Cold Calling-it works and its hard
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Yeah … what a freaking racket those boiler rooms were. I will never understand how they were allowed to operate perpetual pump and dump scams. I remember one time the manager Tim McKaffee taped the phone to a guys hand so he would keep dialing. Those guys were as crooked as could be but holy crap he could throw a party.
[quote=NY Guy] A couple used to use the name Goldman in them. A.S Goldman or something like that.
[/quote]
MS Goldman. I knew I guy that worked there. Decent fellow who couldn’t get hired anywhere decent when he was right out of college.
Firm started out grey and went black. Owner apparently had to give the firm over to the mob to pay off debts and one day a bunch of guidos took over the place (sales manager actually had bodyguards). Just like the Sopranos. He left shortly thereafter, but his U-4 was forever tainted by the name.
What the hell was NASD doing? Why wasn’t the place immediately shut down when the mobsters showed up and someone dropped a dime?
I'd say NY GUY is the real deal. Everything he's posted rings true. There were many firms out there that cold called boiler room style morning noon and night. The Infamous Memphis Bond Daddies among them. Not that NY GUY worked for a chop shop. Even Bear Stearns had muni calling rooms. And Lehman, even though mostly stock guys, had a few bond guys who were making a fortune.
As for making 1000 dials a day, doable but tough. To max out dials one must be organized and have rules in place like NYG's 3 ring rule. My ring rule was four rings. If the phone wasn't picked up by the fourth ring they weren't home or I was interupting something important. Either way, time to move on. Also note throughout my stay here RR forums on the subject of cold calling if I've said it once I've said it 100 times "Click, dialtone, next call." That doesn't mean click, dialtone get a cup of coffee, next call, or click, dialtone ,fumble around to find the next number and call. It means dial the phone as soon as you get a dialtone. I also agree with NYG that pulling 1000 dials in today's environment would be very hard on a 12 hour shift. 400 to 500 dials is doable. Where I disagee is that i beleive it's possible to become successful today via cold calling fixed income. To the thread starter, CCmachine, good job on getting in with the big prospect. If you are 5 months into a cold colding campaign and not opening accounts on a regular basis it's time to change something. Analyze what the biggest probelm is. For example, if on the second call you are getting blown off constantly means you are counting as leads people who aren't really leads. Qualify harder and only call those back who are intersted AND HAVE MONEY. To do otherwise is a waste of time. Another example: Can't open an account despite having a CM dripping with qualified leads? OK, that could be wrong product, or more likely weak closong ability. Change up the closing. Good practice here is to take the oldest pitch and miss leads, the ones with cob webs on them, find a good product, CD, Bond, PFD, call these leads and close them until the buy or hang up. Ask tem directly, what it's going to take to get their business? Don't take no for an answer. You get the idea. Tweak it, practice it, and record the results.[quote=BondGuy]
I’d say NY GUY is the real deal. Everything he’s posted rings true. There were many firms out there that cold called boiler room style morning noon and night. The Infamous Memphis Bond Daddies among them. Not that NY GUY worked for a chop shop. Even Bear Stearns had muni calling rooms. And Lehman, even though mostly stock guys, had a few bond guys who were making a fortune.
As for making 1000 dials a day, doable but tough.
To max out dials one must be organized and have rules in place like NYG’s 3 ring rule. My ring rule was four rings. If the phone wasn’t picked up by the fourth ring they weren’t home or I was interupting something important. Either way, time to move on. Also note throughout my stay here RR forums on the subject of cold calling if I’ve said it once I’ve said it 100 times “Click, dialtone, next call.” That doesn’t mean click, dialtone get a cup of coffee, next call, or click, dialtone ,fumble around to find the next number and call. It means dial the phone as soon as you get a dialtone.
I also agree with NYG that pulling 1000 dials in today’s environment would be very hard on a 12 hour shift. 400 to 500 dials is doable.
Where I disagee is that i beleive it’s possible to become successful today via cold calling fixed income.
