The Cold Call Opener That Gets You In the Room - Trench Tips

0:00Well, if it isn't my best friend, Zach Thompson, best friend in the whole wide world. How's my best friend doing? Wow. Someone's trying to butter me up after what they called me this week. It was hot. You were trying to get a reaction out of me and you got the reaction. And we won't be saying what I called you because I could be arrested in many countries. Something that people said a lot in the 90s, but you can't really say it anymore. You can't say it anymore. Bang out of order. Please delete our WhatsApp history. A bit of a different style of episode this week. I thought, because it's been a hot week, we are at other ends of the country.

0:35We are solving similar, the same, and different problems throughout. I thought we could have a bit of a back and forth about maybe some of the challenges or stories or themes that we've spotted within the business this week and maybe how we've solved them. And if we haven't solved them, then maybe this would be a great therapy session for me. Someone listening might solve them. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They might say, listen, I can actually solve that problem for you right away and get in there. Do you want to kick off or I can kick off with something? Why don't you kick off? I don't like to go first.

1:09You like to kick off though, don't you? One of the things that we've been working on in the Manchester office is we've got a client in the marketing space. And we've had some results and then we didn't have some results. And then we had some more results and stuff like that. and we've been playing around. I'm always thinking about like A, B testing things. And we've landed on an opener that has had some great success rate. I don't know if you've, you must've heard this at some point or maybe not, but we can talk about it. The opener, I don't know if this can be verbatim, but what we've landed on that's really, really getting us into conversations where we know picking up the phone is like, how do I get into conversations is I call you up and say, Zach, bit of a weird one.

1:54I've just been looking at some of your content online um i've had a bit of a thought i guess can i fly through why i chose to call you okay i like it not from the tone but i do like the content of what you're saying it's so like it feels like i'm already in the house and we've had like a great great results in terms like getting into conversation but that is something that people are going to go well have you done some research are you looking because we are a marketing agency that are engaging with content content could be different things linkedin website social media blah blah blah whatever it is and by the time you're into the conversation the one thing that i would urge you to do if you're going to use something like this to get into the conversation is you have the website open you have the linkedin page actually have looked at some content yeah like you do yeah what what's it about then fuck everything you'd say yeah no no but like but people sometimes say well what kind of content well i had a little look at a few different bits on social media and the website i had a few questions can i fly through yeah well which and then by the time you're into your problem statement we're typically working with companies you might be struggling with creating the content x y and z i won't go into logistics for client confidence oh i know what client you're doing this on yeah yeah yeah and i bet it works doesn't it mate it's flying it is absolutely flying why didn't i think of that one that's a really good one but then you could always flip it couldn't you no no i was ringing to find out if you're content with your current supplier wow wow yeah i did that yeah because they're like i don't know any content yeah yeah that's exactly what i called actually it's new york all over again yeah that's why i called um so that's one of the things I like, I feel like a bit of a show and tell of, oh, I've solved that problem this week.

3:45It feels good. I'm proud of that. What have you been cooking with this week, Zach Thompson? I've got a good tip for people, actually. It feels like we're sharing tips now, but I've got a good tip that every time I do it, it works. So, you know, you get on these discovery calls and sometimes people have booked in with you and you're like, I know you're here because you've got some, you've got an issue and you sort of tell me you've got one, but you just don't seem that arsed. So about 10 minutes into the call, if I spot this, I go, you know what, I'm sure you can imagine, I sit down with a lot of people who want to get on a call like this because they're like, I have to do something about this.

4:22I definitely need to fix this problem now, ASAP, whatever. You don't sound like that, though. And they always go, no, no, no. And you can see that total body language change. I had a guy the other day who was like, I'm just getting some pricing together. And when I gave him that back, he was like, no, no, I'd want to do something like in the next couple of weeks. And it became like him settling me on why he was motivated to do it. And that's a little technique called overcorrection. You know, I had a guy on a discovery call the other day. And towards the end, we're doing this back and forth. And I was like, listen, I don't think you should do this.

