Kia Marketing – Telesales is making a comeback

Chris Barnard: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Bear Business with me, Chris Barnard from FeedbackFans.com. Today my guest is Shafia Cullum, founder of the Business, Kia Marketing. In this episode, Shaf and I dive into the state of telemarketing in 2025. We discuss the critical importance of resilience, preparation, and understanding your audience. Plus, Shaf shares some inspiring success stories from her client’s experiences.

Chris Barnard: Shaf, Hi. Would you like to tell our listeners a little about you, your background, and what led to the creation of Kia Marketing please?

Shafia Cullum: Yes. Thank you for having me on. So I, um, I started off in sales, um, marketing. Wow. This was my very first job was sales and marketing and it were a door-to-door job. So I dropped outta college and, uh, and I needed a job so that was the only one that was available with my qualifications that would, uh, that would hire me. And so, and so we did door to-do calling. Um, it was tough. It was alright in the summer, but then when it led into winter, you know, you are walking around in the rain and we’d, we’d be selling, um, like charity direct debits, can you sign up and sponsor, you know a child for two pounds a month, Dog Trust, all of that sort of stuff, but it was commission only based and yes I mean, best week I earned was, was about 800 quid and look 16-year-old that was just so much money, and uh, you know, there’s some, there was some weeks there where, you know, when it’s pissing down the rain, nobody’s, nobody’s answering the door. No one’s wanting to leave the door open because you’re letting the heat out. And, uh, and so yeah, I’ve done that for a while, but I think everybody should do a bit of door-to-door sales or cold calling because it really builds resilience, you know, the rejection. I think, um, I think it’s good. I think everyone should do it. And then from there on, I, I went into a call center and then I’ve just been in call centers and things like that. And, uh, and then I had kids, so, you know, you can’t have kids and, and also have a career at the same time. So I took the time off with my, with my first so that I could spend it with him It’s childcare so expensive. You know, every mom knows if you go to work, you’re only spending that entire income on the childcare for somebody else look after your kid. So it’s really tough. Um, so I took the time off and then when he started nursery, it was try and look for a job again. But obviously with a three year gap in your cv, nobody wants to take you on. And so it went back to call center work. And uh, and then when I had my second, uh, seven years later, I had had another one. And when he got to about one, I just, I’d, I’d had enough of being at home. You know, I didn’t, well, I wanted a job, but I wanted to, I wanted to do something, but I didn’t wanna put him into childcare. Um. So I was just looking online and, you know, at this point now, now there’s lots of work from home jobs. You know, I think since COVID, it’s, that’s one thing that’s come out of it that’s great, is there’s just so many opportunities to work from home. At this, this point, there wasn’t anything like that. Um, so, you know, school is nine to three, work is eight till five, do the math. It doesn’t work. So, um, I’d found this, uh, website and it was called Mumsnet. No mum mum’s network or jobs for mums, something like that. And, uh, there was somebody on there and there was, uh, it was for a call, uh, cold caller. And, um, it was, it said flexible hours. So I was like, great, I’m applying for that and fortunately I got the job, so I was working between nine, the hours of nine and three. I got to do school run, I got to do pickup, and then I worked in between and life was fantastic. Uh, coincidentally, the, the guy that I worked for was a business coach, so a couple of months in, naturally in his game he started asking questions like, you know, what’s your goals? What’s your dreams? And, and all that sort of stuff. And, uh, I was just like, I’ve surpassed all my goals and dreams. I got a job around the kids. You know, I worked 30 hours a week and mate, this guy was paying me like 15 quid an hour, and coming from call centers. I think back then the, the National Living Wage must have been about six quid, something like that. So when I’m on 15 quid an hour round the school, I was just like, I’m done. I’ve hit my goals and dreams and aspirations. So that’s, uh, that were that. And, uh, anyway, he’d, uh, as a business coach invited me to one of his events and so I managed to plan it for the day and so I was able to go and he’d done his presentation and then he welcomed me on stage and he just, you know, told his clients and, and everybody in the room that I’d started working with him. And, uh, I was good at the job. I did, I did well at the job and, uh, he was great to work with. And, um, he then, you know, he then he told me before, why don’t you open a business? Why don’t you do cold calling? Train somebody to do cold calling and you’d have a great business. And at that point I was, I’m a mom, like I’ve got two kids. I’m, I’ve got a job around school, like, I’m good. Anyway, that was just a conversation that we’d had months ago and uh, as he’d invited me on stage, he then turned around to a room full of about 200 business owners and goes, if anybody needs cold calling come and see her. She’s just opening a call center. So he said that, and, uh, and it, I didn’t, there was no call center. It was me in my bedroom, you know, with a, with a laptop and, you know, if, if they knock the charger it would cut off. So that’s where I was and, uh, and there was no call center. And anyway, I had these, you know, business owners, you know, I’m not in my environment that’s comfortable, you know, i’m with Business owners in suit and ties and they’re coming up to me saying, can I have your business card. And, uh, I didn’t have any business cards, so I went up to him and I said, you know, what have you done? Like, what have you done here? And he’s like, what’s the problem? I was like, well, your client now asking for me business card. And he’s like, well, what’s the problem? And it’s like, we don’t, I don’t have any business cards. It’s like, nah, don’t worry. We’ll go get some. I was like, mate, I don’t have a business. And he’s like, ah, don’t worry, we’ll build one. So, you know, it really sort of threw me in it then, um, which I’m, I’m glad I, I’m glad he did because I, I just sort of needed that nudge. Um, and anyway, it just sort of went from there. And, uh, I, as I was calling because of, you know, the approach or whatever, however my style was, it was kind of refreshing to decision makers on the other end. So I used to get asked quite a bit, you know, are you you freelance and, and I used to say I was employed, um, but there was enough work there. And so the more and more that was happening, he said, well, you know, just take somebody on and train ’em to do what you do. You know, the work’s coming in. So I’d never run a business. I dunno how to do it. And he sort of guided me through, you know, take somebody on freelance and then you’ve got no risk and, and all that sort of stuff. And so we did. And fortunately the first lady that I took on, she was brilliant. She was so good on the phone. And, you know, I’d got my clients and I still worked, you know, I still worked full-time for him. I mean, I was, I was freelance, but you know, I sort of saw, I was employed with him and, um, yeah. So that bit was going really well. And then I thought, all right, well let’s just do it again. So I took on another employee and, um, well not employee, but another freelance. Um. Telemarketer. And there was enough work coming in because the lady that I hired, same thing. She’d get people that said, you know, oh, you sound great. You know, are you freelance? And I used to just tell her like, yeah, just just say that you are, you know, and we’ll take the work. Um, and so then I took my second, uh, employee and, uh, she was so great as well. And so at this point I’m like, oh my God, this is so easy. This is just gonna be so easy. Why is everyone not doing this? And I just thought, I’m gonna build this, you know, I’m gonna build this company. I’m gonna have hundred people by the end of this month the way this is going. And then, uh, and then reality hit, didn’t it? I was I just fluked the first two employees, and they’re not all that great. And it doesn’t come that easily. So, uh, so yeah, that’s kind of how I accidentally fell into running a business.

Chris Barnard: Yeah. How fantastic. And so many people do seem to fall into running a business. I had a similar story with the Feedback Fans start where, uh, one of my bosses and how wonderful it is when they can see that potential in you and, and believe you can do these things often it is before, I think as your story before you realize yourself, you can do these things. And yeah. Yeah. Um, asked to help him. I think he was on the phone call. We were literally in the office in employed work, the both of us. Uh, I, I notice he’s taking a phone call and I notice he’s said my name a few times. He’s like, oh yeah, Chris. Yeah, yeah, yeah. he’ll do it And he comes off this phone call. I. He comes off this phone call, he is like, uh, yeah, you’ve gotta go down, um, and see this business ’cause they’re spinning their systems out of a bigger wealth management business into a boutique and I said you’d help them, so that was it. So that was effectively, that was my first client back in the day. I mean, that was, terrifying But, um, I also spent, my, my first job was door to door knocking, uh, critical illness. Um, and I had some, I had some amazing stories there. I mean, of course I had no confidence, no knowledge, no anything. There was one call I made, and this was before, I mean this would be sound insane to the new generations, but well before sat nav. So I had my AA route finder. I was in my Vauxhall Corsa

Shafia Cullum: used to get given a map, you know, for the door to door stuff, if we’d get given a map and you’d have to, sounds crazy now to say.

Chris Barnard: Sounds absolutely mad. It sounds absolutely mad, but that was it, right? And so, and we would get these leads. That would just be an address, right? So you’d have to try and find out on AA route finder or whatever it would’ve been at the time. But I remember turned up at one house and very quickly, maybe after 10 minutes, I mean, I’d been let in so I was like, right, I’m doing all right. I’ve been let in. And then very quickly. very quickly. that’s sort of, I think it was a, um, maybe a a a couple who were maybe 45. They were like, are you sure you want your career to be selling critical illness cover door to door, Chris? And I thought at that point, right, I must, I must really stick out. They must be they’re performing an intervention on me. Uh, but, but I mean, incredible. I agree with you that in terms of um, what a great experience, particularly, I think as, as some of your first experiences In business. I mean, it must be, it’s so different to The Apprentice, isn’t it, these sorts of environments. Cause you’re just honestly. Yeah. Lions den and yeah, yeah. It’s down to you. It’s down to you in these situation, Shaf, isn’t it to make the difference

Shafia Cullum: yeah. But I think it builds, I think it builds a lot of resilience and a lot of, um, you know, getting that rejection because you know when to, to be honest, you know, when people say you’re in, you know, you do cold calling for a living or you know, you don’t really, you get paid to get rejected 99 times per day. That’s what you get paid for, and then it’s a bonus when you get the lead