To the thread starter, CCmachine, good job on getting in with the big prospect. If you are 5 months into a cold colding campaign and not opening accounts on a regular basis it’s time to change something. Analyze what the biggest probelm is. For example, if on the second call you are getting blown off constantly means you are counting as leads people who aren’t really leads. Qualify harder and only call those back who are intersted AND HAVE MONEY. To do otherwise is a waste of time. Another example: Can’t open an account despite having a CM dripping with qualified leads? OK, that could be wrong product, or more likely weak closong ability. Change up the closing. Good practice here is to take the oldest pitch and miss leads, the ones with cob webs on them, find a good product, CD, Bond, PFD, call these leads and close them until the buy or hang up. Ask tem directly, what it’s going to take to get their business? Don’t take no for an answer. You get the idea. Tweak it, practice it, and record the results. [/quote]
Thanks Bondguy. Discipline was key. Or the fear of getting fired : ) Maybe a combination of the both. Once we got licensed we were told by our sales manager that if he saw us out of our room for basically anything other than the bathroom or opening an account and handing in the paperwork that meant we werent doing our job.
To this day I eat lunch at my desk because we basically were told not to eat lunch in the lunch room when I first started in the business. We ate back then while cold calling
Although nowadays I do like going out to lunch every now and then to get the heck away from my office:)
I think many people give up to soon. I heard a guy say "either I sell them a yes or they sell me a no" I took that to heart. I've posted this many times; 365 dials = 14 leads = 1 client after NINE contacts. If I gave up after a few 'no's' I would have starved out. By hounding them until I've sold them the yes has brought me great success. I also know that I can easily make this gig if I had to start from zero again. Funny thing, the confidence this has given me has made it even easier to bring in the big money. Got one for 1.3 million last week. I've been in contact with this person at least 30 times. They are also bringing a foundation over that have around seven million in it.To the thread starter, CCmachine, good job on getting in with the big prospect. If you are 5 months into a cold colding campaign and not opening accounts on a regular basis it’s time to change something. Analyze what the biggest probelm is. For example, if on the second call you are getting blown off constantly means you are counting as leads people who aren’t really leads. Qualify harder and only call those back who are intersted AND HAVE MONEY. To do otherwise is a waste of time. Another example: Can’t open an account despite having a CM dripping with qualified leads? OK, that could be wrong product, or more likely weak closong ability. Change up the closing. Good practice here is to take the oldest pitch and miss leads, the ones with cob webs on them, find a good product, CD, Bond, PFD, call these leads and close them until the buy or hang up. Ask tem directly, what it’s going to take to get their business? Don’t take no for an answer. You get the idea. Tweak it, practice it, and record the results.
Gaddock
you open most of your accounts over the phone and do you try to make an appt?
I’ve never opened an account over the phone without actually meeting the person first. That’s not the goal of the good old standard issue AGE cold call.
[quote=BondGuy]
To the thread starter, CCmachine, good job on getting in with the big prospect. If you are 5 months into a cold colding campaign and not opening accounts on a regular basis it's time to change something. Analyze what the biggest probelm is. For example, if on the second call you are getting blown off constantly means you are counting as leads people who aren't really leads. Qualify harder and only call those back who are intersted AND HAVE MONEY. To do otherwise is a waste of time. Another example: Can't open an account despite having a CM dripping with qualified leads? OK, that could be wrong product, or more likely weak closong ability. Change up the closing. Good practice here is to take the oldest pitch and miss leads, the ones with cob webs on them, find a good product, CD, Bond, PFD, call these leads and close them until the buy or hang up. Ask tem directly, what it's going to take to get their business? Don't take no for an answer. You get the idea. Tweak it, practice it, and record the results. [/quote] I am probably 2.5 months into a consistent rhythm. I agree with everything you said, though, i find it very difficult to do much prodding on the first call. I do my best to qualify and see if the person will do business with me, but the reality for me at least is that I need the second call to more or less find out if the person is real. On the other hand you do come by situations where you can set an appt on the first call, which happened to me last week. I called a diner owner on a Monday and saw him Friday morning. He wanted to learn about munis. I qualified him for 10K on the first call, which had a rushed feel to it. Bottom line is that he has a liitle over $200k at Schwab, and is sucking wind in a stock portfolio. The appointment was 45 minutes, i educated him on munis, and my approach is a soft sell, always has been. I am going to call him tomorrow and follow up and see what happens. For the purposes of this thread, i have met 2 people so far since i started calling consistently, and have been in front of a little over $1 million. Haven't closed yet, but I know something good will come of this. Once I have a critical mass of qualified prospects they will start falling in.