The bulk of my first real job was cold calling. When I told friends, typical responses included “I couldn’t do that”, “I can’t stand the phone” and “I’d rather die”. Despite this I still feel calling is the best way to establish a direct connection with someone you want to do business with. To do it with serenity you just need a genuine purpose and genuine curiosity. It’s hard to be both curious and agitated and I write that as a regular reader of the guardian.
My favorite example is the Check Back, which would be part of my procedure for calling a client a second time. Despite coming after an initial conversation, it also set up the first. I was trained in its specifics, under a different name, after I’d graduated and started work in London but I’d already learned the principle in an entirely different industry and setting.
Entering the kitchen, we were met with “Alright yer slags?”, which was half yelled with clear delight over Limp Bizkit’s “Take a Look Around”. It was 2000, I was 19, in my second year of university and working to help pay for that at a large pub outside Leeds.
Ignoring the obscene greeting, John, our licensee, continued what he’d been saying.
“...you’ve put the order in front of Jodi…”, without turning, John jerked his head backward toward our cheerily abusive chef who’d resumed stirring a vat of soup with one hand while idly reaching for the kitchen’s radio volume with his non be-ladeled hand “...Whoever’s sous that day…
“Keeeeeeetchen BEEEEEETCH!” corrected Jodi in an affected and Yorkshire accented Spanish trill
“...puts the order on this board after food’s under hot lamp, you hear bell, you tek food t’table”. As Jodi had turned up the radio, John’s own volume had risen also, while his accent became more pronounced. A tone of battling coarseness filled the tiled kitchen, like Sean Bean rap battling Fred Durst through a reverb pedal.
I looked at the white numbered black board and its half banged in nails. It was just after a lunch service and only a few orders were still open, their square stubs of paper speared below a corresponding table number. The rest of the board was half full of stubs that had been folded in two and then run through. I asked what these meant.
“Check Backs. If you see one that’s not folded, go check everything’s ok with the food, the table ‘just want to check back with you that food’s all right’ you can say or ‘did you get all the food?’. If it is, if they did, come back and fold the order on the board here. Now we know they’re taken care of” John said in a lull before Jodi leapt through the air, neck of his ladle held like a guitar in one hand, while his other thrust the scoop provocatively - and almost certainly on purpose - into his crotch, landing between us at the exact moment the chorus crashed back to life.
Five years after that pub, when I was training new salespeople in London, I would ask if they’d ever worked in hospitality and if they remembered a version of the black chalkboard. Usually they would. I’d remind them that any initial call was an opportunity to set up a Check Back. You’re offering to send (and at no cost!) an example of something relevant to a fellow professional in your industry. You then automatically have a purpose in catching up at a later date and can be curious about the response. What did they think of the copy? Had it even turned up? Was it different from what was promised? Maybe they preferred it? Almost anything was a sincere reason to Check Back short of asking if they wanted more sauces but even then, better Ketchup than an aimless catch up.