Chris Barnard: Yeah. Yeah. And the confidence obviously is so important to help sell. Also, how important is sort of doing the right research and preparation before you make your calls? Because I think you can certainly tell, can’t you, if someone’s phoned you up and they’ve done a bit of research and, uh, are leading with the right sort of questions

Shafia Cullum: Yeah, I mean, look, the preparation is everything because if you, you know, if you don’t know who your target audience is, if you don’t know who the prospect is or the decision maker of the company, if you don’t know whether you know they need the offering or they’re even, uh, a suitable candidate, I guess, for your service or your product. It’s just not gonna work, you know? So the preparation is everything. And, uh, I’ll give you a good example. One of our clients, we just started working with this guy last month, but I’ve, I’ve known him for a while. We’ve done work in the past. Anyway, it’s a new campaign he wanted us to run, and obviously I’m in this industry is this is what we do. So we make sure that it’s all fully prepped. And anyway, uh, couple of hours into the campaign that the girls have rang me and, and I love working with the team that I’ve got now because they’re so great at what they do, and they’re just so open and transparent. You know, if they’re struggling on a campaign and they think it’s a them problem, they’ll say like, look, I’m really struggling could we maybe meet with this client? Or could we get a little bit more information because we just don’t really feel like we’re doing it justice. Um. But on this particular occasion, they just said, you know, I think it’s a bit of a data problem. And uh, and I believe them, you know, like I said, they will come to me if it’s them. And so they said, you know, you are ringing companies and this decision maker no longer works here. This one died three years ago. And so we went back to the client and we just sort of said, look, we’re a few hours into campaign now, and it’s just not going, um, you know, the way that we wanted to, but I think it’s a data problem. I think we can fix it. And so is it all right if we just spend some of the time, you know, some of the money on qualifying the data first and trying to figure out who this right person is. And, and once it’s all prepped, I think we’ll be able to do a better job. Now, not everybody would trust that because it sounds a bit of an upsell. Um, but like I said, we’ve known this guy for years, so he trusted us and he was just like, yeah, whatever you need to do, just do it. And so took us about a week, two weeks to get that sorted. And then that was it. Give it to the girls. Within 10, 15 minutes, lead booked, 10, 15 minutes lead booked. And it would just, it just goes to show that the preparation is everything and you know when it comes to, um, people that have tried telemarketing or cold calling in the past, you know, you often hear that I’ve tried it and it wasn’t very good, or I’ve tried it and so and so wasn’t very good. And you do get people that aren’t great at it, but it could also be that you’ve just not given them the right stuff to be able to do the job with, or that it’s not been prepped well enough. So I just, it always makes me wonder how many people have been, you know, out of a job because they’ve not done a great cold calling campaign, And it might not have been them. Sometimes it might have been, but it might not always be them.

Chris Barnard: Yeah. Amazing how businesses have these blockers, isn’t it? And I see this as someone obviously who writes and puts together marketing campaigns, marketing strategies. When you are starting to put the tactics together, right, and saying, we gotta do these ads, maybe we gotta bring telesales, go do a video. It’s always amazing to get a gauge of, uh. What their previous experience has been on certain things, ’cause they’re always very keen to tell you, oh, I’ve done this. It didn’t work. I’ve done this. It yeah, but, you know, if you say your Google Ads campaign didn’t work, there’s a a variety of reasons why that might be.

Shafia Cullum: It this is it. It might be the setup, it might be the person who running it. You might have had the wrong strategy, you might have been targeting the wrong people. That nuance seems to get lost and like you must get that in telesales all the time, yeah. There is no reason why telesales wouldn’t work for any business right in, in in the whole theory of it, because you are phoning people up. There’s not a aversion to, to calls in in a certain industry is there?

Shafia Cullum: Yeah, I mean, I think the only, the only, it don’t work for every single company, and I’ll tell you why. Because if you’ve got, um, low, like, low transaction value, so say for example, um, you, you sell pens, you know. With a company name on it, you are gonna have to sell a lot of pens in order to be able to warrant the fees for either an outsource telemarketing company or to pay somebody to do the telemarketing. And so for that reason, it might not work. And um, but in theory, you know, if you’re making the dials, just because it doesn’t work, it doesn’t mean that cold calling doesn’t work for you. Like you said, it could just be down to a whole bunch of variables. I remember a few years back, um. Somebody rang me and he said, he’d had a BDM. And he said, uh, I just don’t think they’re doing great. Can you, can you guys do it? And, you know, before jumping in and saying, yeah, you know, we’ll take the work. I just said to him, you know what, what, why aint it working? Why are you saying it’s not going great? And he said, well, um, he’s just not getting as many leads as I’d like. And I says, all right, so what’s his stats, what’s his KPIs? And he was just like, well, I don’t know. He gets in, you know, five or six or whatever it was a week. Said, right. And how many hours does he do? I said, and what are you expecting? He said, well, I don’t know, but it could be better. So I, I sent him away with some KPIs and measurements and I said, monitor them for a week and then come back to me. And so we spoke then the following week, he gave me his BDM stats and I were like, they, they’re good. They’re good enough. If you think you’re gonna get more for your money than you’re probably not. And uh, and so, you know, it kept him in a job and it’s, uh, sometimes I think the expectation can be. If I just, you know, why can’t I have more leads or I just want more leads, and, you know, there is a limit to what BDMs can, can do, but sometimes you’ve gotta have a look at that as well. And it’s not just, well move him on and, and try somebody else because you might be, you might be underwhelmed with the results, you know, somebody else might not have been able to do it. As great as, um, I sort of told him myself, I think you BDMs doing a great job. I think you’ve got somebody good here. And, and that was it. But the great thing about it is though, having that transparency in business, I think is really important because since then, you know, he’s referred me so much work. Still today. He still got the same BDM that he had back then, and I’ve still never had any work with him in terms of cold calling, but I’ve had referrals out of them. And so, you know, building those relationships is important as well. Not just about a quick quid today, I think.

