you give me an example of that? It's more the personnel closing those deals as opposed to necessarily the quantity or quality of them. It was perhaps the execution from a personnel side that we've improved. Right, okay. So it's more of a process thing of like actually moving things through the pipeline rather than actually, so it sounds like a people problem?

12:11It's a people problem, yeah. Okay. And then you've sorted out a process and then that problem's completely disappeared from your desk now. it's it's vastly improved and it's only been in the near future well in the recent time that it sort of occurred but it's massively improved and it's certainly not a headache anymore okay um okay that's fine so then i think if it's massively improved you're you're in a position where actually the the deals are gonna close quicker you said nothing's ever perfect but i I guess when it comes to the new business side of things, what would you need to have happening in the business to say, oh, it's improved even more than what you wanted it to achieve?

13:00Bigger budget. Bigger budget. So we are, we're good at where we are and we're growing and we're continuing to grow. And if we expect to grow at the rate we have forecast and targeted in the next 6, 12, 18 months, and we won't have a problem with that growth. I think we're just part of our cycle where we're just reviewing and assessing, but we're in a healthy place. We'll be in a much healthier place in 24 months. Right, okay. So you're in a healthy place. You're on the path to – it sounds like you're – I don't know if you've ever seen the film The Wizard of Oz, but it sounds like you're on the yellow brick road.

13:40you're on the path to the Emerald City you know you know where you're heading um a little bit a little bit okay could I could I ask maybe one last question before I let you go yeah I guess when you think about going down that path what what's one challenge that might come up that would stop you from having the the success that you're you're planning to have

14:08team continuity and expertise and there's always the potential turnover within the sales structure and to be honest actually ai and technology we're quite happy with our level of needs the quality of stuff we're getting through actually the changes in technology and software and what people require and how they require it is actually probably the biggest threat to our business at the moment. Yeah, that's fair. I think I'm hearing that a lot. And then, so if your two top performers came and knocked on your door tomorrow and said, we've been offered a better pay and we're going to go and move to an AI company selling SaaS, what would happen then?

14:55We have a conversation, but people are well compensated for what they do and there's a good plan in place. So worst case scenario is replaced. I mean, we're protected without the asset. So it's part of business, it's part of life. It's a headache, but we can move on and get around it. Okay, that's fair. I mean, listen, I've bombarded you with questions, so thank you for being so responsive. It sounds like you're in a very competent place. And actually, even if I was in a position where I said, oh, I can go out and I can find you some new business with bigger budgets actually you don't need that you just need to keep walking down this this path and this plan that you've set out yeah i think so i think we've over a few years of me when i've been there we are pretty much good on this plan we've done we've tested some things and we're pretty clear from results of what we've been doing of this path is working at the moment and we will see it continue working nice okay well thanks thank you so much for your time obviously I imagine you're a very well connected man I guess you don't know of anybody else that's in a least fortunate position than you that isn't on their way to the uh the Wizard of Oz um no not as good but I'm happy to ask and I can always share that's a level of problem amazing well it's been so lovely speaking to you today I'll connect with you on LinkedIn as well afterwards and obviously if anything comes up and you want to throw them our way then great but it's been really really lovely speaking to you so thank you so much for your time today take care bye bye

16:39beautiful work beautiful work you went down every avenue there didn't you every avenue do you want to walk down here with me down the yellow brick road and do you know what he said no I don't mate I'm happy I'm alright actually I haven't seen the bloody Wizard of Oz I think that was really good I don't like complimenting I know you don't. I think that was a really good case study, use case, whatever people want to say in like getting people to just keep sharing and not feeling like they were bombarded. The style of questioning and the tone made him want to just stay on the phone and chat to you, I think.

17:13So well done, mate. That's your compliment for this year. I won't be doing it. Thanks, man. 10 seconds he gave me and six minutes later, I've got one question for you off the back of that. which do you prefer long tail or short tail use cases that's a very personal question and i will not be answering that in a format like this okay right i'm gonna remove myself i'm gonna add you in and then we're gonna go again if that's all right of course i really i really i really hope you get bollocked so what you're looking for

17:56this is the nervous bit i love it the thrill the thrill of the chase if you're uh if you're in the comment hello that's not james is it it is yeah oh hello james you might hate me for this i'll be very honest it's actually one of those bloody sales calls so if you want to throw your phone out the window. That's okay. Could you sales call me next week? I'll happily take your call on holiday this week. Oh, of course I can. Yeah, yeah, no problem. When are you back in? I don't want to... Yeah, but happily take a sales call next week. All right. You're back in. I don't want to bother you when you're still on holiday.

18:26Yeah, I'm back next week. Back next week. All right. No trouble. Do you on holiday? Take care. Cheers, mate. Take care. Bye.

