Paul Doucet on Cold Calling, Pattern Interrupts, and Prospecting Resilience

Transcript

0:00 All right, we got another episode of Tailwind. Today we're joined by Paul Ducet. Uh Paul, what are some of the

0:08 highlights people should know about you before we dive into our conversation?

0:12 Yeah, thanks for having me, Austin. So, I'm excited to be here. Paul Ducet, I a Sandler Training Center here in Toronto, Canada, and really excited to join the

0:20 podcast and share what I can that hopefully will be of value to some of your listeners.

0:23 Yeah, excited to have you on it. So before we started recording, we mentioned that cold calling it being the ultimate pattern disrupt. Uh tell me more about that.

0:32 Nobody expects to receive phone calls out of nowhere anymore. Back in the days, it was common. These days, people use social media, texting is super

0:39 prevalent, especially among younger generations. And um emails and other forms of electronic communications are much more common. So getting a phone

0:47 call out of nowhere from someone who then is able to engage with you in a productive way, in a no pressure way that kind of draws you in and doesn't just repel you and push you away with

0:56 slimy sales tactics can be refreshing, can can be a surprise people. The point of a pattern interrupt in the first place anyway is to

1:04 say something or do something that's totally unexpected and forces someone to engage. So to set the scene on that, one of the classic examples is like the

1:12 situation in a retail store. You go in, you're looking at, let's say, a wall full of shoes, and that salesperson comes over to you from the side. You already know what they're going to say.

1:20 They're going to say, "What are they going to say, Austin?" You know, what size you look or what size are you? What shoes?

1:26 Oh, yeah. Just can I help you find anything? Or whatever. Right. And before they even say that, you already know what you're going to answer. You're going to say, "I'm good. I'm just looking." Right?

1:34 This is a pattern. This is a pattern that's repeated itself a trillion times.

1:38 So what you want to do with a pattern interrupt is say something completely unexpected and kind of catch someone off guard so that they have to use their

1:45 prefrontal cortex, right? To actually think about what they're going to say to respond and not just respond in an almost subconscious way. So a pattern

1:53 interrupt is anything that you might do or say that forces someone to react and doesn't allow their unconscious brain to do all the heavy lifting. Mhm.

2:02 Calling someone these days is so unexpected for a lot of people anyway that it acts as a pattern interrupt.

2:08 There's a ton of other benefits to doing it. Um so for example, everyone has a cookbook full of different prospecting activities.

2:16 Yeah.

2:17 Goal calling uh should be part of it even if the only reason is that you're going to reach people that way that you would never otherwise have the

2:24 opportunity to ever interact with. And even if it's a very low percentage of those people who actually answer, who actually engage with you, it's still the

2:31 only way you're ever going to reach that set of people, if you take an abundance mindset, an abundance mentality, you'll

2:38 never run out of people to reach out to and call. But there's only so many people you can ever meet at a networking event. There's only so many people you can ever meet by being introduced to

2:47 them or other means. So cold calling is used to supplement that and get you at least a chance to interact with all those other people who may fit your

2:55 target client profile uh who you never otherwise have a chance to to to meet.

3:01 It also one of the benefits I love about it is that it removes any pretense of why we're having a conversation in the first place. So if we meet say at a

3:10 networking event Austin and you and I are just chitchatting are you selling to me? Am I selling to you? Are we both helping each other out or what's going on here? Right? Sometimes we just make

3:18 friends and depending on your disc style, it may be that you're a very gregarious person. You love to make friends with everybody. Same as me.

3:25 So, it may be really unclear, but if I call you and I tell you, look, this is a cold sales call. I'm sure you hate getting these as much as I hate making

3:33 them. Give me 30 seconds. I'll tell you why I'm calling. After that, if you want to hang up on me politely, that's fine.

3:39 Or we can have a couple or we can have a couple minutes conversation. Um, what do you think? Is that fair enough?

3:44 Most people are going to say yes to that.

3:46 Yeah. interrupted the pattern by being disarmingly honest and drawn you in and removed any pretense that this call is about anything other than let me see if

3:55 I'm selling you something that you might want.

3:57 So, no pretense about it. It's very clear what the purpose is.

