#540 - Cold Call Masterclass: The Perfect Script (With LIVE Calls to Prove It)

We're going to build a script that literally books one in three cold calls from opener to pitch through. Objection.

We're then going to pick up the phone and make a couple of cold calls with those scripts to see how they play in action.

And this is the exact cold call script that I used as a 29 year old VP of Sales. It's the exact cold call script that Nick used as a multiple time number one enterprise seller. And it's the cold call script that now over 60,000 sellers have used because they bought the number one book. Cold Calling sucks. And that's why it works. So let's start with the opener. So when I first started my sales career I was selling life insurance, which is frankly one of the hardest sales jobs you could possibly start in. You start by calling your warm network so like your family and then you tap out your family so you call like your barber and then you call your cousin and then eventually you run out of people to call. You're 19 years old and so your only option is to frankly go cold. At that point I made the brilliant decision that I was going to cold call partners of law firms in downtown la. So I would pick a building and I would literally go A to Z and I would cold call every single partner back to back and I would use the traditional cold call openers that most people taught you to use. I would say, did I catch you at a bad time? And I'd get eviscerated by a partner. I would say, how's your day going? And then another partner would rip me apart. And I remember I was like pretty broke in college and I was like one of the few knuckleheads who came kept cold calling week after week after week. But for four weeks straight I made 200 cold calls a week. I did not book one meeting off of cold calling. I didn't book one. I didn't believe it worked. But I had to do something to get a job. And so I remember there was one day where I was sitting on the floor and I was using my traditional telemarketer opener of how's your day going? And one of the top producers in the firm walked by and his name was Brandon Matloff. And I'll never forget, I got hung up on. He was listening the whole time. And he looks at me, he goes kid, like, no one's gonna listen to you if you open like that. And if you sound like that, he's like, you're 19 years old and you sound 19 years old. And so I Was like, well, thanks. This is basically useless advice. And I was like, what should I do instead? If I was cold calling these partners, I would pick up the phone and I would say, hey, I work with a few other partners in your office. It's Brandon from Northwestern. Have you heard my name tossed around? And then I would stop and I would see what they say. And that's how I would open my cold calls, is I would demonstrate that I've worked with other people like them. And I was like, well, I haven't worked with other people like them. And he was like, well, I have and your company has. And so name drop your case studies or your references and then bring me in. And I was like, kind of like skeptic about it. I was like, this kind of feels like a flexi line. And he was like, kid, what do you have to lose? And I was like, shit. And so I was like, okay, so I'll never forget. I picked up the phone and I, like, dropped my tone a couple notches. And I go, hey, Jane. We work with a few other partners in the downtown LA office of DLA Piper.

It's.

It's Armand from Northwestern. Have you heard my name tossed around? And Jane goes, no, but how can I help you? And I was like, oh, now all of a sudden, Jane is all nice. And so at that point, I had never even like, gotten that far into the call. I barely even knew how to pitch. I didn't even know what came after that. And so I basically just fumbled. And I was like, oh, well, we work with a few other partners on wealth management planning, and I'm gonna be in your office next week. And I was wondering if I could swing by for 15 minutes. And she goes, yeah, I should be free around like 1:30. And I was like, you gotta be kidding me, you bastard. And I booked my first meeting on the spot right there. I pick up the phone again. I. I go, hey, it's Armand from Northwestern. Heard the name tossed around. Second meeting, do it again. Third meeting, do it again. I booked four meetings in a single dial blitz, which was more meetings than I had booked in four weeks of cold calling in just one hour. And the only thing that changed was the way both the tone and the words that I said when I opened the phone.

One of the things that you have to keep in mind is that when you make a cold call, you are battling the telemarketer stigma. And you do what, unfortunately, you were doing by before you learn to hear the name tosser on opener, which is putting on your sales voice and using the same opener that everybody else uses. How's your day going? You get put in that telemarketer camp. No high value prospect wants to meet with a lowly telemarketer. And so for that reason, everything that you do, everything that you say and the way that you sound on a cold call has to be different from the other other cold calls your prospect is receiving. Otherwise, you get put in that telemarketer camp and you're never going to win over there. And so for that reason, you should never be using Did I catch you at a bad time? Or how's your day going? As openers. There are logical reasons that you shouldn't use those openers. Of course it's a bad time. You're making a cold call. Of course you don't really care how their day is going. You're trying to book a meeting. But even if those like logical objections that I have to those openers weren't true because every other cold caller is using those openers, you're inadvertently putting yourself in this low value position relative to where your prospect is and they're not going to meet with you. We're going to teach you what openers to use instead. The key piece about these openers that work is that they lead with something about the prospect as a pattern interrupt and a way to get their attention.

Hey folks, if you keep getting grilled in your pipeline reviews, try this show up with your deal risks already flagged so gaps in pain, timeline or power and your next move ready to that's kind of where Clari helps is they will show you live signals and risks on your deals in one clean view so you can run your business, not have your manager do it for you and poke a bunch of holes. So we put together a free guide on three plays to get your sales manager off your back. The link is in the show notes. Go check it out. Today's tactic is brought to you by Attention, which uses AI to capture all of your sales interactions with automate sales busy work like CRM updates and flag hidden deal risk. So if you want to avoid ghosted deals, end every discovery call with these three questions. Number one do you want to buy AKA Validate if the deal is real? Number two when do you want to buy Validate if it will close this year. And then number three how do you buy validate that they will get you in front of Power. We put together a guide on how to unblock the three biggest deal blockers in your pipeline. There's A link to get it down in the show notes. So our first opener is the Herd the name tossed around opener. That's the first opener that I walked you through in that opening story. There are three steps to it. Number one, I'm going to lead with context about how I work with someone like them, and that's going to get them to sit up. Number two, then I'm going to introduce myself because that's not the most important thing on a cold call. What matters the most is the context. So that's step two, introduce yourself. And then step three is from there I'm gonna ask them, have you heard my name tossed around? Okay, now listen to the tone on this one. I'm gonna switch the example. And the first example I'm gonna give you is not gonna be an insurance example. It's not gonna be a software example. I've sold in both those spaces. It's gonna be a gym example that I wrote.

I've never been to a gym.

I could imagine what it would be like to look like Nick, you know? So let's pretend that I'm selling for a gym called Grindhouse, which is actually like a powerlifters gym in Brooklyn that I like a lot. I might say, hey, Jane. We work with a few other folks from the Olympia convention. It Grindhouse. Have you heard her name tossed around? So notice a couple things are going on there. Number one is I'm laughing as I open. It's hey, Jane. It's a familiar tone. That's the first piece to notice. The second piece is I'm ending in an assumptive tone. And so I'm like, have you heard her name tossed around? And it's like, hey, you've heard of us before, right? Now here's the thing. It does not matter if they've heard your name tossed around. I used this when I was a no name 19 year old selling insurance. I used this when I was the first employee at a company called Pave. And no one knew of us before. What matters is they've heard the context. In other words, we've worked with other people at the Olympia convention. And what also matters is that I act like they've heard my name tossed around. And so let's pretend Nick says like, no, but how can I help you? Well, I'm just gonna transition into what's called a traditional permission based opener. Which is, I guess that kind of makes this an unexpected cold call. Could I get 30 seconds to tell you why I called? And then you could totally tell me to Kick rocks if it doesn't sound like that. And so that marks the transition into the pitch, which is the next step. Notice again, I'm like laughing and I'm like kind of acting like I expected them to know who I was. If they say, yes, I have heard your name tossed around, here's the beauty. You can actually skip the entire pitch portion and just jump to objection handling. So I'm going to say something like, oh, well, I guess that must have mean something. We screwed something up because we'd probably be working with someone like you, I guess. What did you hear? And notice like I actually flubbed my words there a little bit and I think that's okay on a cold call. Oftentimes people feel the need to be perfect on a cold call. And sometimes if I screw up my opener, if I screw up my pitch, I'll literally be like, I heard your minute tossed. And I'll be like, nick, I can't speak English today. I meant to say, this is Armand from Northwestern. Have you heard my name tossed around. Do you want to hang up on me right now or will you give me 30 seconds?

Yes.

And like, you'll get sometimes a better reaction.

Yes.

Than if you were too perfect on your cold calls.

So you alluded to the concept of a permission based opener earlier, Armand, and there is a really important distinction between a permission based opener and the tailored permission opener. A permission based opener, if y' all are not familiar, basically owns that it's a cold call and then begs the prospect for, can I tell you why I called? It might sound like, armand, you're going to hate me for this, but this is a cold call. Do you mind if I get half a minute to tell you why I called you and then you can tell me if it's relevant or not? And that's not a garbage opener. It's definitely better than did I catch you at a bad time? The problem with that static, scripted, untailored, permission based opener is that it's getting more and more popular. And the more popular a static scripted opener becomes, the more prospects are going to realize, oh, that's a telemarketer opener and they're going to put you in that camp. And so instead you have to adapt your permission based opener and lead with just like the heard the name tosser on opener context before you ask for permission. And so all you're going to do is you're going to front load that opener with context. And that might sound something like Armand. I just finished reading the JD for the AES that you're hiring in the northeast region. And I'm going to be honest, this is a cold call, but it is a well researched one and I'm wondering if I can get half a minute to share what I saw in those JDs that prompted me to call you and then you can totally hang up if it's not a fit. The reason that this is far superior to your normal permission based opener is it leads with something about you. I'm saying I just read the job description you posted and then I'm ending with can I tell you what I saw in that job description that made me call you? The prospect has context for like, oh, this is not just some like war dial persons making 300 cold calls this hour. This is like a targeted researched cold call. And your hit rate on yeses there is going to be so much better than your untailored permission based opener.

So the thing that will never change with a gimmick opener like the permission based opener where it's like could I get 27 seconds to call you? Or whatever it is, is it's always static. But the beauty about a context first opener is the context is always unique to the person. And so no matter what, it honestly doesn't matter a ton if you use the heard the name toss around opener or the tailored permission opener. What matters is the first words that come out of your mouth are something about them because that is what breaks the telemarketer stigma. From there, you should use the opener between those two that you can deliver most confidently with your tone because tone is far more important than the actual words you say. I could use how's your day going? And I don't think that's a great opener to be clear, but I could use how's your day going? And if I deliver that more confidently than I do the permission based opener, that actually means I should probably ask how's your day going? Even though I know that is not a conventionally good opener.

So let's talk about how that extends now to when the prospect says, all right, like tell me what you're selling, I want to hear your pitch. What do we do now?

Where most pitches fall flat is their pitches. In sales, oftentimes there's like this glamorized person who's sitting on the stage who's doing all the talking. And if you're a full cycle AE or account executive or closer, you know that the best sellers are asking questions and understanding problems in discovery before they pitch their solution. Well, what makes a cold call Any different is. Well, the only difference is I probably haven't earned the right to ask them discovery questions to find a problem. So I actually need to suggest a problem or show them that I understand a problem for the solution to make sense. If I just throw a solution at them, like Acme code is a single source of truth, or we're a streamlined support automation platform with buzzwords that no one understands. Number one, half the time people don't even understand what the heck your solution says because it's filled with so many buzzwords. But then number two, your solution has no context. Without a problem, it doesn't matter how shiny your non stick aluminum titanium pan is. If you don't know why you would even need a nonstick pan in the first place, you need to remember that there's an egg that gets stuck to your pan and it gets like all that crap in the infomercial. So I'll give you an example from the other day. If I do this stupid phase with my nose, you were actually there for this. I shattered my nose when I was wrestling. So it looks like I could use a good left look. See? And for that reason, I have a deviated septum even though I kind of got surgery on it. And so anywho, at night, especially if I eat spicy food, my nostrils will inflame and I won't be able to breathe through my right nostril and it will like drive me insane. Yeah, it's really hard to sleep. And so I was sitting in bed and normally I don't do this, but I couldn't sleep. And so I pulled out my phone and I opened up Instagram and the first thing I got popped with was an ad for these nose strips that like open your nose. And maybe it was listening to me reading.

