Video Playbook: Book 1 In 3 Cold Calls With This Opener

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1. 0:40

   I was pretty much ready to drop this whole thing. And this top performing insurance producer came over and he was like, hey, dude, look, the way you're opening your cold calls makes you totally come off like you're 19 years old, which I was at the time. He said, but you got some potential. Look, I work with like 10 other people in this office. Start there and just be like, hey, we “work with a few other people in this office. Have you heard a name tossed around?” hadn't, they'll probably take a meeting with us and then just bring me along. And that week alone, I booked five meetings in one week instead of booking one meeting in five weeks. And lo and behold, the heard the name tossed around opener was born. And I've continued to hone, change it and sharp it such that anytime I've gotten back into an outbound cold calling role, I'm typically

   In Cold call opener mistakes

2. 2:55

   changes the way that your team sells. And the biggest one that you don't want to miss is our live sales kickoff masterclass. Go to 30 MPC.com backslash SKO to save your seat. I'll see you there. So when a prospect picks up a cold call, what you have to realize is in the first five “they're trying to categorize you as a rando or not.” did I catch you at a bad time or how's your day going? Absolutely suck. There's some of the worst openers out there. And the reason for that is they're not really calling out the fact that it's a cold call. So you're not really leaning into it, but it's still really obvious that it's a cold call. When you ask, did I catch you at a bad time or how's your day going? Because

   In Relevance-led cold call openers

3. 6:33

   In the majority of my career, I've sold at earlier stage companies before they were established. And so most of the time you will hear a no, but how can I help you? And in that case, I might just transition to a permission-based opener, which might sound like, well, shoot, I mean, look, we work with a couple other people in the office or we work with a couple other Sequoia Capital Portfolio companies. “Can I give you a sense of what we got going on with them?” And then you can tell me if it's even moderately relevant for us to meet. And so again, I'm doubling down on the heard the name tossed around opener and the Sequoia Capital tie and using that to ask for permission to tell them how I work with other Sequoia Portfolio companies. On the off chance that they say, yes, I actually don't need to do that. I don't need to pitch at all.

   In Not-interested objections

4. 6:35

   And so most of the time you will hear a no, but how can I help you? And in that case, I might just transition to a permission-based opener, which might sound like, well, shoot, I mean, look, we work with a couple other people in the office or we work with a couple other Sequoia Capital Portfolio companies. Can I give you a sense of what we got going on with them? “And then you can tell me if it's even moderately relevant for us to meet.” And so again, I'm doubling down on the heard the name tossed around opener and the Sequoia Capital tie and using that to ask for permission to tell them how I work with other Sequoia Portfolio companies. On the off chance that they say, yes, I actually don't need to do that. I don't need to pitch at all. All I need to say is, hey, well, that's awesome.

   In Meeting-setting asks

5. 7:04

   Portfolio companies. On the off chance that they say, yes, I actually don't need to do that. I don't need to pitch at all. All I need to say is, hey, well, that's awesome. Normally we'd be working with someone like you by now. I guess. What'd you hear? Or I might say, oh, have you taken a look at us before? “Or hey, have you ever thought about talking to someone on our team or something like that?” You need something to break the ice and get them talking around, hey, you've heard our name tossed around. What did you hear? Why haven't you taken a meeting with us? In other words, give me the objection that is unspoken as to why you weren't a customer. If you really have heard our name tossed around and let me just handle that immediately. So again, to recap there, if someone says, no, I'm going to go into a permission based

   In Question-led cold call openers

6. 7:25

   You need something to break the ice and get them talking around, hey, you've heard our name tossed around. What did you hear? Why haven't you taken a meeting with us? In other words, give me the objection that is unspoken as to why you weren't a customer. If you really have heard our name tossed around and let me just handle that immediately. So again, to recap there, if someone says, no, I'm going to go into a permission based “opener and then I'll go into my traditional value prop, which we'll cover on another video.” And if they say, yes, I actually don't need to do any of that stuff. I just need to ask, what did you hear? So a couple of common misconceptions with this opener. The first one is a lot of people think that this thing will not work unless people have heard your name tossed around. And what you have to realize is the purpose of this opener is quite literally when you

   In Call scripts and talk tracks

7. 8:21

   big now, but at the time no one knew who they were. And then I was the ninth employee over at Pave and no one knew who that nine employee company was for sure. And still I use this opener almost every single day and it worked every time because again, the goal of it is not to have someone hear your name tossed around. “The goal of it is to get those first 15 seconds to break the perception that I'm a rando.” That's number one. Number two is a lot of people, they're like, I don't work with venture backed companies or I don't have any customers who share a common investor with XYZ customer prospect that I'm going after. And that's fine. There are a couple of iterations that I like to use in the off chance that for some reason no one that I know is in that same investor's portfolio.

   In Cold call openers

8. 9:54

   effect. So to recap it all, there are a couple of different pieces that we went over. Number one, we talked about introducing the common thread that you have to that prospect first. Number two, then we talked about introducing yourself. And then number three, we talked about asking if they've heard your name tossed around from there. If they say yes. Awesome. Shocker. What'd you hear? “If they say no transition to a permission based opener and then go into your value prop.” Once they give you the permission to quote unquote pitch already, folks, give it away. Oral, LetMeKnowWhatYouThinkOfThisOne, and I would actually love it if you put your version or your best pass at the HeardTheNameTossedAround Opener down below. Maybe it's Investor, maybe it's Geo, what have you and I would try to respond to as many of those ones that come into the comments. Alrighty folks, peace out.

   In Not-interested objections

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