I work at a large financial firm in the memorial area. One of the many things I do is cold calling older people at Chevron, trying to get in front of them to present a retirement plan. I've kind of hit a brick wall. My list is getting shorter and shorter with unqualified prospects or "not interested" people. Do any of ya'll work at Chevron that might be able to provide me with a phone directory? I will pay a couple hundo for it. Does anyone else have to cold call? It can get rough at times. You get that string of 5 or 6 jackasses and it gets unmotivating. Other time you can get on a roll and be very productive.
Not hiring at this time. I'd rather not say what company I work for other than you have definitely heard of it.
I used to work as an executive recruiter. We cold-called all day long every day. I felt dirty every day after leaving work. Seriously, to this day, that job is the reason I don't even like talking on the phone.
That also has to have a much lower success rate. I age all of my prospects before I call them. My chances go up when I'm selling retirement and homeboy is 58.
There used to be a guy that worked at a local chevron in sugarland. He was a neighbordhood legend. He would hit on all the girls no matter their age. he would have one liners like " oh sh** man!" and " hey chief you going to the ***** party?!" I think he either got fired for selling alcohol to minors or he got promoted and now works downtown in the Chevron Corporate office. More than likely he retired his Blue Chevron T-shirt for a suit. Cheers to you Chevron Mike.
I worked in sales in insurance for a few years before I got into I.T. I did benefits packages for school districts, so most of the school year I would just go set up shop in the school district and people would come to me to set up their benefits. But in the summer, I would have to cold-call folks to get in front of them to make some sales. Boy did it suck, but I was good at getting appointments. I think the most important thing is the opening line. I would call and in a really upbeat voice would ask for the person by their first name, "Hey, is Owen in?" like I was supposed to be calling them. I think that's the biggest thing- the first impression (just like any other kind of first encounter). If you can get in past their guard, you can put forth a few commments before any kind of defensiveness kicks in. Still, it sucked to cold call and go on appointments when I was used to sitting there and letting money come to me. After a while, I would just sandbag some policies that people didn't want to start right away just so I could have some production during the summer months, meet my sales quota, and not work. I know there are some other ways to get appointments. A few things that come to mind are some kind of web page or just hiring a service that will do the cold calls for you. Good luck.
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I am 23 and just out of college. I am working with a team of two other brokers that are very experienced. I just call when I can. I am paid a salary and get a bonus for anything I help bring in. I set up the meetings, my boss goes out to CVX to meet with the prospect, then if it gets serious, they come in and I'll meet with them with the whole team. The selling is not really on me other than getting the initial meeting. The "acting like you're suppossed to be calling them" works very well. If you phrase your words right you can give them a comfortable feeling before you get down to business.
