Ari Galper's "Curious/Humble" Approach to Cold Calling

We teach EVERY style here... the "humble curious" approach is just another name someone put on something to make it sound original... However, yes I can vouch that it works.

There are alot of ways to approach cold calling, and pretty much ANY of them will work consistently as long as a person is doing at least a couple hundred calls per day...if not, then almost NONE of them work consistently.

Cold calling is alot about momentum; momentum on several different levels.

The actual "getting down and dialing" is where 90% of the people who fail are failing.

Thanks; in terms of technique do you prefer this style over the others you've used?

I personally like the humble approach alot. It ingratiates people, fits my disposition. Sometimes I'm in more of an aggressive mood and I switch out, but I have used the humble approach more in my time than any other and it works well for me, so I would say yes. Coming off like a cynical big shot isnt really my style on the phone, even though it is my style as a manager.

For people with alot of bass in their voice...the authoritative approach works best, so I agree with David, you can say the same script in a different tone...go with what feels good to you tone wise.

It may take 100 calls to discover what inflections work best for you.

I also use what Kanigan calls the "lazy executive approach" sometimes. Alot of "...Uhhhhh's...." Kind of real casual and matter of fact.

This is the only type of cold calling that I could ever get myself to do. I could only have an open conversation to see if the business arrangement might be a good fit.

No matter the cold calling method, I think it was JD that said most people try to find suspects and try to "talk them into" becoming prospects, where they should be just spending time finding prospects and turning them into a sale.

Or something like that.

Joe, it was originally Zig that said it, but sure, I'll take the credit

Wish he had that lesson on youtube but I havent been able to find it. "are you prospecting, or suspecting". man that was a good lesson. I forget what the name of the series is even, but I use to have trainees sit in the break room and listen to the whole two hour course before going out on the floor.

Ps. You can use the "curious humble" approach and still pitch like a machine, its about sticking to the pitch no matter how you approach it tonally...finding your groove or "frequency", and riding it and staying on it.

You can be nice and ingratiating, you dont have to overwhelm...but you have to be consistent...sometimes it will take 45 minutes to find the groove, but once you are in it, ride it like a wave and stay on it.

Pitching like a machine isnt about being super hyper, its about moving steadily and surely, staying with the program, and not putting down the phone till breaktime.

You can be gentle, or you can be authoritative, but the key is to be consistent and get into a consistent rhythm.

Thats how telemarketers get a consistent daily result. Predictably based on a certain action repeated a certain number of times.

You arent repeating the same action until you are in a consistent groove.

Nothing wrong with looking for the right fit in a prospect.

You need three things to make a sale, and agreement about them between the buyer and the seller is an absolute necessity:

1. Need - the buyer must need what you're offering. Otherwise you will encounter buyer's remorse. Need may not be apparent at the start of the call, but should be uncovered within 2-4 minutes if it's there. Prospect must acknowledge, or it doesn't exist--no matter what you think.

2. Budget - the buyer must be able to pay you for your expertise at the level you feel good about. Otherwise, you will be resentful after taking them on as a client. And whose fault is that?!

3. Personality - the buyer must have a personality you can work with. Someone who argues with you all the time is simply not worth the trouble. This is the hardest to detect, but with experience you get the extra senses that something is up--and you must confront it.

All three of these elements of fit must be present, or attempts to turn the prospect into a client or customer will be a bad idea. So sales is simply the process of finding these three things out with your prospect.

You can be aggressive about this, or you can be "soft" in your approach. As others have said, the real key is continuing to dial and have conversations with people. You ain't gonna sell anything if you don't talk to anybody!

I agree with everything Jason said, except I think you should be able to make that determination in a minute or less and move on or not. If you are taking more than 30 seconds to a minute to disqualify someone, you are wasting my clock time sus-pecting people, and slowing down the dialer.

The dialer will start predicting your time and not serving up calls back to back, taking one minute lags in between calls. It stacks up calls according to how long you are on the phone (average time), so I wouldnt want you staying on unless you had someone seriously pitchable.

Dont suspect all day and interrogate. Find a prospect and save it for them.

There are different approaches, but thats exactly what Zig calls "suspecting" ie; interrogating not interested people... trying to turn suspects into prospects...

You can get somewhere with that, but the faster you can just move on and not bang heads , the more laydown prospects you will find that are easy closes.

The style you mention works, its more high conversion- rebuttals... Im talking more "high probability"... Depending on the callers skill level, either work.

Dialing manually is a different ballgame, on a dialer though, it will lag up on you if you dont move fast.

If one or two rebuttals dont work at the greeting, move on, and get them out faster than 60 seconds. Most rebuttals are going to happen in the greeting, and its quick to decide who is pitchable or not. A greeting should take 5 seconds... and you have 30 to sixty more to find out who is a prospect or not. When you count 30 seconds its longer than it seems in a phone pitch.

Put it this way..., and it will make more sense: if you are taking 4 minutes per call, then you are only doing 15 calls per hour. If 90 percent are un pitchable, then you are only doing 1.5 pitches per hour..., and the rest of the time you are just interrogating "suspects".

IMO, the only call that should take longer than 30-60 seconds is one where you are fully pitching a "prospect".

One advantage of Ari Galper's method is that it creates a
more natural client/consultant relationship so if you're
going to be the consultant it's a method I'd recommend.

Ultimately whatever works for you is probably what you
should be doing.

I would say though that one of the huge weaknesses of
most people doing a lot of cold calling is that there's a
tendency to be too mindless in their approach.

Cold callers rarely analyze if they're really targeting the
best prospects and if they're setting up those prospects
in a way that increases the chance they'll become high
paying repeat clients over time.

If you're an internet marketer with no cold calling experience
you may seriously consider hiring a telemarketer to make
calls for you on a modest retainer plus commission.

That way you can be focused on the business side of things...
making sure you're targeting high paying clients and doing the
other key things in business that will make you serious money.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh