Cat Puke Leads to Large Gross Sales!

Having run a virtual b2b telemarketing service for 20+ years, I have had many funny occurrences while conducting business out of my home. Although, this one happened a while ago, my pregnancy resulted in a son who is now in college, it is my all time favorite.

I received a call from a large manufacturer, in central MA, asking if I would submit a proposal for b2b telemarketing services.  They were interested in doing a pilot program to see if it would be worth their while to start an in-house program.  I explained to the product manager that we were a small company and if they wanted a kajlllion leads that she should probably go to another company.  She explained that the company liked working with entrepreneurs and that I should go ahead and submit a proposal.

After submitting the proposal I did my due diligence of calling to follow up.  Over the course of 2 months I left many voicemail messages that resulted in no return calls.

In April, I received a call from the product manager.   She told me that my proposal was in the top 4 and she would like to see my facilities.  Again, I told her that we were small and that actually we were a virtual call center.  If she needed an actual facility to perform her campaign than she should look somewhere else however if she wanted to sit in my living room and have coffee and meet that would be fine.  She said that would be fine so we set up a time to meet on a Wednesday at 11:00.

That day came and I was all prepared!  I dropped my 2 year old off at day care by 8:30, stopped by Dunkin Donuts and picked up coffee and donuts.  Came home and made calls until 10:15.  I started to clean the house and was able to clean the kitchen and bathroom when there was a knock at the door — the time was 10:30!   Being 6 months pregnant at the time I was dressed in my husbands, sweat pants and a baggy old t-shirt.  There were still toys all over the floor and I hadn’t had the chance to run the vacuum cleaner.  I answered the door and there stood a Natalie Wood look a like.

“It’s 10:30,” I said.

“I’m early,” said Natalie.

“Well you’ll have to realize that I know how to dress professionally and my house has seen better days,” I explained.

We went into the dining room and Natalie pulled out a four-page questionnaire.  I couldn’t tell how I was doing, as the answers to the questions were all ambiguous, what would constitute a hot lead? When would you decide to turn over a hot lead?

Natalie started the third page of questions when my cat came yowling in.  Now this is the cat that never shows up when there is company.  Natalie started to reach down to pet the kitty and I could see her visibly recoil. The cat was covered with mud and grass and just gross!  She started to say something about the cute kitty when all of a sudden the cat started throwing up!

At this point I started to laugh and said this mess I would have to clean up.  Natalie put away the questionnaire, we talked a little more about everything else but telemarketing and then she left.  I never even asked when she would be making a decision.

A few weeks later I decided that I would follow up despite the events that occurred.  Typically, I left a voice mail message however within the hour Natalie returned my call.

“Ceri, I highly recommended you to our VP of marketing he is going to make a presentation to the owner and we will be incorporating your services into our budget!”

I got over my shock and thanked her and then she added, “ Oh, by the way I didn’t tell the VP anything about the cat puke!”

“Actually, Natalie,” I said, “I use that cat throw up technique on all my sales meetings!”

A few months later we performed the pilot program for the company and it was reported back to me later that there were $74,000 in forecasted sales as a direct result from our calls!

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Ceri Ruenheck has developed and managed inside/outside sales operations for over 20 years and is the president of It’s Your Call. A virtual call center, It’s Your Call works with companies that lack the time to make calls necessary for their direct marketing campaigns.   Author of the ebook “Cold Calling for the Clueless”, Ceri has also presented to various professional organizations on entrepreneurship, networking and cold calling.

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