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

All right, so back in the day, I used to cold call partners of law firms in la and I would literally pick a building and I would just go top to bottom and call every single door I could find. And for about five weeks straight, I got freaking reamed on the phones. I made around $200 a week. And I think I booked maybe one meeting. And it was more of like a sympathy meeting. It wasn't an actual yes, I'm willing to check out your services kind of thing. And so eventually 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 to 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 her name tossed around? And even if they 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 so such that anytime I've gotten back into an outbound cold calling role, I'm typically able to book one in three of my connects on any given cold call. So if 10 people pick up, I'll usually get three meetings out of it. And so we'll walk through a couple different pieces of the herd the name tossed around opener. Number one, we'll walk through the traditional cold call openers that don't work and how the herd, the name tossedaround opener flips those on its head. Number two, we'll walk through some example talk tracks. And then number three, we'll break down that talk track and go through a couple different options that you can use to customize the herd the named toss around opener to your spot space. And a three, a two, a one. Let's ride. So when a prospect picks up a cold call, what you have to realize is in the first five seconds they're trying to categorize you as a rando or not. And this is why openers like Did I catch you at a bad time? Or how's your day going? Absolutely suck. They're 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 everyone knows you don't actually care. And it's always a bad time for a cold call. And these prospects are seasoned and they've probably received 1,000 cold calls in their life. So in the first five seconds, you've revealed that you've categorized yourself as a rando, and lo and behold, you could have the best pitch in the world and it will not matter because you've already lost their ears. So instead, what the herd the name tossed around opener does is it flips those openers on their head. In fact, you are not even going to introduce yourself at the beginning of the call. There are a couple different pieces of it. The first thing and the most important thing to lead with is we're going to lead with the common thread that you have to that customer. You might share a similar investor. You might have customers in the same investor's portfolio. You might work with one of their competitors. You might work with companies in the same industry. You might work with companies in the same geography. There is always some seventh degree of separation that you can find to David Bacon. Go find your seventh degree of separation to David Bacon and lead with that first. And then, and only then, step two, can you introduce yourself? Step two, you say your name, your company, but the emphasis is not on that. And then lastly, step number three, we will ask the famous question, which is again, not the most important part of the opener. The first part is. But we're going to ask him if you've heard our name tossed around. All right, so let's give this one a whirl. Let's assume that I was calling Nick, and Nick is part of the Sequoia Capital portfolio of investments. And I might work with one of the hundred plus Sequoia Capital portfolio companies out there. And so I might open like this, hey, Nick, we work with a few other Sequoia Capital portfolio companies. It's Armand at 30 mpc. Have you heard her name tossed around? So let's unpack that one a little bit. The first thing that I led with before anything else was not my name, but again, it was the common thread that I have to Nick. And in this case, he happens to be a Sequoia Capital portfolio company and I happen to work with other Sequoia Capital portfolio companies. If I didn't, again, I could use something else, but there's almost always something that I could use. Step number two is then I introduce myself. But you'll notice that my tone actually dipped down a little bit for a second. I sort of brushed past. Yeah, it's arm on a 30 MPC. And the reason for that is in step three, that's where I want to draw their attention to the herd. The name tossed around question. And there's a lot that you can do with your tone on that third question. You'll notice it's sort of this groany shoulder shruggy. You've heard her name tossed around, right? That's the vibe that you're going for with that opening question. You want them to feel like even if you haven't heard our name tossed around, you've heard him tossed around, right? Or you saw that movie the other day, right? You almost want them to feel a little bit weird if they haven't heard your name tossed around to continue to create the perception that you are not a rando and you have the right to be in their space. And so if you do this correctly, still the vast majority of people, unless you sell for like Salesforce or something like that, will not know who you are. 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. 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 aren'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 additional 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 are a rando, we need to find a common thread to make it seem like they should have heard your name tossing around. So I sold for Northwestern Mutual selling insurance back in the day in wealth management no one knew who the heck I was. Then I sold for a company called Carta and I was the 300th employee. And Carta is really 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 build 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. An example might be if I'm calling Coca Cola and Pepsi is one of my public case studies. I might pick up the phone and say hey Nick, we work with a few other companies in the CPG space, folks like Pepsi and whatnot. It's Armand at 30 mpc. Have you heard her name tossed around? And so what I can do is I can put a competitor in there and again that's going to create that same sit up effect. If there's an area where there's a very strong culture around it. For example, in Utah they have the silicon slopes, I might say, like, hey Nick, we work with a bunch of other Utah silicon slopes companies. Here in the Valley It's Armand at 30 MPC. Have you heard a name tossed around? And so it really doesn't matter what you use. What matters is you just find some thread that's reasonably close to home. It can't be like we work with other law firms that's a little bit too generic. But you might say, hey, we work with a few other law firms in Chicago, or we work with a few other partners of LA law firms, something that's a little bit more specific, that feels close to home with them that will produce the same sit up effect. So to recap it all, there are a couple 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. Alrighty folks, give it away world. Let me know what you think of this one and I would actually love it if you put your version or your best pass at the herd that name toss around opener down below. Maybe it's Investor, maybe it's geo, what have you. And I will try to respond to as many of those ones that come into the comments. All righty folks, peace out.