The Right Opener
- Click the icons to share this page with your network of friends
Colleen Francis with some good thoughts on the best opening line to use when cold calling. Here’s more on sales scripts, writing an elevator pitch and telephone sales script as well.
Ian Brodie has been helping some of the world’s leading organizations with their marketing and sales challenges for over 16 years. More importantly, he's “walked the talk” and sold multi-million dollar consulting engagements across multiple countries and cultures. For more information, visit
his blog or
follow Ian on Twitter.
Asking for the negative (Am I calling at a bad time) typically leads to “nah, go ahead” – while asking for the positive (Is this a good time to talk) results in “well, I’m kind of busy” – there must be someone who has studied this!
I have found that the majority of the time, both statements will end in the same negative result. I usually avoid them all together, and when I inadvertently do use them, I always kick myself afterward.
99% of the time, if they are truly to busy to talk, they won’t answer the phone in the first place.
In the first part of Colleen’s article she gives one suggestion for an opening line, “Did I catch you at a bad time?” along with a reason for choosing such an opener. Personally, I believe such an opener is weak at best. The rest of the article is a bullet list of ideas relating to customer relations.
What do you do, then? You just start yappin’ away?
I’m not opposed to an opener such as: “Hello. My name is Jeff Blackwell. This is a sales call, and I’m selling sales training. Is this a good time to speak?”