Are You Committing a HAYT Crime?
Generic openers are killing your sales pitches. Here are some thoughts on why asking "how are you today" is the absolute fastest way to get a dial tone, plus some genuinely weird tactics I stumbled across online.
6 min. read
I have been thinking a lot lately about the absolute grind that is cold calling. It really is the necessary evil of running an MSP. I was just talking to a friend about the struggle of drumming up new business without sounding like corporate robots.
I was scrolling through an MSP forum the other day and saw someone refer to the phrase "How are you today?" as a "HAYT crime." I honestly almost spit out my coffee... It is so brutally accurate. The second you hear those four words on the other end of the line, your brain immediately flags the interaction as a sales pitch. You just know the caller doesn't actually care how your Thursday is going. They just want to sell you a firewall or get a meeting on the calendar.
People are getting pretty desperate to break the ice these days. I actually read a thread where a guy swore by something he called "the 42 seconds rule". He would literally open the call by asking for exactly 42 seconds of the prospect's time. It sounds completely absurd at first. But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. It throws the person off guard just enough to make them pause. It is highly specific, so they know you aren't going to hold them hostage for half an hour.
Another thing that caught my eye was the whole idea of warming up the call. Just cold-blasting random local dental offices is pretty much a waste of breath. Some folks are dropping off physical mugs or mousepads first. Then they follow up with a quick email. By the time they actually dial the phone number, the brand name is at least somewhat familiar to the front desk. It takes the absolute freezing cold nature out of the cold call.
Running a small shop means you have to wear a lot of hats. Sometimes you are deep in Active Directory fixing a frustrating user permission mess, and the next minute you are trying to sound cheerful on the phone to a local law firm. It is a tough transition. I definitely think skipping the generic greetings is a step in the right direction.
What do you think about that 42 seconds thing? Do you think you could actually pull that off on a call without laughing? You guys know you can let me know in the comments... right?