4:57I think maybe this might work, but you definitely shouldn't do that. And the push away, but a genuine push away. like it's not pushing away for the sake it's like i'm actually giving you the beer and he just went i'm just gonna take my hat off for a minute and just step aside and just say i love what you're doing right now i'm really enjoying this and let me get back into the buyer mode but i think it's just like that that human honesty it's we live in an echo chamber where i think people are being honest and upfront and not showing cred decks but i know that they definitely are and actually just zig when other people are zagging.

5:31Speaking of zagging, what's been going on with you? What do you mean, mate? I've just told you. It's your go. Oh, your tip. Oh, right. You delivered it like a tip. I thought it was going to be more like a story. Don't worry. I've got one for you. Give it the format. Mate, it's a new format. We're playing with it. The other thing that we've been doing is Trojan horsing. and i'm gonna give sorry i don't know why i made that noise sorry it's okay can you do it again for me i just made a noise like it was like some sort of really nice lasagna or something that you got the oven is it because you heard the word horse lasagna horse oh yeah there was that yeah supermarket ordeal wasn't there thousand and who won i expected that year 2017 wow Wow.

6:25Shame, Richie. Keep going. So Trojan horse activity. So there's two folds to this. And I would say one is sales and one is marketing. And it has to be genuine. So it can't just be like, I'm just doing this from a deceitful way. But if you are really, really struggling to get in front of people, maybe they're C-suite, maybe they're like certain kind of people, one of the plays that we've now been putting into our bit of our sales book is like the media play. So let me talk to you how I would do this. I would build a media brand and that could be a blog, a vlog, a podcast, a report, a newsletter, whatever it is for the company.

7:09And I'm going to interview people about the problems we solve. So let me play it in, let me play it in Wham's world. So I would say, right, okay. I want to interview sales directors, sales leaders, owners, founders of big sales companies about all the challenges they're having when it comes to getting in front of new people. Okay. I'd interview them. One, I'd learn lots of information. Two, I'm going to take all of that information. I'm going to turn it into some form of content. So thanks to AI and the conversation we've had, that's now my content strategy. And then I'm also going to be promoting that and working on a borrowed audience.

7:48So one sales leader is going to be connected to 100 other sales leaders. They're going to see we've done this piece of content together. But also, at the back end of that conversation, if the questions flow that way and you can genuinely help them, you're going to say something like, you mentioned X, Y, and Z. We typically work with people to help them solve that. Would it be ridiculous to have another conversation off the back of that to see if we could help? Bang, there's a relationship there. You're already in the room. and if you're calling people up and saying we've got this feature we want to work with people we want to promote you one people love to have their ego stroked and two if they can help promote themselves to your audience as well it's a win-win so i spoke to somebody this week who was a leadership coach who also wrote for forbes on the side and i was like you should just be doing this you get in front of all the ceos promote them on forbes and then just tell them what you do at the end.

8:45I was like, you don't need us. Lo and behold, they're going to come back hopefully and use us to do that. But with Aerie, they can't do it themselves because one of the biggest problems is obviously time. But come on, that is just no brainer. 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. No, 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.

9:22So 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. Really good. Really good. Really, really good actually. That was your idea. That was my idea. Fully your idea, but it would work. I think that would work really well in, you know, where you're the niche. It's like, it's relatively niche, but you're like the industry leader in it. So, cause a lot of companies are like, oh, we, we represent that patch of audience. So, so we're the, we're the marketing brand for marketing brands. You know, that sort of thing.

9:59We're the, we're the shoe that's worn by this demographic. so for those like it makes sense that you have that sort of funnel in like oh i value your opinion as well on the back end i give you this thing and you know what so i someone's obviously done this play with me someone someone sent me an email ages ago and was like we'd love to feature you on this thing can you answer these questions and you know what i'm like my whisper flow i just go bang bang bang here's the answers i don't think you can talk about nile what this on a podcast whisper flow no you said no no message you and said i want his speech on this thing but mate he's featured a lot of idiots search my name on google now and see what comes up it's a company i tried to before but it says you search it too much on our company laptops i don't have a company laptop it's my um no that it's a brand but now whenever anyone searches me there's this blog with them and then i can't remember what they're called oh it's like got got a bit of seo behind right let me i'm gonna search it now jack for instance here we go right generate quality b2b leads um so one jack for instance is a buzzword the third one is a game consultancy so that comes up as the a game podcast jiminy lead feeder so it's all other people's sales tools that i'm coming up again to sell better.