4:01 Another benefit of it, it's a great way to get reps. It's a great way to get practice delivering your elevator pitch, delivering your 30

4:09 secondond commercial, and talking to someone who you've never talked to before. It gets you uncomfortable in a really good way, right? People hate to

4:16 do it, but you build that resilience up by getting a lot of nos. You're going to get a lot of rejection doing it without any doubt. It's definitely going to happen.

4:24 Yeah.

4:24 So, it allows you to get uncomfortable and build up that that thick skin, that emotional resilience that you want to have.

4:30 And the last thing that's really interesting, and before I I hand back to you, I'm sorry if I'm talking too much here, Austin, but the last thing that I think is, okay, that's really great about cold

4:39 calling is this. You never know where it might lead. So I might talk to someone and you know on paper they may meet my

4:47 ICP my ideal client profile but I talk to them and they don't for whatever reason they just don't okay they don't

4:54 meet it. So um we always ask the question well maybe there's someone you can introduce me to or maybe you know someone else who would like to have a

5:02 conversation with someone like me and it can go a million different directions. I called a guy named Steve one time for example and I this was what happened. He

5:11 was he had taken Sandler in the past. He already knew Sandler. He loved Sandler.

5:15 He was very positive about it. So after talking to him for a while, excuse me.

5:20 We had a great conversation. And um at the end of it, he was like, "Look, I'm not really in a position to like look at this for my business, especially because

5:28 I did it for five years already." Yeah.

5:30 Okay, fine. But he goes, "I do know some people who haven't done it before and who may be interested. So, let me put you in touch with a few people." He put me in touch with a lady named Janice.

5:38 Janice invited me out to a lunch that they put on uh weekly. I met her husband Chris uh at that event at the lunch. Um

5:46 great guy. We had a couple of calls. He invited me to play squash. I played squash with him and a guy called Henry.

5:52 And then Henry introduced me to some other people after that who who, you know, hopefully will now, you know, possibly become clients. So, you just never know where it might lead, right?

6:01 And there's all kinds of tentacles that can grow from a good cold call. So, there's lots of uh yeah, just lots of interesting permutations that can come from it. So there's no point in

6:09 discounting it as a as a part of your cookbook.

6:11 Yeah. I I mean I love the stories of like I just called somebody and then 10 years later this is a result of like

6:19 what happened there. Um, you know, uh, Eric Meer is another Sandler trainer and he's out of Michigan and, uh, his one of

6:26 his first hires was somebody that he had cold called out of like an expired chamber of commerce book. And it's like, you know, there's no reason to pick up

6:34 an expired chamber of commerce book, but he went and did it and then he just started calling people and now, you know, I would I would assume they're friends. I'm going to go with that. he

6:42 has a friend that he's had for the last 101 15 years because he just picked up the phone and called some a stranger you know to some degree.

6:50 Um so you mentioned uh the uh you know there's you know networking there's all these other activities but the people that you cold call you're not going to

6:58 be able to access otherwise other than using the cold call. Are you deliberate in that construction of saying, you know, these people are all Trump chamber

7:07 members. I go to all the chamber events, so I'm never going to cold call other chamber members, uh, as like an example of way to say like, I'm only going to cold call people that I wouldn't have

7:15 access to otherwise. Or are you just kind of like, yeah, it's not too big a deal to to overlap between those two environments.

7:22 If I call someone who's a member of the chamber, it's a different type of call.

7:26 So, I do go to the chamber of events and I do know some people there. I wouldn't co- call people who were at the chamber event in the same way. I might call them. Yeah.

7:34 But normally because I had met them or maybe they had attended something that I spoke at or something like this and I had some other reason that so it was a

7:41 little bit warm. I'd call it a warm call at that point.

7:44 Um but otherwise I wouldn't really call someone who um who I knew from the chamber or I knew was part of the chamber because I knew I'd have another

7:53 way to meet them. That you have to be realistic when it comes to cold calls, right? is that it's kind of the least effective way to reach someone and build trust with someone.

8:04 You can have techniques that can help you for sure, but it's still the least effective way compared to meeting someone in person where you have a far

8:12 greater chance of climbing that like sorry no like trust staircase and getting to the point of developing

8:19 trust. face tof face in person is a far more powerful way to to move yourself up that staircase towards trust than a cold call is. Yeah.