18:34Busy. He's a busy boy. He's on holiday. I'm entering the sun, unlike us, trapped in a dark room. Cold calling. right if you're listening let us know let us know what you're thinking let us know what you're feeling what you would have improved hello that's not graham is it it is oh hello graham you might hate me for this it's actually a bloody sales call i don't know if you want to throw your phone out the window now or let me have 30 seconds then decide oh i'll give you 30 seconds then you see okay okay i appreciate that so i normally get invited in by business development directors who are often a little bit frustrated when it comes to new business or maybe their sales team and often what they're seeing is there's not enough meetings in the diary with potential new customers so as a result the pipeline's got this kind of feast or famine thing going on or they are meeting people but it feels like the wrong types of people they're not qualified enough they don't actually have problems and they're trapped in these never-ending deal cycles but I've got the feeling this is probably the part where you tell me none of that's a problem for you and you're sat in the beer garden on a sunny day like this and want me to leave you alone so i'm not sat in the beer garden it is a problem but i also have fairly advanced solution being put in place at the moment okay so it sounds like it is a problem currently but you're on the path to solving it yeah yeah yeah i am i'm i'm involved with a couple of companies at the moment looking at a tool toolbox that will help me expand pipeline and more importantly as you said it's getting the right person on the other end of the phone and then the first thing is actually identifying the person and then getting them on the phone email reach out is just not working particularly well so I mean tell me i'll give you another 30 seconds tell me about what you do that's different well do you want to i could probably answer that better you might have to have to help me a bit for you is it more i need lots more meetings or is there a really particular type of kind of person or persona that you're after what's the what's the current situation i can probably answer the question a little better our sales cycle is pretty slow right you know i'll give you an indication We're looking for business electronic outsourcing from OEMs.

21:02Entry point, quarter million, growth to a million within a year, year and a half, and with the potential to grow way beyond that. So we're pretty selective. We're not just looking for quick-term, small electronics assemblies. We're looking for long-term relationships, and therefore we're looking at fairly big OEM, electronic manufacturing, plus a variety of sectors. That's my tackle audience. Okay. So I'm looking for pretty senior people in supply chain or senior management, CEO-type introductions such that I'm talking to the people who have got decision-making power at a very high level because it's high spends we're talking to.

21:45Okay. And it sounds like this wasn't always a problem. like you haven't always struggled to get in front of people no no I wouldn't say it's never easy to get in front of people but I think the dynamics have changed in terms of the way sales are conducted now you almost certainly once you got a reception phone number there was a good chance you might get through to talk to somebody most companies don't have receptions anymore They have auto-directed telephone systems or a generic thing. So you don't go out and chop doors anymore and make some work. So you're using social media, but everybody is also much more intelligent in terms of their network infrastructure.

22:34I have it here, right? So you've managed to get my phone number from somewhere. I don't know where. Right? And I'm using the same toolbox, right? I'm using similar tools. but I mean the reality is it's much more difficult to get to the point where you're having a meaningful conversation and you want to be able to get to the right people you've got to the right person here who makes decisions on how we develop our pipeline strategy so yeah Have you got people that are in the team they're out there booking meetings and kicking doors down for you? What's the setup in terms of how stuff comes to you?

23:15No, I mean, it isn't really that. I mean, I've got myself and three salespeople, one attached to each of the sites. And essentially, we have critical requirements that they're working on against sectors, against values, against matching up our technology and capabilities with their needs, identifying their needs. So essentially they're doing a lot of direct online research. And to be honest, that's my frustration at the moment, is that I'm tying up expensive people doing web research or AI interrogation research. But obviously it's individual questions you're asking. Do they outsource in the UK?

24:12and it goes on and on. But to do a good day of that might get you three or four snippets of leads. And what I'm looking at at the moment is a couple of AI generation tools that will do that against a much broader database and against the criteria that I've defined and hopefully give me a much better answer. So I'm just about to try our system in the next couple of weeks. Okay. So it sounds like from what you're saying there's maybe a feeling of like a lot of wasted time and not enough actual conversations happening three or four when you'd probably rather have 50 you know you like that type of thing yeah i mean i prefer well it's never 50 right because because you know as i said we are a 60 million pound company that wants to grow to 10 million in the next two years and that could be four contracts at 2.5 million, or it could be 10 contracts at a million, but certainly not 50 at, you know, 100 ,000 or whatever, or 200 ,000, because that would just swamp our engineering group.