11:24Amazon, thank you. I can't find the one that it was on. It began with a chrono. Chrono, here we go. Chrono.1, cold calling is no longer scary with Jack Frimson, 8th of August, 2024. And then right at the back end, they put themselves as their platform. And I don't even know what it is. If you're watching at home, this is quite thrilling to watch this part here. This is Jack looking through his phone for an article about Jack. but there you go chrono that's what people treat him for me do you know what your backstory is so humble i think that's what people don't realize like a while ago you were working at amazon and now when you type your own name into google there's an article about you and i think it's a roller coaster isn't it chrono what a journey chrono chrono you're certainly missing one right if you got something for me what's on your list Yes.

12:22Yes. So we get a lot of success from, you've qualified someone. Wait, just, are you saying we? As in me and you? We, the royal we, as we have a meeting. We get a lot of success. We have a meeting. Yeah. It is in your world. Easy for you to say. You've got someone qualified, and then you're going to call back to get the meeting over the line, right? And a lot of people, you know, they do that, bang, I want to like, let's get something down. It's like a bit rushed and a bit nervous. But calling back and making it have a bit of friction to it, we're finding a lot of success in. So ringing you up and like, Jack, we spoke last week about getting some time in the diary.

13:01I'm not 100 % yet if it's relevant for you. I like it. Just to check that it is, the bit that I wasn't clear on is, here's the bit that I'm missing, the qualification bit, right? So that's one way of doing it. The other bit of friction is it's a bit more assumptive. you said to call back about getting the meeting in the diary just looking at those I'm not 100 % sure what team to put you in front of yet do you think it's more this this or this option wise so we're into qualifying so actually adding like that there's a friction to the buying doesn't take you know we've all heard the stories about Rolex and Ferrari and super yachts and stuff they add these little friction bits to the process that make the other person, the purchaser have to earn the next steps.

13:49So adding that into the callbacks, it almost sounds counterintuitive. But adding that in, you see a really nice conversion right off the back of it where it's just quite easy to get into an engaging conversation. That's really good. Mate, we've been doing this podcast for quite a while and actually we've come far because look how far we've come. That reminds me of the domain you bought recently. That was someone's birthday gift. And if you want the domain, just drop me a message on LinkedIn and I'll send you that domain. I want you to like and subscribe. Don't hurt him, John. Please don't hurt him.

14:29You've got to like and subscribe. And if you do not like and subscribe, I'm going to kick his head in. Please do not allow violence in the facility. Like and subscribe and we can all go home safe. Thank you.

14:46uh question for you if you got a 10 grand bonus tomorrow yeah what's the first thing you're buying tomorrow yeah a garmin wow but a 10 grand one i want to spend it all on a garmin do you know the difference between the uh the other the layers there's like the ultra one that's solar powered. You know that? No. Oh, that makes sense though. Yeah. Because you're probably out for 240 Moab. 240. Wow. I like the Venno 4, if anyone wants to send me that one. It looks like quite a bit more of a, some of them are a bit bulky and they look a bit like toy watches, don't they? Yeah. Okay, right. Well, this ties in beautifully to the task.

15:35The challenge. The challenge. All you've got to do, you've got to print screen if you've got a normal phone you'll be able to screenshot on your phone zach zach went through a period this year where he didn't have a screenshot button on his phone so he messaged me at two in the morning saying can you screenshot this for me mate screenshot wherever you've listened to this episode spotify apple youtube whatever post it on linkedin tag me yeah for interesting maybe have a search on google as well you might loads of articles you'll find something interesting zach thompson that zac no h zach thompson i also tag garmin and then write a little comment say this whole episode was talking about garmin if we get a sponsorship deal with garmin whoever gets us that that deal i'm gonna give him two grand two grand two grand two grand cash well well we know what you're charging the sponsors now it's a bit more than two grand fair fair tag us tag garmin um yeah nice one oh thanks see you brother shoes bye guys