The No Call, Call
When I started selling at Guarantee Mutual, they were just getting into the group insurance business. They had very little business on the books and the home office staff was so small that they were the equivalent in size of a high school football team. The company was so obscure that if in fact, we were a high school football team, the mascot would’ve been an owl. Our slogan would’ve been Guarantee Who (hoo, hoo . . . owl get it). No one knew who we were, and no one cared. As wholesalers our job was to sell insurance plans to insurance brokers who retailed them to employer groups. We were competing with the big boys such as MetLife, Prudential, Hartford, CIGNA, United, just to name a few. Getting somebody on the phone was tough. I made my share of cold calls, all day every day.
My boss Dan Rood was not an early riser, so we would work late. We would come up with crazy ways to get people on the phone. We would tell jokes, sing songs and tell stories to try and engage people on the phone. We tried to make it fun but we took our cold calling seriously, we would write scripts and challenge each other with new ways of leaving messages to get people to call us back. We would test our scripts by leaving messages for people in their offices after hours usually between six and nine. That year Dan and I got really good at cold calling and getting people on the phone. In fact, I talked to and met so many people that year, I won Guarantee Life’s Prolific Prospector award. Neither Dan nor I read a lot of sales books or went to sales seminars back then, we just simply knew we had to get a hold of people, get our name out there and sell some business. In fact, it wasn’t until twenty years later I figured out Dan and I were practicing what I now call the NO CALL, CALL.
Jen
Years later as the regional vice president for Mutual, I was helping a sales rep take insurance
brokers out for a fancy dinner in downtown San Francisco. It was about 6 p.m. and as we walked through the agency to round up the troops, I noticed that most of the staff had gone home and only the producers were left. Getting them to wrap up their day so that we could make our 7 p.m. reservation was actually pretty tough. They were all putting final touches on the next day’s proposals or returning phone calls and prepping for the next day’s meetings. Having three of my four guests in tow, I proceeded to Jen’s office and noticed she was busy talking on the phone. I mouthed to her to get a move on. She held up a finger and told me to wait just a minute. She said she had just one more quick phone call to make and she dialed the phone one last time. She left a well-scripted message and hung up. She grabbed her coat and we headed out of the building, walking, and talking as we went.
I asked if she and her co-workers often stayed late. She said yes. I asked what she was doing that required the extra work. She said that as one of the agency’s top producers she needed to stay on top of her clients and that she liked to always keep her eye out for future prospects.
Tonight, specifically, she was making outbound calls to clients and prospects. I pointed out that it was late and that more than likely no one was still in the office. She said “exactly”. She said that she was calling after hours on purpose. She called the routine, the no call, call. She said that her experience showed that calling people after hours paid big dividends. She said that her goal was not necessarily to talk to anyone. She really just wanted to let people know that she was thinking of them. If she talked to them or they actually called back it was an added bonus. She said, “It’s simple. I leave a message at 7 p.m., make it about them and not work and simply say, ‘Hey Lawrence, it’s Jen over XYZ I know it’s late, but you have been on my mind. I’m super busy these days, but I really want to talk. Please give me a shout at blah blah blah.’ Or, ‘Hey Lawrence, it’s Jen. I know it’s late, but we need to talk, give me a shout as soon as you can. I will be in the car early so call my cell 555-1212.’” She more than likely would get a call back.
The reason people respond well to the “no call call” is simple: Calling late sends a message that she is busy, and a lot of successful people work late. It also shows that Jen cares about them and that they are important because she is making the effort to let them know she is thinking of them even though it's late.
Jen said she likes to make the no call, calls once a week. If no one answers she leaves a message. Short and sweet but filled with enough substance to create curiosity and intrigue. She said she often actually talks to somebody because executives work late and respond to calls after hours. In her opinion late calls produce better conversation because the prospects respected her work ethic. They also have the time to talk because they’re not being bothered by people at the workplace.
On the flight home I reflected on Jen’s no call, call and it dawned on me that twenty years earlier my boss and I had actually embraced the no call, call. We called people all hours of the day when we were trying to get our territories going. It was the reason I won the Prolific Prospector and Rookie of the Year awards that year. It was the reason that our careers took off and flourished. Jen’s technique was so simple and so effective. I made a point to put the no call, call back into the quiver of my sales tools. From that day forward any important call I made, especially to executives and prospects, I made before or after hours. I built an entire process around those types of calls and had multiple surefire scripts that I tested and perfected over the years. I have given them to my sales teams, and I have watched them grow their business.