8:28 So I wouldn't waste a cold call in a sense on someone who I'd have a chance to meet in person.

8:34 Yeah. So what are you doing to be deliberate with the decision like you know an ICP is an ICP but then why how are you filtering out between who you're going to do what for?

8:45 Uh a lot of it is has to do with segmenting by um industry, segmenting by business type, segmenting by size,

8:53 right? Size of organization, revenue, employee count, things like that. So, uh segmenting based on those things as well

9:01 as based on location and what organizations or associations might be a part of is is probably the main way that we go about kind of differentiating

9:09 those things. Yeah. And being deliberate about that.

9:11 Yeah, that makes sense. Um what what does your segmenting look like? Like are you what would that look like on your end?

9:18 Trades, tech, professional services at the high level.

9:22 So trades I use that word in a very broad sense to include pretty much anything that's blue collar whether it's construction, landscaping, uh

9:30 manufacturing, engineering, whatever it may be, or components thereof. So for I mean you could be uh representing a

9:37 bunch of manufacturers who do lighting or who do landscape or who do um metering for example is another one. So there's all kinds of different inputs to

9:45 construction projects that general contractors need to buy from or uh building uh um owners need to buy from

9:52 for say for rental properties or condo associations buy from and that sort of thing. So there's a lot of different ways that it breaks down. Uh when we

10:00 talk about trades and there's a lot of individuals who run their own kind of shops that just independent trades people who want to be able to close more deals and better deals, higher margin

10:07 deals and that kind of thing. Tech is its own category because there's a lot there's an endless number of things

10:16 below that header. So there's everything from serious tech, meaning like, you

10:22 know, high-end AI developers, to people who simply consult and utilize tech in different ways that can be almost like a

10:31 consultative sale to an organization or who even just do things like they help companies manage their tech like it ex

10:39 um uh BO it IT organizations like who do tech support on a fractional basis or

10:47 there can be organizations that say build and host websites on a server that they own on behalf of a lot of different companies. And then in their professional services, that could be

10:56 accounting, insurance, or any other kind of input um to um two organizations where they're selling services again on a fractional or consultative basis.

11:05 Yeah.

11:06 And then are you just cold calling one of those industries or is it more of a revenue size and location that then or like revenue, employee count, and

11:14 location that then puts them into your cold calling bucket?

11:18 Uh yeah. So what I try to do is so one thing about cold calling right there's a there's a serious mindset aspect to doing it right. So when you're doing it

11:25 as an activity it can be tough. It can be repetitive. It can be it can be trying on your constitution. I know those feelings. Yeah.

11:33 Yeah. So you want to do it in short spurts. That's one thing. And you'll want to do it so that as you're going through a a spurt of cold calling, like

11:42 say a half hour, 45 minutes or an hour of just like straight up calling, dialing, you want to

11:49 find as much consistency as you can in the group that you that you're calling out to. So all tech companies for an hour and then

11:57 maybe the next day I'll do a full hour of trades companies and then the next day a full hour of uh professional services company, for example. Right?

12:05 this this kind of thing can be a great way to because then it removes the part of it where you have to adjust on every call. So if on every call you need to

12:12 make some tweaks and adjustments in your head about how to approach what to say then it taxes you a little bit more

12:20 right. But if you can be consistent and stay with the program through it industry by industry then it can help a little bit to make that um an easier effort mentally right and keep you more on track.

12:29 Yeah.

12:30 And Yeah. And so I mean that makes a ton of sense. I I I do the same thing cuz I can't context switch. It's like the value to like when I'm talking to

12:38 somebody about something it it's so dependent on their, you know, how they fit into like our our segments.

12:44 I can't do it. Like I just can't switch it. I have to like be in one and then I have to like stop and be like I have to reconsider my head. And if I was

12:52 swapping back and forth between each call, I just I would get it would just become a bloody mess. And I'm already a beginner at cold calling. So I have to take out as many obstacles as possible.

13:02 What's your pattern interrupt? Austin, can I ask you?