No, I bet this was like a time of day thing. I bet they are strategic about when they run their ads.

So this was like nighttime, I'm trying to sleep. And the ad starts with a guy's face up like this, trying to breathe through his nose, and only one nostril is closing and opening. And the moment I saw that ad, I was like, you got me. And then what the ad did is it just put these nasal strips on the person that like expand your nostrils. And it used stronger and stronger nasal strips throughout the commercial. And you just saw his nostrils expand. And so literally on the spot, it's like 11. I'm like procuring nasal strips in my bed and I was sold on nasal strips. And the reason for that is if you nail the problem, you barely have to explain the solution. They hooked me with the problem and then the solution was really obvious. And that's exactly what we talk about with the way that we pitch on a cold call is we're going to spend 80% of our time talking about the problem and only one sentence talking about the solution in what we call a problem proposition.

And so there's three steps to nailing your problem proposition. A triggering problem problem, a one sentence solution, and an interest based cta. So let's make that real and give you an example of what that sounds like for our 30 MPC course and enablement subscription product that we sell to sales leaders who want to help their teams get better. I might say to you, Armand, if I call you and you're like, all right, go ahead, gimme your pitch. I might say, look Armand, I talked to a ton of sales leaders who feel like selling in 2026 is way harder than it was four or five years ago. Outbound is getting tougher because of all the AI out there. Winning deals requires winning over more stakeholders and buyer skepticism right now is frankly at an all time high. And so a lot of sales leaders try to solve this with traditional sales training where they bring somebody in for a day. But usually what I hear is that one off trainings go in one ear and out the other. And so we offer a program that combines tactical learning sessions with ongoing rep reinforcement to actually help your team make it to President's club. And I guess I'm wondering if you might be open to learning more about that when I'm. When I'm not cold calling you out of the blue.

Today's show is brought to you by Text Us, which helps you move your deals forward faster. When timing matters, the fastest way to move a feel forward is to avoid getting stuck in the inbox. And so my favorite way to get on a text basis is literally when your prospect requests a demo, just send them a confirmation text saying that you're looking forward to the meeting and that opens the text channel for you to call back on it later, folks. We put an entire guide on how to revive ghosted deals. Nudge next steps and use texting to keep deals moving forward. With Text Us, check it out. It's free in the show notes.

Today's show is brought to you by Insightly, the CRM that helps you spot deal risk early. So pipe reviews actually drive. Your number one question I ask in nearly every deal review is what do we need to get in our next interaction with the customer. If my rep can't answer that question, the deal has risked and I have something I can coach to now. We built a guide with our friends at Insightly CRM on how to run pipe reviews that surface real risk and get deals moving again. And you can get it for free at the link in the show notes. So what I tried to lead with was that triggering problem of outbound is getting much harder than it was four or five years ago. AI is making it really tough to cut through the noise winning over deals. You can't just like get 100k deal done talking to two people at a company. You usually need to win over six, seven, eight people. I'm trying to build up what I feel like Armon and his team are going for through that's the triggering problem that makes him feel that pain and also shows hey, I kind of know what's going on in your world, which keeps my credibility high. And then I give him one sentence. We offer a program that combines tactical learning sessions with ongoing reinforcement. So your team makes it to President's club. Do you want to learn more? I'm not saying can you pull up your calendar now? I'm not saying are you free Friday at 2 or 3? I'm saying was this even interesting? Because if it was then we can get into meeting booking logistics.

Notice you don't need to explain the solution a lot. Nick talked about a lot of the problems that sales leaders experience and we solve it in one sentence. And honestly there's a lot more detail around how we solve it. Where it's like we do these enablement sprints with your team and weekly check ins and all access to all of our courses and all. But that doesn't matter yet. The only thing that matters is they feel like they we understood the problem they're experiencing and we give them just enough proof for them to believe we can solve it. So let's go through another example here. Going back to our gym example. So I'm literally going to read this off and I'm going to focus on even if I'm reading a script, I can inflect in a way that sounds natural. So if you're new to cold calling like this is how you might choose to read a script. All right, so if I already use my heard the name tossed round opener for you went to the Olympia convention, I might say, Nick, typically when I'm talking to strength lifters, they're honestly pulling their hair out because they either have to wait like 75 years for a squat rack or you basically pay like your entire life savings on a premium gym membership with eucalyptus towels. And so look at Grindhouse. You'll never have to wait for a squat rack again. And you'll have some leftover money for protein so you don't have to buy the $1 chalk powder. Are you open to trying, like, a test workout when I'm not calling you on a random Sunday? And so notice there's literally like, if you're watching this on YouTube, like, there's a lot of like, physical moving back and forth, arms up, laughing. I'm joining the ridiculousness of waiting 75 years for a squat rack. Or these ridiculous premium eucalyptus towels. And so a lot of times you can't just deliver a sterile problem prop. You need to join the emotions with your prospect. And then they're gonna be like, ah, that person gets my problem. Now let's move on to objections.