For me I prefer early calls. I’m up early, usually headed to the beach for a dawn patrol surf session, which usually puts me in a great mood. It’s also something pretty cool to talk about, especially when you’re calling somebody in Cincinnati who’s dealing with snow and sub-zero temperatures. My calls often go like this, “Hey Marc, Jeff Eilers here. I know it’s pretty early, but I want to reach out to you before I head to the beach for a quick surf . . . do me a favor, give me a shout back. I should be out of the water by 8 o'clock.” They have no idea who I am or what I want but, I get a call back every time just to talk about the fact that they are freezing and I’m surfing.
Tommy T.
I had a trainee down in Houston. His name is Tommy T. He was halfway through his twelve-month training when his boss/mentor quit. Tommy T. called and told me he was fearful he would fail due to no local mentorship or leadership. He didn’t know if he wanted to continue in the training program. He said that the office had a bad reputation in the market and that no brokers/prospects would call him back. I reassured him that I had rebuilt plenty of offices and I was not overly concerned with the optics. I also told him I would be his mentor.
We set weekly calls and I asked him to stick it out for three more months, he agreed. We worked on his product, his scripting, his value proposition and even his attire. We saw vast improvements. He regained faith in the program. While he was upbeat now and more optimistic, he still could not get worthy prospects on the phone. He was frustrated and told me that he was still on the fence about whether or not he was going to stick it out. I listened with intent and when he was finished, I told him that he had all the tools he needed and that he was going to be a great success. I told him that I understood his frustrations. I explained to him that he was doing all the right things: putting in the hours, working incredibly hard, learning all the components of his job and managing the office without a boss. I explained to him that he had taken on an incredible amount of responsibility for a twenty-two-year-old trainee. We had come so far and were so close to success, so I asked him to give me four more weeks.
I asked him to continue working hard and executing on the things that we talked about. I asked him to forget about the negative thoughts and to approach each day with a positive outlook. I then asked him to do me one last favor. At the end of every day when he just couldn’t take it anymore, I asked him to make one more call. There was silence and when he spoke, he said, “But Jeff, I leave the office every night at 7 or 8 p.m. Who the heck am I going to call?” I told him to call the biggest most badass broker in his territory and make the no call, call.
He was a bit confused. I took the time to explain to him what that meant. I told him about my late nights sitting in the office with my boss Dan Rood and about the technique that I learned from my broker Jen. I told him about how we all succeeded, I then told him to be prepared for a call back, be ready with his script and to be specific with his purpose. I asked him to report back to me on Friday to debrief on how his calls went. He agreed but did not see the point. He told me that no one would call him back. I acknowledged his disbelief and said please just do it!
Two days did not go by and I got a call from Tommy T. There was a hint of excitement in his voice. He went on to tell me that he had just gotten a call back from somebody in his territory he had been calling on for three months. He secured a face-to-face appointment. We celebrated his win and I asked him to continue making the no call, call. After a few weeks, he understood its value. In fact, he now had more meetings than he knew what to do with. Tommy T.’s efforts were well rewarded. He ended up speaking with many new brokers. He even secured a meeting with one of the biggest producers in his territory. He happened to catch the big-time broker one night when the broker was in a panic. The broker forgot to shop the benefits for a large group that was getting a huge increase in the renewal premium. He was presenting to the group in two days and knew that most carriers needed over a week to produce a quote. The group was worth about $250,000 in premium. That premium equated to about 50 percent of his rookie goal. Tommy T. recognized that this no call, call could be worth a lot to him so using his skills, he presold the case. He told the broker he’d compute a reasonable offer within a day and would hand deliver the paperwork to his office in the morning. Tommy T. sold that case and graduated from the rookie training program. He’s gone on to be a successful rep, a fantastic mentor and currently sells more business than his old boss and the other old salespeople in his office did combined. He is a huge believer in the no call, call.
Side note. It’s been years since Tommy T. graduated rookie school, he is doing very well. He recently married, had a child and moved into a new home. To make sure that I got my story straight, I sent him the rough draft of this no call, call chapter. He called me immediately and told me I was spot on. And with a chuckle he told me he had a funny story. He said, “First off Jeff, I have a note on my computer that says, “One More Call” and from time to time when things slow down I make the no call, call. As fate would have it, he told me he made one such call this week, and no kidding it netted him a new broker with a $400,000 piece of business.
No call, call tips:
Make the call before or after work hours
Keep the message short and sweet. The call is about them and not work
The message should be mysterious and confident: act as if
Prepare for a callback, have purpose and direction. Don’t be wishy washy
Prepare for somebody to answer the phone. Many executives and successful people work late