13:05 Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Um, I always lead with, "Did I catch you in the middle of something or you have a second to talk about?" And then I say whatever is going

13:13 to be relevant to them. So, like, so for some folks, I'm like, "Hey, do you have a second to talk about growing your book of business?" Uh, for other folks, it's, you know, um,

13:22 consistency or accountability or, you know, kind of just kind of depends on who I'm talking to and what I've learned. Uh the other one I like to say is just straight up I'm cold calling you but and then you do that.

13:33 Yeah, I think that one works really well. Disarming honesty is a powerful thing.

13:37 Yeah. And I think enough people uh have the experience of like a cold call and they understand that it's difficult that

13:45 they can be like, "Hey, if you're just being upfront with me and you're giving me an opportunity to say yes or no to the rest of the conversation," just becomes really easy for them to to feel

13:53 like they're in control instead of just being like word vomited at instead. Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

13:59 Yeah. Uh, I think part of it too is and I've been getting some of these cold calls uh where they just start talking.

14:07 They're like they just dive right into here's the reason I'm calling you. Don't give me and I'm like I'm trying so hard to be polite and tell you I'm not

14:14 interested and you're just not giving me the chance and it's like just give me the chance just to be like hey I understand the value you're doing but

14:22 also not good timing for us you know and then done with it.

14:27 Not a good strategy. Not a good strategy. It's got to be a conversation.

14:30 Yeah. I mean, maybe it works at a high enough volume, but you know, maybe. Yeah.

14:35 We like to have a little something we called a a mini upfront contract. Yeah.

14:40 So, this is essentially where you get permission to use 30 seconds of someone's time to basically deliver them a here's an

14:47 overview of what we do. Um, if you get that permission, I think I I kind of demonstrated one early on, which is like,

14:55 you know, I give you the super quick version, should take 30 seconds. After that, you to It's totally up to you if

15:02 you just politely hang up on me or if we talk for a couple of minutes. Is that fair enough? Yeah.

15:07 This is very, very easy for someone to say yes to. And it's kind of hard to say no to. I mean, it's you've picked up the phone, we're talking. I'm clearly not

15:15 just scamming you. I'm, you know, so it's very easy to just, okay, sure, give me the 30 secondond version and I'll decide.

15:22 But also, there's a psychological thing going on where you're telling someone they're going to need to make a decision in 30 seconds. So, that's now planted in their mind.

15:30 They need to they're going to have to decide something very soon. So, they're going to listen and be thinking about what that decision is going to be. And if the decision is, you know what, this

15:37 isn't relevant for me, that's perfectly fair. No problem. Have a great day.

15:41 Thanks for the 30 seconds. Appreciate it. Goodbye. If they say, "Well, yeah, that does resonate and some of that stuff applies to us from what I shared,"

15:49 then maybe we have a conversation and who knows where it might go.

15:52 Yeah. What are your thoughts on um you know, trying to limit the amount of time spent on that first call?

15:59 Yeah, I agree with it because it's Yeah, I've had some cold calls that go way too long. Some people just enjoy getting called.

16:07 They enjoy talking. Yeah.

16:09 And they just want to share share share about their business and they go on and on and on. I had one my longest one ever lasted 25 minutes. I just couldn't get off the phone.

16:17 Yeah. And it led nowhere. It led nowhere.

16:20 Ultimately a waste of 25 minutes. But yeah, um yeah, I think it's a it's good to have the goal. The sweet spot is

16:28 probably that you don't want anything less than three or four minutes if you want it to be a successful call.

16:33 And probably don't want it to be more than like seven or eight. Like so the sweet spot's kind of somewhere in there.

16:38 The idea being the goal of a cold call is to book a meeting. Mhm.

16:42 So, it's not to close business. That's not going to happen off off a cold call. Yeah.

16:48 Book a meeting, right? So, in order to do that, you have to get a little bit of a little bit of a pain conversation. You have to get a little bit of

16:55 understanding. Let share a little bit about what you do so they know what this is. They can see where there's at least the theoretical fit here and that their

17:04 issues are something that you do and that it's worth their time to invest a little bit of time with you um in a further conversation. and that's all you're trying to achieve by it is is

17:13 book a meeting for a further conversation. So spending more time than that in order just to book another conversation eventually is is not a good

17:21 use of time anymore. So beyond seven or eight minutes becomes tricky.