So you've nailed your opener. You kept your status high. You led with context. You gave an awesome problem proposition that led with the triggering problem and only a little bit about your solution. And you inched forward, just saying, do you wanna even learn more when I'm not calling you out of the blue, if you do all those things right, some people are gonna be like, yeah, but a lot of people are still gonna hit you with an objection. So let's talk about first, what's going through your prospect's head when they give you an objection and how you can use that knowledge to overcome any objection. So let's start with what's going through your prospect's head when they hit you with, I'm not interested. I don't have any budget, I'm in a meeting, et cetera. I'm gonna take you back to about a year ago, year and a half ago, we were writing a book together, Armand. It was called Cold Calling Sucks. And that's why it works. And I decided one Saturday afternoon that I was gonna go through like a two or three hour writing sprint where I was gonna take this big bulky laptop to my friendly neighborhood Alfred coffee in Old Town Pasadena and get a little bit of writing done. So I sit down at the coffee shop, I start getting into the flow, I start getting into the groove. I get 15 minutes in, 30 minutes in, I'm an hour in, I'm starting to heat up here, I'm getting some good work done, when all of a sudden I see a shadow loom over me and I hear, excuse me, sir. And so I look up and there's this like college age kid with a Little goatee, and he's wearing a bright orange vest and holding a clipboard. I'm like, oh, boy, what am I in for? And he goes, sir, do you happen to love animals? And if you don't know me, I do love animals. I've got a cute little French bulldog puppy at home. I've actually donated to the ASPCA before. But I knew if I told this guy I love animals, I was going to be signing myself up for a big pitch and an ask to sign his petition or donate money or have a conversation with him. And I just wanted to get back to writing. And so I looked this guy dead in the eye and I said, nope, I don't. The key takeaway from this story is that my objection had nothing to do with what he was selling. It had nothing to do with his cause. It had everything to do with the interruption. The objection was to his interruption, not what he was selling. And so the same thing is going through your prospect's head when they hit with you an objection. They just want to get back to writing or whatever work they were doing when you interrupted them, and they're giving you whatever they can to get you to go away as quickly as possible.

And so the biggest mistake that sellers are making is when they get an objection. They're not realizing that the objection is not a logical objection. It's an emotional reaction. And so in order to handle an objection, we actually need to take the opposite approach that most sellers take. So instead of pressuring and pitching, which is going to get you to say, I hate animals, I actually need to agree with the objection or redirect and absorb the direction or the momentum of your objection before I handle it. In other words, I need to wax that objection on and off like Mr. Miyagi does in the Karate Kid, which is why we call it the Mr. Miyagi method to handle objections. So there are three steps, and we're going to role play these in order using the gym example. So the first step is when Nick hits me with an objection like, I already go to Equinox. I need to agree with that objection. I need to not try to handle it at all. So hit me with that objection.

Hey, look, I appreciate the call, but I've already got a membership. I'm in Equinox, man.

Dude, Honestly, I was an Equinox member for three years. It is such a nice gym, especially if you love the classes, the eucalyptus towels. And God would. I would give her asana again. So notice what's probably going through Nick's head right now is like, wait, why is this guy gassing up the competitor? It removes the pressure of the pitch, and it's like he tried to sit in a chair and I pulled it out from underneath him. That allows me to ask him a question that he might be more open to answering because I've removed the pressure of the pitch. So step two is I need to incentivize conversation with him. In other words, I need to get him talking more. One, because talking will make him feel more comfortable. Two, I don't have enough information to handle the objection, and I might get some more information. And then three, I can sometimes use questions to poke a hole in his existing solution. So after I agree with that objection, here's what incentivizing conversation might sound like. Hey, Nick, just so no one from my team calls you again. Like, usually people complain about the lack of lifting equipment in Equinox, but you must mostly be doing all, like, the group fitness stuff. Is that right?

I mean, I've been trying to put on some muscle. No, I mean, I'm mostly doing lifting, for what it's worth.

So notice I said just so no one calls you again. And that is the incentive for him to answer my question. And then I pushed away. I was like, you must be totally good at Equinox because you're not doing any of, like, the lifting equipment or you don't even need a squat rack or anything like that. Right. I'm almost assuming, oh, Equinox is totally the right solution because the reason that people would switch to me doesn't matter to you. Right. But in reality, I know that Nick went to the Mr. Olympia convention, and I know that if I'm calling into my icp, Nick probably likes to lift and he's feeling that pain.

Well, and you also almost qualify out the people that are are more interested in the group stuff, because even if you land a meeting with someone who is like, 100% focused on the group fitness classes and doesn't really care about lifting, you're not going to win that deal anyway. So you've got even more nuance in here where you're hitting them with how you beat the competitor. And if they like the thing where the competitor beats you, you don't want to waste time on that deal. Right. Let's see how you respond when I give you maybe a little bit more nuanced of a response there. So you ask me, oh, I mostly am doing the group stuff. I might respond and be like, well, no, I mean, I'm mostly Lifting. I'm not all about the classes, but it is kind of a pain. I do have to wait for the two squat racks. Like, there's usually a line, but honestly, I travel a lot for work, and so it's really nice that Equinox has multiple locations.

Great. And so now, notice, Nick actually just gave me a second objection. So the first objection was, I'm on a competitor, Equinox. And then the second objection was, no, I like Equinox because they have multiple gym locations, and I know Grindhouse only has one in Brooklyn.

Right.

And so this is where chain objection handling starts to happen. So the way you chain objection handle is you just repeat the agreement, an incentivized step of the Miyagi method, over and over again. So I'm going to agree and incentivize that objection as well. And so I might say, like, I totally get that too, because hotel gyms are, like, a special kind of miserable for anyone who lifts more than £25. I'm going to assume that this one's dead. So just so no one from my team actually calls you. Is like, is it that you just hate finding the 25 day passes in Arkansas to find a nice gym that's, like, as good as Equinox? Are you just trying to, like, avoid that entire situation?

No, I mean, I just. I guess it's kind of convenient to, you know, know, I don't even have to think about it. But no, I mean, yeah, it's not that big a deal.

Well, look, so now two things have happened because I've gotten so much information from Nick. He told me he was on Equinox, but now I know that Nick kind of wishes there was more lifting equipment. Yep. And on top of that, I know that the main reason he's staying with Equinox is because it's, like, kind of nice or whatever, but also because there are multiple locations.

Right.

