I watched a clip from the movie The Pursuit of Happyness featuring Will Smith. The movie is set in San Francisco, California where the young Will Smith works for a company called Dean Witter as a salesman. At Dean Witter, Smith sells Medical Equipment through cold calling potential clients. In the movie clip that I watched, Smith walks into work and discusses how he has limited time to make calls throughout the day because he has to pick up his son so he gets off earlier, He shares how he maximizes his time during the day to make the most calls he possibly can. This really shows that cold calling is a numbers game. After explaining that, Smith is looking at his call list and he selects the CEO of a company to call. This shows good prospecting by Smith, it is very important to try to call the decision makers instead of lower level people in a company to have the best chance at making the sale. He then connects with the CEO’s receptionist and she then connects him with the CEO. When initially talking to the CEO, Smith is flustered and is scrambling with his words. This is something you do not want to do when you are cold calling, you want to always be ready and expect to reach the client. The next thing that will does is very good, he goes for the appointment in this prospecting cold call. He then happens to get an appointment scheduled in 20 minutes and he accepts it and scrambles to the appointment. In this scene he is very desperate to make the sale so he accepts the appointment, but in sales now you want to see if the client is a good fit for you as well so you don’t wanna throw away your whole schedule for an appointment. There is a lot you can learn and analyze from this short clip, it is very interesting to see different sales techniques.
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That’s a really cool example from a movie! I agree that cold calling is 100% a numbers game, and that we should be aiming to talk to the decision makers. I think anyone that has tried cold outreach can relate to the nervousness and difficulty of it.
As someone who has never tried cold-calling, it sounds nerve-racking, but I think that it could be good practice with rejection. This movie does a good job of showcasing the real struggle of a salesman before he “makes it” and the hard work and determination it takes to succeed, one call at a time.
This article is a good reminder that salesmen need to stay calm and confident, even while cold calling. When one talks to a CEO, they should not be scrambling words and sweating to take whatever appointment they can. In this scenario, the salesman must remember that he and the CEO are both human and on equal playing fields.
I have seen this movie and it is such a big inspiration! You did a good job breaking this scene down,
Great pick Andrew! I think that it is really important to talk about cold calling as a lot of entry level sales positions will have you do this. It is important to be able to think on your feet but also know what your plan is before making a call.