Sales Recruiting Blog

Cold Calling Techniques That Really Work

Eleven years ago when I got into sales recruiting I worked for a company called Culver Careers that had 20 offices and 150+ recruiters.  It was my burning desire to become the Rookie of the Year and get promoted to Branch Manager in short order.  I knew that all I had to do was sell more than anyone else but that was easier said than done.  Since I didn’t want to have to work 70-80 hours/week I knew that I had to go about business differntly than the other sales recruiters and do activities that no one else was doing.  At this company that meant cold-calling.  The only problem was that beyond an internship at Merrill Lynch where I received no formal training I had never cold-called via the telephone before.  After a trip down to Barnes & Noble I came home with the book Cold Calling Techniques That Really Work by Stephan Schiffman.  This began my career as a bonafide head hunter.

All of 125 pages or so this is the perfect book for the rookie starting out in copier, telecom, payroll or other hunting sales job.  Stephan’s writing style is clear, succint and impactful.  That first year at Culver, 25% of my candidate placements and several clients came from the techniques that I learned from this book and yes I won Rookie of the Year and was promoted 2 months later to Branch Manager.  Without that extra 25% of activity I definitely wouldn’t have won the Rookie of the Year award and probably not have been promoted so fast.  Eleven years later, we still use this as our foundation for head hunting candidates.  Highly, highly recommended to those sales reps in their first sales job or the experienced sales rep who struggles with cold-calling.