And so now all I have to do is I need to give him a reason to take a meeting with me that incorporates those two pieces of information. And that brings us to step three, which is selling the test drive, not the car. I'm not going to pitch Nick on my product. I'm not going to try to get him to sign up for Grindhouse. Right now, all I need to do is I need to poke a hole and get him to sit in the car. Almost everyone will be open to taking a look at another solution. Tesla sells a lot of cars. Tesla sells a lot of cars. Because everyone kind of wants to try driving a Tesla because it feels like a rocket ship. Tesla sells a lot of cars to people who had no intention of getting rid of their car, but they wanted to try a test drive. A cold call is not the place that you convince someone to buy your product. A cold call is where you create interest in a meeting. The meeting is when you tell them how you're going to buy out their car and do the financing and all that stuff. So watch this. This is what selling the test drive sounds like. I'm going to say, Nick, it sounds like you like to lift, but the lifting equipment isn't all there. And the biggest reason that you want to stick with Equinox is they have a ton of locations and it's kind of nice. I don't know if you knew, but 95% of check ins are actually at home locations at Equinox. And I imagine it's pretty similar for you. And you're going to end up saving 200 bucks a month. And a guest pass is usually $25 at like a really nice gym that might even be closer to your hotel. Wherever you're traveling. My guess is like, you're probably going to stay doing the exact thing you're doing right now. I noticed you haven't even like, tried out Grindhouse. Do you want to check it out for a workout and see if you like the lifting equipment? Worst case scenario, you'll at least like, know what's out there. I'm not saying let's sign you up for Grindhouse. I'm not saying let's do a consultation. I'm not trying to sell them personal training services. I was like, hey, here's what I'm hearing. Do you want to like, try it just for kicks? And like, that kind of comes across in the tone as well. And that is how you reduce the pressure and get someone to take the meeting. And then the meeting can be the place that you gradually introduce more pressure. And still it's not going to be that much pressure when you're actually selling.

Yeah, right.

But I digress.

So let's do one where I'm trying to sell you as a sales leader are 30 MPC course subscription and enablement product. So I give you a call and you're gonna tell me, I'm not interested.

I'm not interested.

Shoot. This one's totally on me. Armand, I guess you probably would have reached out to me if you had been interested. Just so nobody from my team bugs you again, is it that you already have a formal training program that you're running? Or is it that some of, like the challenges that I shared, a lot of sales teams are running into in 2026 aren't happening with your team? Or is it that you, you just hate getting cold calls and it's, it's okay if that's the case.

I appreciate you saying, like, it's, it's all relevant stuff, but the reality is like, we do all of our training in house with the team. We have a great enablement program.

Yeah, that's awesome. Props to you. I mean, I gotta tell you, it's like, it's really refreshing to hear that because you wouldn't believe the number of teams that I talked to where, like, they're doing nothing for their team skill development. I just feel like that's such a big disservice to sellers. And so I guess what have been some of the places you've been focused on upskilling the team just so I make sure that, like, we can't help with those at all.

Yeah, we're, we're really focused on pipeline generation, obviously, especially because email is pretty overloaded. We're like pretty big on the phones. Other than that, like, nailing that first call is kind of what matters the most. So mostly cold calling and discovery.

Yeah. Awesome. So now what I might do if this was an actual cold call, I probably based on how much you're giving me, I feel like I've got room for one, maybe two more questions to sort of round out where you're focused on with the team. And then selling the test drive might sound something like once I've gotten a little more information, like, look, Armand, I really appreciate you sharing this with me. I can tell you're one of those leaders that really cares about taking care of your team. And there are times that some leaders will actually bring us in to supplement the stuff that they're doing with their team. Especially with all the pipeline gen and outbound stuff that you're doing so that you're able to focus more on the reinforcement stuff as opposed to having to come up with trainings from scratch. My guess is you're not going to buy something from 30mpc today, but I guess I'm wondering if you might be open to taking a look at what our outbound curriculum looks like. Just so you get a sense of what else is out there. Today's show is brought to you by 11x your all in one digital GTM team handling, creating, qualifying and converting pipeline across every channel. If you are still using stale triggers like congrats on the Funding you're getting blended in with everybody else. The best use unique signals, exact LinkedIn posts, negative product reviews, podcast appearances, and use those as their trigger. And we built a growth playbook with our friends at 11x. Breaking this stuff down. You can get it for free at 11x AI 30 MPC or grab it in the show Notes. Today's show is brought to you by Nooks. Nooks is the AI powered pipeline engine that researches your accounts, builds your target list, writes your emails, and gets you more live conversations on the phone. Thousands of reps at companies like HubSpot, Seismic and Deal use Nooks to automate the busy work and prospecting so they can focus on closing deals. Reps that use Nuxt daily have twice as much pipeline as their peers. And we put together a guide with our friendly at Nooks on how to automate the busy work in prospecting and dialing so you can focus on winning. Go get it for free at the link in the Show Notes. Sweet.

So let's do one more example using compensation software that I sold at Pave. So I'll play the seller at this point you're going to hit me with.

Armaan, I really appreciate you calling me. This sounds like a hard job and it was a great pitch, but like we're just not interested. So. So good. Good luck with your calls though.

That is the kindest not interested I've heard in my life, Nicholas. And you probably would have called me if you were interested. So I appreciate you saying that. Just so no one calls you again, could you be brutally honest with me? Is it that you have something in place, you don't think this is a problem at all, or you just hate getting cold calls and you're really nice and it is okay if it is number three?

No, no, I. No, that's okay. I mean, I can give you some feedback. It's, you know, it sounds like you have a good solution, but we, we actually use another service called Compx and they're doing really good work for us.

Oh, Compex is phenomenal and I would completely understand that you wouldn't want to switch off them. You must not be doing stock option bonuses or anything like that, right?

No, we do this. Why do you ask?