17:25 Yeah. Do you have any tips or tricks for like making sure you're keeping them prompt and like getting getting to the next step without boiling the ocean in the first call?

17:34 Yeah, I like the term boil the ocean. I used to use that a lot too. Um, I was doing it. Somebody called me out for doing it. So, that's why I have to

17:42 keep reminding myself, don't boil the ocean on the first call. Just just get to the first meeting.

17:48 Yeah. I think it's a matter of knowing exactly when you're going to interject, politely, of course, and say, "Let me

17:55 make a suggestion. Let's take out our calendars and find a time where we can continue this conversation more fully." Right? We're only on the phone right now. Now, it

18:02 would be good to be able to either be face to face or at least be on a Zoom meeting like this one in order to be able to um to talk more

18:10 human to human than a phone call is, but I think having a bit of assertiveness is is key. You can't be mother mayi all the time. You have to be

18:19 a little bit assertive and be willing to interrupt if you have to, right? Like if it's really going on too long, it's not in your interest anymore. I think it's

18:27 important to be able to do that in a way that isn't perceived as rude, but just as as being assertive in a in a professional way, right? And if you can

18:36 do that and say, "Look, let me make a suggestion. I I'm looking at my calendar here. I got a little bit of time next Tuesday morning. If you do, maybe I could pop out to your offices and we can

18:43 sit down and talk about this more." Yeah.

18:45 Would that make sense? You know, the other important thing, Austin, is that when you do book a meeting from a cold call like that, it's important that you

18:53 post sell it a bit, right? So, you don't want someone to book a meeting and then just never show up to the meeting and they've just done it because they're too nice to say no to

19:01 you on the phone and they just, oh, sure, sure, put me in for Tuesday. That's fine.

19:06 You know, you need to have something, some way of getting them to further confirm that they will be there. So, sometimes it's getting them to send the

19:14 meeting invite. that can help or it's just getting them to confirm like is there anything that could happen between now and then that would mean that you wouldn't be able to make it. Um bring the future into the present a little bit

19:22 and say okay well and then they might tell you there's always a chance that if I you know if this new deal closes for me then I may not have time I'll be too

19:30 busy by Tuesday. No problem. Would it make sense to meet the following week then is a better chance that you can make it and postell that. So, like you

19:38 really interrogate the yes a little bit and don't just let them say yes, goodbye, but interrogate the yes a little bit to get them to confirm and

19:45 reconfirm and talk about what could go wrong between now and then. That could the whole thing.

19:50 I appreciate that clarification because I was like, oh, like send an email to confirm with them, but it's like, no, no, no, do not hang up the phone without the that additional postelling to make sure they're showing up.

20:01 It's so easy to kind of just get happy ears about the yes. You know, I got a yes. Hey, I know that. Get out of here before I screw it up.

20:08 Yeah. Exa Exactly. I know exactly that feeling. Like, I sent the calendar invite, I'm all good. And then not even take into consideration. It's like just because you sent the calendar invite doesn't mean the person's showing up.

20:18 Exactly. Exactly.

20:19 I really like that. Well, we had an upfront contract before we started this episode that I would uh let you go at the half hour mark. We are hitting that

20:26 half hour mark. Before we end this though, any final summation or final thoughts that kind of like wrap up uh you know what we had other conversation around?

20:36 Only to say don't for anyone out there listening to this, don't fool yourself into thinking that nobody's going to pick up the phone. And don't let any head trash you may have about you're not

20:44 the kind of person that someone's going to want to talk to or anything like that. Uh or the phone is lava and you're terrified to make the first call. Just make a few calls, get some nos. You're

20:52 going to get a lot of nos and it's totally okay. You just keep going. So, keep your mindset strong and stay resilient, but don't fool yourself into thinking that it doesn't work at all because it does work.

21:02 Yeah. Yeah. As someone who used to feel like the phone was lava, just making the calls and getting used to it is it happens. It'll just happen as a a

21:10 natural process for it. Paul, I really appreciate you taking the time. Love the insights on cold calling. Totally agree with you that it's the best pattern to

21:17 interrupt right now. I don't respond to any cold emails I get. I do respond to cold calls that I get. So, 100% with you. All right, appreciate you Paul.

21:26 Awesome. Thanks a lot, Austin.