Chris Barnard: It’s such a great point about managing expectations as well. I mean, the amount of time still even at uh, at 39 now, where i’ll get a question from a business, either a client or a partner, and I’ll be like, why are they asking that question? Then I’m like, ah, this is the beauty of experience. I know that the expectations have not been managed properly in the past, and very much exactly the same, their sort of the reason why they might think these things haven’t yeah. The expectation management hasn’t happened, and it’s such a important conversation to have, as you say the confidence so important on the telesales, the research and preparation. How important is scripting in cold calling that you do, um, and how can businesses sort of create effective scripts when they’re sort of brainstorming and, and if they’re, they’re listening to you today like, actually we should try telesales. What sort of advice can you give them about creating their own script?

Shafia Cullum: there’s always a debate when it comes to scripting, right? Because people say that if you sound natural and you’ve got a personality, it’s gonna go well for you. And if you read an off a script and it sounds robotic, then you know it’s, it’s not gonna be attractive to the person that’s on the other end of the phone. And, and cold calling doesn’t work. And so I think the way we do it anyway, that we find is effective is our team live off scripts. They read scripts word for word. With everything that they do, even though they’re experienced, even though they might have been on the campaign for the last two years. And the reason being is because scripts are written in, there’s a lot of psychology that goes into it. So here’s an example. When you ring somebody, we teach people to say that, you know, hiya, this is Shafia Calling from Kia marketing rather than, hi, my name’s Shafia calling from Kia Marketing. And the reason we do all that is because there’s only a handful of people that address themselves as this is, and this is your captain speaking, this is president of the United States speaking. This is the king speaking. And so on a subconscious level, when you ring somebody and you say, this is, and address yourself that this is, it’s as though you’re an important person. So there’s a lot of psychology that goes behind the, the scripting. But what we also do so that it doesn’t sound robotic, is that we write the scripts as though we talk. So if you were to, if you were to have a look at one of our scripts, you probably would think that I didn’t go to school, you know, not written proper. So we’ve had, we’ve written scripts up. Like for example, rather than saying, would you want to, we just write it or would you wanna? And this is how when the team are reading it word for word, this is how this sounds so natural. And their personality’s in with it because they’re written in that way. Um, we’ve written scripts up before and sent them to clients and said, this is the one we’re gonna use. And they’ve sent them, oh, they’ve sent them back to me. Highlighted, you know, typos that we’ve put in. Um, you know, yeah, this is great if they’re written in that way for a reason. They’re written like that on purpose.

Chris Barnard: Yeah, I think the, the natural language point Shaf is incredible really in terms of, it’s, it would be an easy thing for someone to forget that, uh, speaking in the way that you naturally talk, and it builds a lot of authenticity and a lot of trust straight away, doesn’t it? That that is probably the difference of them putting the phone down to actually, uh, listening to what your proposition is. Right. Just you sounding natural.