Quick pause. The reason I ask is because I know Compx doesn't do stock options, which is a trap question. Which is the best question to ask when you get a competitor in the incentivized step. So finishing, I might say, well, usually you do cash increases and equity bonuses in separate places. And what that actually causes managers to do is ask for more of the both because they can't see how much cash and equity an employee has together. And so, like, look, it's a pain to switch compensation solutions. So my guess is you're not going to leave this thing. But if you weren't in the know on that, would you be open to taking a look at this thing? Just so you know, it's out there. There's going to be, like, a written copy of these three scripts in like a Google Doc or something like that in the show notes. You can go grab those. And at this point, we now need to make live cold calls. So the way we're going to do this is we are going to dial to three connects each. So we're going to keep dialing until we get three connects, and then from there, the winner is the one who gets the most out of three. And here's the thing. The first two connects we get. We're going to be calling an easier list. We're going to be calling people who are already on our 30 NPC mailing list. And so they'll probably have heard our name tossed around. The last one is we are going to be calling from a list of completely cold VP plus sales leaders that we literally have, like, no connection with whatsoever. They might have heard our name tossed around, but the reality is, even though we run the number one podcast in sales, you'd be amazed how many people haven't heard our name tossed around. So that they're gonna be.

They'll be thrilled to be getting a cold call on December 23rd, too.

That is correct. And it is December 30th, 23rd, as of the day of this recording. We love our team for that, for making us make these cold calls the day before Christmas Eve. Before we get into this, also acknowledge that, like, Nick is leading our sales team and then I'm, like, leading our content machine at 30 MPC. Neither of us have, like, formally done the daily cold calling thing for a couple years, but I was driving over and I started to get a little bit nervous for this. And the reason that happened is because I kind of have, like, dial rust, per se. But what allowed me to calm down a little bit was not focusing on, am I going to book a meeting in these three or five connects or whatever it is, instead being like, as long as I stay cool in my opener, in my problem prop. And I agree with the first objection that I hear. As long as I stay cool, it doesn't matter if I book a meeting because you, if you're listening this far, you probably trust us a little bit. And so like, even if we go over three or five, if we can nail the tonality, hopefully there's something for you to learn out of this thing. And ideally we book a meeting, but even if you don't, you gotta realize like, there are dial sessions where you'll go two, three days without booking a single meeting off of of 20 connects. And like, that is called being human. So let's see what happens.

Let's do it.

All right, so I'm going to make our first dial and this person. The trigger that I'm going to use in my opener is they have 50 plus reps, believe it or not.

Does it follow 30 NPC who at.

Some point have consumed some 30 NPC content, which is pretty cool.

Your call has been forwarded to voicemail.

You know the person you're trying to voicemail, Kathleen Happy, Almost end of quarter. Hopefully that means you've closed all your deals by December 23rd. You're not going to believe this, but 50+ of your sales reps have consumed content from 30 minutes to President's Club. And it's Armand from 30 minutes to President's Club. So I'm going to send you an email after this. Would you mind just giving me a thumbs up or a thumbs down if it seems even moderately interesting? All right, peace. All right, so a couple of things I did there. While Nick makes his dial, when you leave a voicemail, voicemails can triple your email reply rates. So always lead with context on your voicemail because if they hear, hi, It's Armand from 30 minutes to President's Club, they're going to instantly delete their voicemail. And always lead with the context and, and then introduce yourself direct to the email. Right. So don't try to pitch him over a voicemail.

All right. This guy's downloaded some of our discovery training. Hey, I saw you've been downloading some of our 30 MPC discovery training content on our website. This is Nick from 30 MPC and I know I'm getting you totally out of the blue, wondering if you got half a minute for me to share why I called you and then you can totally hang up if it doesn't make sense from there.

Hey, Nick, how's it going?

I'm doing okay. So I've got Armand right here and I was like, how do you say his name?

I said, go with Mr. Gosh.

I always appreciate just going for it. And I'm always very happy when folks don't give me grief whenever I mess up names. Names are difficult. So all good.

Well, look, I mean, look, I saw you were downloading some of our like discovery framework stuff on our website and usually when I, when I see a sales leader downloading some of that stuff, I think you head up business development with the team. Usually that makes me think, okay, you're getting some of this stuff to like take back and enable and train your team. And I've been hearing from a ton of sales leaders that selling in 2025 has felt way harder than it did four or five years ago. And some of that is just cause like AI is making outbound more crowded. Winning deals usually requires like winning over more stakeholders and there's a lot more buyer skepticism. And so a lot of the sales leaders like you that I talk to, like they try to solve it with one off trainings but usually those end up going in one ear and out the other. And so I don't know if you knew this, but 30 MPC offers a more formal enablement program that combines tactical learning sessions with like ongoing reinforcement for your reps. And I guess I'm wondering if you might be open to learning more when I'm, when I'm not calling you on December 23rd towards the end of your day.

You know, my team doesn't do a whole hell of a lot of cold outreach simply because our sales funnel is just different. But I sort of cut my teeth building my own book of business, doing cold outreach, trying to focus on the phone emails, in person, on LinkedIn, you name it. And I just never want that skill set to go stale.

I love that. I mean that makes me really happy to hear one. Thank you for the kind words about the content. And like, man, you wouldn't believe how many sales leaders I talk to. Like they get like so wrapped up in the, the pressure of hitting the number every single month or every single quarter that they don't like invest in their own self development or their team's development. And like you can get away with that for a couple quarters. But like I can tell you're the kind of leader that like your team is frankly pretty lucky to have because you're staying cutting edge on this stuff and not like it sounds like you're bringing it back to them to help enable them, especially on the outbound side.

And I love to listen, learn and share where I possibly can. As far as enabling my team, we've maybe had it too good for a while. We have way More accounts than we have bodies to cover. So enabling them is really about getting more creative in building relationships, going deeper and better understanding our customers business. It's a lot less about, hey, I have this product you should care about or I have a solution to your issue. That's really what we do. And I try to practice what I preach, so I appreciate the kind words.