25:19So we're quite selective, and I'm not looking to outreach to 50, 40 companies at a time, because it's one of these things, if I get people hooked, and I've got 10 on the hook, and they're all 2 million, I can't cope with that in terms of launching and streamlining it. So we've got to be quite selective and always have pipeline ready such that when someone switches off at the bottom of the funnel or halfway down the funnel, I've got top of the funnel to start outreach again. So as long as I've got an outreach that's got some pre-positioned pipeline, I'll selectively choose what I want to take down that pipeline with each of my guys and look at converting that.

26:04Got it. I do, you know, it's not just my team. I own my own targets, my own customers. I tend to go with the bigger customers and bigger targets, more strategic ones for the organization. But in terms of, you know, what I would call stage four, stage five pipeline, which is, you know, they're absolutely showing an interest. There's a potential data pack. I've got a data pack over. I'm already in court with them. I have four active at the moment but they're four damn good ones right

26:42I land one of those and I've got three million contract wow I was going to say you sound like a rare there's not many sales leaders that are out there like getting in the trenches as well with the team so I'm sure it's not unnoticed so I mean it sounds like the ideal scenario is can we find the right person that's potentially in the market for what we do, also have a way to contact them and not waste our time chasing our tail. We actually just have meetings in the diary that are ready to go with people at the right time. That's the dream scenario. That is the dream scenario because I'm not going to pay somebody 60, 70, 80 grand as a sales guy to be a website researcher.

27:23Don't blame you. Okay, can I ask a bit of a direct question? Yeah. Have you given up on looking at ways of fixing those things? I'm not giving up in ways of fixing the things. I've got a potential solution I'm going to be trialing, but I'm not, you know, that doesn't mean that I will go with that. I'm pretty impressed with what I've seen. I've had an initial evaluation or initial trial, We're now going to do it with my brother group and some of the CEO and the CFO based in the Skull in Ireland. So we're going to demo that. And if it's successful and the economics work out right, we may go that way.

28:09But I'm not adverse to looking at other things if there are other solutions out there. Well, I mean, if I could help you with a few of those things that we've mentioned, And would it be a silly idea to get some time on a team's call over the next week or so and see if that would potentially even just be an option for you? I don't think there's any silly thing. You know, to be honest, you know, you're always looking for the best solution. The best solution is going to give me, my team, the correct focus. And that focus is to have the phone call. Because the phone call is most people are not rude.

28:51I've not been rude to you, I never put the phone down. You haven't. Most people are, and I believe that's a professional way to deal with things. So I expect if I get to the right person and I get, I'm able to open a conversation. At least I have, as you've done here, you have an ear that will listen and take on board. And then at the end of that, say, no, I'm not interested or it's worth a further conversation. So I'm giving you that message. It's worth a further conversation. Let's do that. What's the diary looking like over the next week? When's normally good to catch you? Well, just hold on.

29:27I'm going to stick my earphone in so I can put my phone in so I can get my hand to my mouse. Can you still hear me? I can still hear you. Perfect. Just put my earpods in. It's a bit easier. On Thursday the 16th. Yeah. Wednesday the 15th. Wednesday's probably better for me, if that's okay. I have no appointments going through the 15th. Should we go for the, it's 10am okay, I've got an open at 10 on the 15th. Yep, 10am's fine. And I've got your email as graham.com. Well, I'll pop something over now in the diary. Can I ask you a weird question before I let you go? I ask it to everyone, it's not just you.

30:11Is there any reason other than an act of God that I'll be crying into my coffee because you've found a better person to speak to at 10am on the 15th. If you put that in my diary, I'll honor your call. Oh, I appreciate that. All right, Graham. Well, it's been lovely talking to you. I appreciate it. And yeah, I'll see if we can help next week. I look forward to talking. All right. Got it in my diary. It's just popped in. Thank you. Nice one. Take care. Cheers, mate. All right. Cheers. Bye. Bye.

30:41What a masterclass. Wow. How long was that called? 13 minutes. I mean, that was... What did he say to start with? He wasn't rude, but he wasn't like... He was like, yeah, go on then. I'll let you have your moment. Do you know the bit, right? For anyone that's watching it, if you're watching in the comments now, give some praise because that was an absolute masterclass. The bit was the reverse. He said, what do you do? And he said, well, listen. And then you reversed it. Talk us through what you did there. Why do you think that worked so well? Because at the start of the call, people are in that deciphering mode, distorting the information deciphering now.

31:27And I've never had a scenario where I've told someone what to do at that point, that it's not ended in like send me an email, call me back, not interested. He still doesn't really know what we do. He just can't tell me what he's struggling with. But the way I like to answer it is you can, rather than being all avoidant, is like oh maybe you can help me answer that and then maybe you can help me answer that are you struggling with a b or c i mean that was that was beautiful to what it's been two years since we've done the live cold calling show first show back i mean no pressure for my next call