Shafia Cullum: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, you’ve got to, you’ve gotta sound authentic and you’ve got to not sound salesy and um, you know, so the scripts are written in a way where the intro’s always the same. You know, hi, this is Shaf from Kia Marketing. I just wondered if there might be an opportunity for us to work together. Did you have a moment for me? And the reason that works is because right now. Rather than point phone down, you don’t know if I’m a customer, you don’t know if I could be buying your services. And so that then buys you the next couple of minutes to, you know, engage in a conversation. Uh, we then teach that, you know, the second part of the script needs to be that there’s, um, a question, like find a need in the call because not everybody’s for you. So if you can highlight that first disqualifying people is just as important as qualifying people and qualifying leads because if I’m trying to sell you, um, telemarketing services and let’s say again for example, like you’re selling these pens, I could just highlight that after asking a few questions. And that also builds a lot of trust, you know, because it’s saying to somebody, look, based on what you say, and I don’t think really that we are for you. And what you’ve gotta do is when you’re cold calling is not Think that every single person, you need to sign them up. Um, and that builds a lot of trust. cold calling, you know, it’s a whole relationship building game because like I said, for example, with that, that guy that passes me referrals now was just purely on the fact that I said, you know, I don’t think you need another telemarketer to do your job. And the same way if you are speaking to people over the phone and they’re not buying from you today, or they’re not right for you today, some of our best referral partners, um, are those that don’t even buy from us. ‘Cause it, they don’t need it, they don’t need the service. Um, but we’ve built enough trust that they see what we do. They see we’re transparent. And that’s how they know that if anybody’s gonna need telemarketing, they, they send them to us. So I think that’s important and, you know, asking the right questions. So, you know, it’s, uh, one of our training sessions we sort of teach is, uh, you know, like when you go to the doctor and he’ll ask you a bunch of questions before he prescribes anything you know, what you know, why are you here? What’s hurting? Where’s it hurting, how long is it hurting for? Um, you know, and then after that, after asking you a bunch of questions, he’ll then prescribe you, you know, some pills. Now you don’t know what you need until he ask you them a bunch of questions. So the definition of a sale really is that, uh, a transaction has been made. And when you go to buy your prescription, technically a sale has been made because you’ve bought the medicine, right? And so. That’s what, that’s the approach you need to take in telemarketing. Ask the right questions because you might find that somebody, um, somebody doesn’t need what you’re selling. So that’s how we do our scripts. And then the close is just very permission based, very in their hands. Like, you know, based on what we’re saying, I think we, may I make a suggestion that’s one line that we use is, may I make a suggestion? Because it opens it up to, it’s their decision and they’ll say, yeah, sure. And, and you know, our closing line then is like, well based on the fact that you said X, Y, and Z I think maybe you should have a chat with Chris Barnard. It might might be worth your while. Do you want me to get him to give you a ring? And now they bought, they want the call rather than me saying, well, I think you should do it. He’s amazing. He’s great and he is. Best thing since slice bread.

Chris Barnard: I’ll definitely be clipping that up. I’ll be using that across everywhere, Shaf. Yeah. Much better than slice bread. Yeah, I love that. It’s such a great point. So, and, and the close is so important. The confidence is so important. The research and prep and the data, uh, writing the script in the natural language, I think that’s wonderful as well. But inevitably when you’re on these calls, you’re gonna come across, some objections aren’t you? It’s quite natural in any sort of sales role in, in any sort of role where you are negotiating or trying to persuade someone, what would you say are the most effective techniques in your experience for overcoming the objections you’ll inevitably get on a, on a sales call.

Shafia Cullum: Yeah, well look, there’s good news and bad news in cold calling, and the bad news is there is no formula to make everybody say yes, you know? Um, but the good news is that there are techniques that you can use in order to help you increase your chances of generating leads. And, you know, the, the best technique that we find when it comes to objection handling is. I mean, objections are questions, and questions in marketing are buying signals. Um, so you laugh, like you remember this from, from cold calling days. So, you know, when it comes to objections, I think what, what you need to do is just translate them to what the prospect could really be asking you. So if you ring somebody and say, um, and they say to you, look, I, we’ve already got this in place. How do you, what what they’re really saying to you is, what do you do that’s different to what I’ve already got? Now, nobody’s really ever gonna say that to you. They just say, I’ve already got it in place. And then you take that as an objection. But let’s take it as for what it really is they’re saying to you, what is it that you’re offering that’s different? How do you know that you don’t know that you can do better? And what a lot of people do is jump straight from, well, I’ve already got it in place to, well, yeah, but we are better ’cause we do this and we do. Answer it as though they’ve said to you, um, you know, we’ve already got it in place. Means what do you do that’s different? So the way you answer that is that’s, that’s great. How’s it going? And they might tell you all the great things that, that they’ve already got in place, in which case you can either disqualify the lead because they don’t need services, or you can highlight the things that you do do differently. Um, what you sometimes find is people start moaning about the service that they’ve got and that way you are in anyway. So I would say translate the objection to what they’re really asking or they’re really saying, and then answer it more effectively that way.

Chris Barnard: And you’re right, it does take me back to my sales days. It takes me back to my media sales training, my financial sales training, my insurance sales training. The insurance sales training was more the kind of pumping on the chest and, you know, all singing together, everyone going outside for a cigarette Together. Uh, yeah, the objections just means they wanna buy it, ask them a leading question. All of that, I mean it,

Shafia Cullum: The basics are still there.

Chris Barnard: Yet the basics are still there and the basics still work, right? It’s still a, it is still a game in a way in terms of, you know, can I get to the next stage of this game? Which is all of the bits that you’re listing out and yeah. You know, being confident doing all the natural language. I think there is an art, particularly with objections, but I think also if you know your product. well You get a lot better at objections, yeah. Think of the times where I’ve stumbled with objections, it’s probably been in moments where I’ve not fully understood what the buyer wants or fully understood my product would that be fair?

Shafia Cullum: No, I think you’re right. Look, and, and this is what the, when I was going back to when the team said that after a couple of hours, they weren’t doing as well, and sometimes they do say to me problem, and that’s because. You know, they’ve met with the client, they’ve thought they understood the product or the service, they’ve gone to sell it, and then they’re getting questions on the other end and they’re, I just don’t know how to objection handle.

