Airs Fearless Cold Calling 2007

FEARLESS COLD CALLING

2008

AIRS Fearless Cold Calling Copyright 2008. AIRS, All Rights Reserved.

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Todays Agenda:Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Section 1: Perspectives of Cold Calling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Section 2: Becoming Fearless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Section 3: Turning Cold into Warm Calls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Section 4: Cold Call Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Section 5: The AIRS Contacting Conversation Model . . . . . . . . . 33

Section 6: Overcoming Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

AIRS Fearless Cold Calling 2008 5

Introduction


NOTES

Section 1Perspectives of Cold Calling


100 Cold Calls

10 Qualied Candidates

1 Hire

Recruiting, like sales, is a numbers game


NOTES

Section 2 Becoming Fearless

Section 3 Turning Cold into Warm Calls

Section 4 Cold Call Basics


NOTES


NEXTGEN is a fast growing, high speed networking company aimed at mid-sized businesses globally. While Cisco has met the needs of larger businesses, Emma James, NEXTGENs founder, CEO and Stanford PhD, saw a huge opportunity for an overlooked segment of the market. The companys revenues have recently passed $500 million and growth prospects are excellent.

NEXTGEN has done very well in opening up Europe and Asia to their mid-tier clients want to do business there. Sandra Chou heads up the Asia region while Horst Kanter is senior VP for Europe. Emmas next target is South America and she is seeking your help to ll this critical position

Position: Senior Vice President for the South American Division

Responsibilities: Responsible for all marketing, sales and support for South America. Develop new South American partners, distributors and service organizations. Expand professional networks in the South American market and become known as the leading champion for network communications for medium sized businesses.

Competencies: Strategic thinking, market creation, proactivity, building horizontal partnerships, impact and inuence, accountability and passion

Directions

1. Based on the above information, make a presentation to Emma on how and where you would nd candidates for this vital position. What approach would you use to uncover qualied candidates?

2. Develop two opening statements that you would use in cold calling prospective clients. Assume that the candidate answers the phone (not a secretary). How can you gain the attention of the candidate and get the phone call off to a productive start?

Section 5The AIRS Contacting Conversation Model


NOTES


Rose is a consumer products company with an extensive range of environmentally safe products. The company competes with big enterprises such as Clorox and P&G, but its niche has captured the attention of both the market and Wall Street. Headquartered in San Diego and lead by a former UCSD biochemist, JRose is planning on launching a new line of products for home health care. With more and more families taking care of their elders, an opportunity exists for an integrated and environmentally safe product line of soaps, oils, lotions, bandages and sanitary supplies.

Directions: There are three roles to play: the recruiter, the candidate and the observer. The recruiter crafts the opening statement, the potential candidate responds in one of several ways, and then the observer(s) provides the evaluation of the discussion, using the AIRS Contacting Conversation Model and his or her own experience. Candidates will only provide information when asked the right question. Very little will be volunteered. Four candidate scenarios are presented below. Take some time to study these and then wait to get directions from your trainer.

1. Candidate Andy Jamison: Plays hard to get; isnt quite sure of what he wants to do. Must be thoroughly sold before providing assistance. Withholds information about his own skills and qualications. Will only provide other names after believing that you are very professional in your approach.

2. Candidate Linda Pearson: Is initially interested and pleasant to talk to. It turns out that she is not only nice but the top performer in her department. She doesnt mind talking about herself but is extremely reluctant to provide other names. She may be willing to provide names but only when she decides if she is not going to apply.

3. Candidate Marie Sanchez: Is rumored to be the smartest person in a competitive company. She has repeatedly over achieved. But she asks a million questions, and almost seems to be playing a game with the recruiter. Isnt likely to commit to anything because she is making good money and well respected where she works. Not convinced why she should change?

4. Candidate Clayton Huang: Is interested and intrigued to learn more. He is trying to hold back his enthusiasm because he is not happy where he is; he is currently a mid range employee who has achieved moderate results at best. He is eager to do anything to keep the conversation going, including providing names of the people freely.

Step 1: Everyone prepares an opening

Step 2: Everyone studies the candidate scenarios

Step 3: Trainer makes assignments and condentially tells candidates which scenarios they will follow.

Step 4: Role play commences and should continue for several minutes. Keep the discussions going and improvise within role the best you can

Step 5: Observers provide feedback and reection

Step 6: Have some fun

Section 6Overcoming Barriers


MatchPoint is a tennis equipment and apparel company. They focus exclusively on tennis as opposed to the big companies such as Nike and Addidas. MatchPoint now wants to move into footwear and is looking for a lead designer to develop the lightest, most high performance tennis shoe on the market. The CEO of MatchPoint particularly admires the features of New Balance shoes so he has retained you to recruit and hire one of their top shoe designers.

Scenario 1: A call into the New Balance company operator

Scenario 2: A call into the technical design lab for New Balance

Directions: Have one person play the operator and one the recruiter. Base the conversations on your own experience and the brief company description. The operators should be tough to get around and they should challenge the recruiter. In some casesif the right questions are not asked and the right level of professionalism displayedthe call can be terminated. Have fun.

The group will reect on each call.

NOTES


NOTES


Clayton and Associates is a growing regional consulting organization that specializes in ERP implementations. Noah Clayton, the CEO, saw the opportunity for reasonable consulting, training and implementation services for SAP and Oracle systems. The fees for these services from the vendors themselves are often too expensive for most companies to afford, so his more reasonable fee structure was like manna from heaven for many companies. The company has grown by 200% for the past three years, and is thinking of expanding its Chicago headquarters and mid-west focus.

With recent developments in the market, Noah needs to strengthen his SAP practice. With all of Oracles acquisitions, the marketplace is concerned about their focus; and consequently the SAP business has gone through the roof. Accordingly, he has opened a job req for a senior developer for SAP implementation and has asked your company to nd this high level individual.

Directions:

1. Study the situation and come up with an approach to nding this candidate

2. Create a voice mail message

3. The instructor will ask for several voice mail messages to be shared with the group

4. The instructor will then designate a person to play the recruiter and one to play the candidate

5. The candidate should basically be interested but should set up a few roadblocks for the recruiter to overcome

6. The candidate calls the recruiter back and the warm call continues

7. The group provides feedback on the call

8. Have fun

9. If more time is left, have two others perform the roles


NOTES

ContentsIntroductionSection 1Section 2Section 3Section 4Section 5Section 6

Documents

Airs Fearless Cold Calling 2007