There was a time my phone would ring and I’d be excited. Now I just stare at the number from Glasgow or +31 or UNKNOWN and wonder who I’ll be hanging up on today.

No, I haven’t have a car accident in the last two years. No, I don’t want to change my mobile phone tariff. No, I can’t answer three simple questions about my life insurance. And no, I don’t want to go to my sister’s for lunch on Sunday (that last one was my mum, but you get the idea).

The problem with this rush of cold calling sales activity is that we’re now all set up to expect the worst when answering a call from an unknown. Which is a shame, because when WE call a prospect, we’ve probably got a really good reason to be doing so. Which bring me to…

How to not be a pest

The bad rep new business agencies carry is very much a case of the bad apples spoiling those of us who consider ourselves to be Golden Delicious; companies with warehouses full of phone jockeys wearing Britney Spears headsets, churning through random numbers in the hope of accidentally finding a customer once every 1,000th call.

That’s not how you get people to respond to your call. We prefer to make smaller numbers of calls and we 1) make sure we have a REALLY good reason to call, and 2) have done some research about the company we’re calling. You can’t do that if you’re making 1,000 calls a day.

Respect your prospect and they will give you ten more seconds of attention (which is a lot). Mention the work you enjoyed that they did for X (because you researched it) and how the work you’ve just done for Y (a relevant name-drop you chose based upon your research) yielded such great results that you want to suggest something similar.

Boom.

You’re no longer a random; you know who you’re talking to and why (and you even have a suggested course of action that drives the call).

YES you’re still a pest (to a degree) but you’ll be the best-dressed pest they’ve dealt with today, and often that’s enough to get the ball rolling.

#bestdressedpest (I’m keeping that one).