You know, I don’t know how to answer it. Not even objection handle, like I just don’t know the answers to it. Um, there might be also terminology that’s used in specific industries, and if you are not talking in their language, they’re gonna know right away that, you know, you don’t what you’re talking about. And so. That’s why we like to work closely with the clients and, you know, try to learn more about that. Learn the language, learn the terminology. Learn more about the products and service because if you’re on the phone to somebody, you need to know what you’re selling. And like you said, then you can sell with confidence. However, if look, if you’re new to cold calling and you don’t necessarily fully understand the product or service, 100%. Just be transparent about it, and that will take you a long way because, you know, we call for so many different clients, we’re not always gonna be the industry experts. We can’t be. And so if it’s something like, you know, well we’re selling cleaning services, well we know what that is, don’t we? But when you’re selling something like, for example, business coaching, do you really fully understand the value that it brings? You know, we can’t be the industry experts on everything, so sometimes. Sometimes just being transparent and saying, do you know what? I don’t actually know, but let me do one thing for you. Let me go find out and I’ll get back to you because I don’t want you to miss out on an opportunity that could be right for you because I didn’t do my job properly. And that will give you such, uh, that will build so much trust with that decision maker that when you do bring them that they think that you’ve not just gone to your next call because you know you’ve got hundred calls to make today, but you’ve gone out your way to actually figure out something and help them. Because that’s their job, our job really is to help people. So if you, if you don’t know, just be transparent. Don’t try, don’t try and wangle your way around it and try blag your way around a question. Just say, don’t know. Actually don’t know, mate. Do you want me to find out here though? And I, I can let you know.

Chris Barnard: And those sorts of interactions, they’ve probably contributed to sort of a lot of misconceptions around cold calling. Cold calling over the last few years seems to have got a bit of a bad rap. I don’t think that is actually through cold calling. I think that’s actually from, uh, the amount of spam people get and kind of a, a communications fatigue. People have started to get shaf with, um, you know, they’re used to getting phone calls that are not relevant or they’re getting emails that are, uh, purely hit and hope sort of millions of emails being sent. Obviously you can’t do that as well on the, on the phones, although AI is obviously making these sorts of things possible. What would you say that the common misconceptions are about cold calling from your experience?

Shafia Cullum: Yeah, it’s a good question. I. There’s a misconception. I think cold calling has got a bad stigma around it anyway, because people think it’s annoying and, and for the majority part it is. Cold calls are annoying and I think that’s just because they’re not done right. And what a lot of people do is, you know, they’ll hire a PA to do job, to do a job like, you know, do do me calendar schedules and then could you ring these clients and book them in And the next thing you know, they’ve been chucked a cold calling job. Like, here’s a script. Can you do some cold calling? And it’s for that reason It’s getting a bad name because it is a skill. Now, I think, you know, most people think that it’s maybe not just because you don’t need to be educated. You don’t need a qualification, you know, you don’t need to have done a course. And so it’s just a job that you can pass on to anyone. And it’s like, you know, you won’t call the plumber around to fit your bathroom and then say, here mate whilst you’re at it, Do you wanna just have a look at lights in my bedroom? You know, it, it just won’t happen. But that happens with cold calling And because you’ve got so many unqualified, unskilled telemarketers on the phones to just doing their job, uh, you know, that they’ve been, that they’ve been asked to do is why it gets annoying for people.

Now, the way we sort of try to teach telemarketing is to be very permission based. Very, it’s their decision and also very much it’s, let’s see if it’s right, you know, um. Asking the, asking the questions along the lines of seeing if it is for you. So, you know, one, one great line that we have in, um, in, in our scripts is to say, you know, well, what do you think we should do next? Because then it’s, it’s up to you, you know, well, most of the time what we do at this stage is we do X, Y, and Z, or we do a web demo, or we do whatever it is we are doing. Um, what do you think we should do? If it’s not for them, just tell them and, and I think that’s why it’s got a bad name to be honest.

Chris Barnard: And I think a lot of our listeners, they’re probably not experienced or, or heard many stories of successful cold calling campaigns. It’s probably not something you come across in the wild. But obviously there are many successful cold calling campaigns. I just wondered if there was any, um, that trigger in your mind, any that, that stand out of something where either someone thought it wouldn’t be a success and it was a massive success or a bi bigger success than they envisaged when, you know, someone took the brave decision of, yeah, no, we’re gonna try this telemarketing. What Shaf’s saying is actually what we need to be doing. Have you got any stories around that you’d like to tell?

