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After cold calling for 20 years, I found the best opening line
Brandon Mulrenin16 Sept 2024
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which cold call opening line is the best and I'm going to share all those results with you guys in today's video. Alright, so here's how this case study worked. The first thing that I did was I said, okay, I'm going to make a thousand cold call contacts. “A contact is simply when you get the right person on the phone,” the decision maker. So if you call Bob Jones and you get in touch with Bob Jones over the phone, that is a contact. Alright, we're going to talk about the difference between a contact and a conversation, but a contact is when you get the decision maker, the person you attempted to call on the phone.
decision maker, the person you attempted to call on the phone. Then what I did was this, I used one cold call opener for a hundred contacts. So I'd use the same opener for a hundred contacts, document the “result and then use another opener for another hundred contacts.” And here was the test. The test was to see which opening line, which opening cold calling script had the highest success rate and the success rate that we measured was getting past the first 10 seconds of
result and then use another opener for another hundred contacts. And here was the test. The test was to see which opening line, which opening cold calling script had the highest success rate and the success “rate that we measured was getting past the first 10 seconds of” the contact or the conversation and I was able to at least ask the first question in the script. Alright, and so that's what we deem a conversation. So I would call a hundred people, get a hundred people on the
phone and we measured each cold calling line to see which one had the highest success rate of actually leading us to a good conversation. A conversation by definition is where I was at least minimum able to have a ask the first question in my script “where the person didn't just pick up the phone, not interested” to hang up on you. Alright, so that those are the some key key key definitions. Now, let's get into these cold calling openers and I'll share with you the results. Alright, first one coming in last place.
with you the results. Alright, first one coming in last place. We tried 10 in 10th place was, hey, this is Brandon with Brookstone Realtors. How are you today? This is still a cold call opening line that is being taught that's “being used all the time and the result here was a 37.2% success” rate. So almost 4 out of 10 of the people that I talked to did this opening gambit actually work meaning almost a little over 63% of the time it did not work.
They kind of squirm a little bit. I'm really sorry. And then they jump right into the script. It's so inauthentic and every prospect knows it and you know it. That's number one. Number two, the thing is when you open your conversation with this, “you elicit crazy amounts of psychological reactance.” This is no longer theory. We tested it. This only works 37% of the time, meaning the vast majority of the time people are met with, you know what? I'm not interested. Take me off your list. Hang up. Don't call me anymore, etc.
I use this opener a hundred times, a lot more than that. But in the case study that I just recently did, I used it a hundred times with a hundred contacts and that led to 70 conversations. Why? Why? “Because now I'm eliciting some empathy from the prospect.” I'm calling out the fact that people don't like getting cold calls and I'm doing what we call laying on that grenade. I'm saying, listen, I know I'm calling and interrupting you and I know you probably don't like it. And guess what?
Change if what you're doing is not working, you know, the definition of insanity. So stop, change it, track it. Here's what I recommend. So I tell every agent that I coach, do your own case study, take 10 different cold calling openers, “and just track your success rate, where your success rate” is okay, when somebody picks up the phone and says hello, using these five different openers, what percentage of the time am I able to get past that initial resistance, and do your own work and tell me which cold call opener is working the best for you.
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