Yeah, no, that's awesome. That makes me really happy to hear. I mean, you, you, y' all have a small team. We usually like, when we would work with somebody like you, it would be in the context of like broader we work, training and enablement. And it sounds like you've got it handled on the outbound front because you personally are staying really cutting edge there. You know, we've got like a full discovery program. We've got a, like selling to executives and multi threading program. We've got some negotiation stuff coming out. If that's something that you've been focused on with the team, it would be in the context of like, broader wework. And so like, it doesn't sound like this is something that you would handle. I guess. I'm wondering, you think there's someone in enablement, like maybe an enablement leader it might be worth me talking to.

Yeah. You know, I don't mind asking the question, do you have my email address? If you want to shoot me any sort of one pager or overview of your services or products, I don't mind forwarding it along.

Cool.

Yeah, I can definitely do that. I mean, I think just looking on LinkedIn, it might be like, hopefully I'm getting her name right, but looks like she heads global sales strategy and operations. That makes me think that's probably the person I need to talk to. So maybe I'll like write a message that's tailored to her, send it to you, and if you're open to putting it in front of her, that might be the right path.

Yeah, I'll send it across.

Thanks. Cheers. I failed.

Nice work though.

You know that one I was going back and forth on. So like, okay, so up front, he told me he's only got three people that report to him. He gave me two things that were like, making me think, what do I want to do with this call. One is he's like, we got a small team, we've only have three people. And then he also gave me an objection which is like, oh, I'm doing all, like, I'm staying on the cutting edge of outbound. So like, I don't know if I want someone to come in and train, because then I'm going to become rusty. That's an objection that we can overcome. And I spent some time, like, trying to explore it because I was trying to figure out, do I even want to book a meeting with this person? Because I've got the context of, I want to beat you in the competition, but I don't want to set up a meeting with someone who's only got three people on the team. And so I think I could have pushed and gotten a meeting with this guy and, like, sold him on the whole thing and tried to get to the head of enablement. The reality is, is, like, this is a huge global company, and this guy is, like a. Runs a smaller team.

Yeah.

So I think the approach I was like, okay, cool. I'm quickly going on LinkedIn. I'm typing in, like, who heads up sales enablement globally for this company. And I think this will give me a shot at getting a message in front of that person. So that was my strategy there, where it was, like, it's a fight to go up two or three or four levels from, like, a frontline leader like that all the way at a company this big. And so I would rather put my calories in one good targeted message that goes in front of the head of sales enablement and then invest those calories in calling some other people.

100%. I think not booking the meeting with this person was the right decision.

Well, that's just because you want to beat me.

Well, let's go on to the next one. Come on.

Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice.

Straight to voice. All right. Normally I wouldn't do a double dial, but that didn't even ring, so I am going to double dial. You might be on dnd. I don't think this phone number is good.

Your call has been forwarded.

Okay.

Okay. The guy I'm calling. Community Source, GTM Playbook. What the hell is this? This guy was a VP of sales at wow. And he just started this new job. Alex, I just read about the new sales job that you started, and I'm gonna be honest. This is a cold call, but it's a fairly well researched one. It's Nick from 30 MPC. I'm wondering if I can take half a minute to tell you why I called. All right, I heard. Hit it. Thank you.

Sorry. Who is this?

This is Nick Sagelski. 30 minutes to President's club. Yeah.

What's up, man? I listen to your stuff. I'm a big fan. I've Been in this role for a few years, though.

Oh, my gosh. So, okay, so it says on LinkedIn, three years. And I thought it said three months. And I'm like, okay, cool. Like, just so I feel silly. I'm sorry about that. Well, can I tell you why I called anyway? And you can tell me if my pitch is good or not.

I'm off. I just had a kid about a week ago.

Congratulations. Congrats. Go spend some time with your family. You don't need to listen to my sales pitch.

I'll be back at work mid January. If you want to. This is my cell if you want to text me or something.

Go spend some time with the family. Expect some melatonin delivered to you via Sendo. So happy holidays. I'll see you, man.

Cheers.

Take care. So there's a prime example of one. Don't congratulate someone on starting a new job when it says they've been there for three years. And you misread it as three months. But actually, like, we fumbled that and he still was like, it didn't ruin the thing. Like, you have to be able to laugh that stuff off. Like, as a new seller, I would have totally frozen and been like. And I also would have pushed this guy really hard for a meeting. He just had a kid a week ago. And so instead I got permission to text him and we're going to send him a really funny gift as a way to stand out from everybody else.

Can you hear me? That is a great sales leader who's closing out the end of the year, my friend. You've got a bunch of sales reps who actually consume some of our content. It's Armand from 30 minutes to President's Club. Have you heard her name tossed around?

Yeah, the best. But I'm in the subway. I'm going to Spain.

Oh, you're going to. You know, I saw you're from Spain. Oh, my God. So I'm going to lose you in the time it takes to pitch my product, aren't I?

Exactly. Yeah. I was expecting a call anyway, but I'm in the subway. I'm going to the airport right now.

Okay, well, do you have 27 seconds or do you need to go to the airport right now? It's okay if you need to go to the airport right now.

I do, I do. I'm sorry. I'm going to lose you anyway.

Okay, well, dude, enjoy the flight to the airplane. I would. I'll give you a buzz back at some point after the holiday, but I hope you have an awesome holiday season.

All right, second week of January.

Second week. Alrighty. I'll send you an email telling you what I was going to talk to you about. And then. And then I'll send you a hold for a second week of January.

Perfect. Let's do that.

This is one of those areas where, like, I think I could have tried to squeeze the pitch in. Basically what he said is he was in the middle of a subway right now, and he was like, on a train and I'm about to lose you. And, like, there's a point where it's like, I got to have a little bit of eq.

Yeah.

And Mark Costaglo has a great saying where he's like, the way you exit determines the way you get to walk back in. And so he was like, I'm actually on a plane. I like what you guys do. I'm not going to be the jerk where it's a holiday. He's trying to go home for Spain and. And I'm going to, like, try to shove a pitch down his throat.