Shafia Cullum: I mean, one, I guess a really great success story was um, was a guy that I worked with and i’d won this customer through. Um, it was actually the, uh, the business coach I was telling you about that got me into this whole thing. And, um, what happened was, I, I’d obviously started my call center and, and I rang him up and I said, you know, maybe we could do some work and, and we could work together. And he said, well, tell me how does it work? And I said, well, you know, the sales process, you already went through it. And he said, no, no I didn’t. And I never went through the sales process. I. I said, oh, interesting. I said, do you remember there was a time where you didn’t buy a business coaching? And I said, yeah. And I said, what happened? Then he said, well, you know, he said, you rang me, didn’t you? And then did. And as he was saying, he was like, oh my God, that that was the telemarketing. And I was like, now you’re buying coaching aren’t you? So you did go through the sales process. You’ve got the cold call. He said it didn’t feel like cold calling. And that’s the thing if you make, if you make them feel like it’s not a cold call. And, uh, anyway, he was a Venetian plasterer, uh, Venetian plasterer and so he wanted us to introduce him to interior designers, um, the high-end interior designers because obviously it’s, uh, you know, big hotels and things like that have Venetian plaster.

And, uh, the, the lead generation call was along the lines of, is it all right if we sent you some samples through? Is it something you would consider using? Have you ever used it? And if you like ’em, then you know, would you consider using us for, for this, you know, to supply it? And, uh, the campaign got cut short after a week because we, there were just so many leads generated and even didn’t have capacity to send out all these samples. And he is like, I’m out of, I’m out sample stock. And so that was one way to lose a client. Um, but that was a real success story that I remember from, from cold calling. And, uh,

Chris Barnard: Yeah, what a success. You can’t get better than that, right? We have ran out, so, uh, please stop phoning

Shafia Cullum: that was it. In that was it. So that was the biggest thing. And I think, you know. I know with AI and, uh, you know, technology nowadays, people are thinking, well, you know, there’s so many posts nowadays that cold calling dead. And you know, the one thing that I see on one hand is all of this AI being built, which you, we’ve gotta adapt. It’s not going anywhere. You know, it’s here to stay and, and you’ve gotta learn to, uh, incorporate that into your business somehow. But at the same time, on the other hand, there’s so many people complaining about bots and, you know, um, you can tell this is a bot message. This is a bot comment. This is a, you know, a, a bot email and a bot telephone call. That actually when you do get human on the other side, I feel like we’ve sort of like run through our course and we’ve gotten to this point not, not adapted into AI in that sense. And I mean, we use it in, in the back end of the business, you know, for the, for the members and things for the app that we’ve built. However, in terms of COVID, I feel like we, it’s our USP now ’cause we’re the only humans here on the other end of a phone.

Chris Barnard: And these things are unbelievably cyclical. There we go. Got it. Found it. Found my teeth in the end. Unbelievably cyclical in that they come round and, and particularly as someone who writes marketing campaigns, I’m always looking for those channels that are, uh, perhaps going out of vogue, not as popular ’cause you find that they are some of the most effective again, right? We’ve got direct mail campaigns that are super effective yeah. Gonna be running telesales marketing campaigns again soon. All those sorts of bits that people kind of go, oh, I wouldn’t do that anymore. That is usually the best time to do it. ’cause usually competitors aren’t doing it. And you can actually stand out doing it

Shafia Cullum: It’s like it’s going outta fashion and now you’re different.

Chris Barnard: like it’s going out of fashion

Shafia Cullum: Yeah. This is it. Um, yeah, I mean, look though that, that, that mail campaign, like you said, that’s one of the best campaigns we use. And even if the person on the other end didn’t. Didn’t appreciate or didn’t like it. You can always turn it into a joke because, um, I’ll tell you a story about a, a lumpy mail campaign that we did that went wrong, but then it went right.

Chris Barnard: Tell me. So, tell me. That sounds great. That’s what the listeners want

Shafia Cullum: so one of our clients, we’d, uh, he’d asked us to do this Lumpy Mail campaign from, it was sending out Kit Kats along with this letter to 100s of prospects and so we done that and for whatever reason, I dunno, we didn’t think, we just put on, put ’em in an envelope, put it with a letter, put a stamp on it, sent ’em through. And so after a couple of days we started then the cold calling campaign and oh my people were fuming because it was um, ’cause it was a normal stamp. It obviously didn’t go through letterboxed, which meant they got the postcard through to say that they’d missed it. They’ve gone to post office. They’ve had to pay two or three quid to receive this package, which just a Kit Kat that weren’t even worth the three quid that they’ve gone for. So they were fuming. Anyway, we were about half an hour into this campaign and team members come to me and she was just like, this is gone horrifically wrong. Like, we need to ring the client. Like do we tell him? Do we not tell him? So I was like, look, we gotta tell him because he is gonna find out anyway, you know, but it’s our mess up. We’ve, we’ve gotta fix it. So anyway, I rang the client and uh, he was fuming as well ’cause he is like, well, what are you gonna do about it then?

And I was like, I promise you I’ll fix it. Trust me, I’ll fix it. I’ve gone back to the time where, you know, like I said at the beginning when it was like opened the call center in and I just learn how to do it. I was just, I use that oh, through everything I do. I was like, I’ll fix it, I’ll do it. And then I just learn how to do it. Um, it’s like, whatcha gonna do? And I’m like, just leave it with me. Do you trust me? I had nothing else to go on. Do you trust me? He’s like, yeah. I was like, right then leave it with me. Anyway, we sat there, me and me and my colleague, and we just sat around, what do we do with this bloody campaign? ’cause people are fuming. So anyway, we turned it into a joke. We’d rang these customers and said the reason we’re ringing, so we didn’t go into a pitch. We said, the reason we’re ringing is because we’ve sent you a package. Have you got the postcard through yet? Or have you been to, have you been to collect it? And they were like, no, it’s on my desk.