Yeah.

I was like, let me give you a buzz back. He was like, second week of January. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to send an email and a calendar hold.

Yep.

After this. So it'll be a tentative. Doesn't count as meeting. But I think that's gonna far increase my chances of actually getting this person and actually getting him in a way that doesn't piss him off.

Okay, I'm calling my boy Chris.

Hello, you.

Damn pro tip. Never cold call during the holidays. No one is going to answer. Ooh, I'm calling someone in the mortgage business. That'll probably be fun when you know the problem in their space. Like, you can get extra fun with the problem. Prop Michael. You must be closing out your year as a sales leader, my friend. You actually consume some of our content, believe it or not. It's Armand from 30 minutes to presidents Club. Have you heard her name tossed around?

No, I have not.

Oh, no. That means you just downloaded our cold calling and discovery script, but you actually didn't remember who we were, so that's a bummer. Look, man, I know it's going on the holidays, and you are probably having your team make a ton of cold calls yourself.

Could I. I don't do any cold calling.

You probably get your team to do the cold calling maybe.

No, we're referral only.

So that's why you were looking at the discovery stuff, because you're just managing inbound leads, right?

I don't even think I've looked at your discovery stuff. I'm sitting at lunch with my daughter.

I was gonna ask for 30 seconds, but you're at lunch with your daughter, and I would hate to interrupt it on the holidays, my friend.

Okay, thank you. Bye.

This guy has clearly downloaded multiple pieces of content on our website.

Oh, no.

Like, I've never heard of you before.

Yeah.

No.

So on that one, like, he was. If someone's like, I'm in a meeting, yeah, I'll push it because I know they're not in the meeting.

Yeah, yeah.

This guy's out to lunch with his daughter the day before Christmas Eve, and I was like, I hung. I hung on the context a little bit too long.

The second you realize he doesn't know what you're doing.

Yeah, I was trying to make a joke out of it, and then it just kind of became annoying, so I wish I dropped it a little bit earlier.

All right, this next guy looks like my grandfather. Business development director. They provide print, mail, and digital solutions. He's a biz dev director. Your call has been forwarded. Okay.

We're at four connects. We get one more connect between the two of us. Director of sdr. This is Sweet spot.

Yep.

I saw your post about, and then I realized that a bunch of your Reps have consumed 30 NPC content. It's. It's Armand from 30 minutes to President's Club.

I feel so honored that you're actually reaching out to me. We've been trying your shit.

How's your holiday season going?

So far, so good.

Good. Well, I know it is. You're probably getting right into it. And fortunately, you probably don't have to be closing out deals right now, but could I give you, like, the 32nd reason that I called you and then let you get back to eggnog?

Of course. Absolutely.

So the reason I reached out is I was looking at some of the content that you were engaging with, and your team was, too. And it clearly seems like you are the type of leader to, like, really be pro your team's professional development. And oftentimes when it gets to, like, sales kickoff season, people are bringing in, like, expensive trainers, and all that stuff kind of goes in one ear, out the other. And so we've actually built enablement programs using all of our courses that teach your reps how to do literally anything from cold calling to cold email, step by step. And then we work with your team over a year to make sure it actually sticks. And so it's basically like bringing 30 MPC to your team and I thought you all would be like the perfect fit to learn more about that type of thing. So I know it's like going on the holidays, but would you be open to hearing about it?

I actually planned on reaching out to you guys next year anyway because I was brought on to stand up this motion and prove it. And I've done that. And now that I've done that, they're probably going to give me a little more freedom with the budget next year. And so listen, just so you understand, we are customers, so we're very get the phone number, get them on the phone type of mentality. We are also customers. So it wipes out half my database. And we've also started doing some really interesting direct mail pieces from the SDR team. That's killing it.

So you have to make sure that if you're making cold calls, you're actually getting connects and everything else is. It sounds like you're doing some pretty high touch stuff. So it's not just like spray and pray email volume. What's prompting all of these, like, creative strategies versus what most SDR teams do, which is just like volume for volume for volume.

You guys are telling us to think out of the box. You can't be like everybody else. You can't have the same script, you can't have the same email. And then I lay at night thinking, what can I do that's different? So I thought, why don't I take it back to old school? I remember back in the day when someone sent me a pair of socks and said, if you take the meeting, we'll send the shoes. That's the kind of stuff that we're going to be doing.

So why don't we do 9am with Nick and then our lead sales rep, McKenna on Tuesday the 13th or on Wednesday the 14th?

Yeah, the 14th is better. Thank you.

Cool.

Easy.

Congratulations. You won.

We got one. Let's go. That's five connects down and we got one meeting out of it.

That's not bad.

I'll take it. The other thing that I will say, folks, is I think both Nick and I were like kind of dreading this thing. It's December 23rd. We were driving.

Yeah, I didn't want to do this.

We also did it after delivering a 45 minute breakdown on cold calling. And we're not cold calling every single day. But what I'll say is once we got past the first five dials, it was kind of fun. Yes. And it was also a lot of fun, like riffing on it with each other. And so when in doubt, start picking up the phone and try to find a way to make it fun. Usually it can be fun when you get five, 10 dials in, especially if you're doing it with someone else. So folks, if you like this, the number one way that we teach people how to cold call is we send them to our cold calling course. Cold calls to Presidents Club. Whether you are a rep trying to cold call better on your own, or if you're a leader that wants to teach your entire team to cold call, one of the hardest things to do is to really break down the cold call step by step and make sure that you're mastering both the words you're saying and the way it sounds. And so every single module is designed to teach you exactly what to say, how to say it exactly for your product, and then gives you action steps so that you literally go and do this stuff. Because a lot of times you'll consume some content like this, but you won't actually change the behavior. It's the course that actually gets you to change your behavior. So go check it out at the link down below. We'd really appreciate it and hopefully we'll see you on Inside. Peace, y'.

All.