We’ve not been yet. And so we were like, right, well, don’t go. I’ll tell you why. It’s gonna cost you three quid. And it’s only a Kit Kat. And the worst thing about it is it’s only like a two finger Kit Kat. It’s not even a four. And that just made them laugh. And then, you know, once you got past that intro, uh, you know, then they’re like, well, what is it about anyway?

And then now they’re asking you what? So that gave you a chance to cold call. Anyway, that campaign ran as a real success after that. Um, so yeah, client was happy in the end, but that, that was the, that was the learning from that do not be tight and, and, uh, order the right size stuff to try to save a few quid.

Chris Barnard: My goodness. Well, that is a first on Bear Business. I don’t think anyone’s made me cry with a story, but that is a very funny story. I could just, thing is I could sort of piece together and picture like kind of the realizations along going, oh no. Oh, no, no, no. It’s worse. It’s worse. It’s worse. I

Shafia Cullum: Oh, so bad. So bad.

Chris Barnard: Wow. Is he, are they still friends? The people who ran this campaign? Still friends today. They pick up your calls still?

Shafia Cullum: Yeah. No, so this was a client that we’d done it for. This was a client that we’d done it for, and then we ran the, um, we ran the campaign for him. Like I said, he were fuming when, when we had to ring him. That was not a great conversation to be the one that says we’ve messed up. And, uh, he was just like, I’ll fix it. And.

Chris Barnard: serious brand damage on the horizon

Shafia Cullum: Well, this is what he’s saying because it wasn’t just a case of, well, I’ve wasted money on the cold calling campaign. It was like, but my name’s gone out there along with everything else, you know? So that, that was, um, but look, in the end you just put a, find a way around things and that, that was great.

’cause we went in and we just told him before, like, look, don’t bo don’t bother going to collect it. You know, it’s only a Kit Kat. And, and we’d have a laugh with them and they’ll, you know, sort of save you two quid. Um. But then, like I said, then they’re asking, well, what is this all about? Because who’s ringing?

Like you’re five minutes into the conversation and then they’re clicking on like, hold on a minute. What is, what this, what’s this all about? Why have you even sent the Kit Kat? And, and so for that reason, look it, it ended up being successful. But I love a good lumpy mail campaign.

Chris Barnard: A lumpy mail campaign. Yeah. Now that’s gonna go down, that’s gonna go down in era as a conversation for people to, uh, do you remember that campaign? Yeah. Can’t forget about the Lumpy Mail campaign. That’s suppose that’s an amazing way to bring us into the last question as well, Shaf in terms of, um. Wonderful. I think people have got a real, will get a real grasp of, of how they can elevate their business with telesales today. Uh, but we’ve got more of a, a fun question that we like to end on, that we ask everyone, You can choose any type of, uh, game that you like. Could be a ball game, could be a card game, dominoes any sort of game you like really. But we do like to ask what your favorite game to play is. What game do you like to play in your spare time?

Shafia Cullum: What my favorite game to play, aside from cold calling game.

Chris Barnard: Yes.

Shafia Cullum: Um, what games do I like to play?

Chris Barnard: phone call bingo, that still happens, right? Yeah.

Shafia Cullum: Um, what game do I like to play? Um. Probably my favorite board game is Monopoly, but I think that’s more for the memories of Monopoly rather than the actual physical game. Me and my brother used to play all the time and uh, yeah.

Chris Barnard: playing with family, was it back playing with family Monopoly, I imagine in your household could be quite competitive, would it?

Shafia Cullum: So this was, I’m talking about like my childhood. I used to play it growing up with me brother. Um, so that’s where the memories come from. Competitive, so my family in, like my kids, the eldest one is so competitive. Like it’s just there’s no point playing a game if there’s no one wi you know, no one winning.

The youngest, he’s very much like he just in it, he’s just in it to have fun. So like the other day we were playing blackjack and obviously first one to get rid of all your cards wins, right? And every time he’s got down for one card, he picks up two or three cards and he’s doing this and doing this every time we go round and we’ve gone, why do you keep picking up?

So we’ve had a look at his cards. He’s like, you’ve won that about three times over and he was like, yeah, but then it ends and I like playing. So he’s just wanting to play and have fun with the family. And uh, yeah, my eldest is like, you could be playing them. You could play a 2-year-old and you wanna win.

Chris Barnard: How fabulous. He doesn’t want it to end. And that is beautiful for this moment in time because I don’t want it to end, but we’re gonna have to end Shaf. So thank you ever so much for sharing these stories.

Shafia Cullum: Thank you so much for having me on.