Cold-calling

Dominick Tyler - Japan 2005

In the course of my recent attempts to get my work 'out there' I've needed to make a lot of phone calls to agencies and publications. Often I'm not sure who I need to talk to so I ask the receptionist, it seems the obvious thing to do. Most of the time I find the right person and take it from there but sometimes it gets complicated, like when agencies change names or personnel, which they seem to do a LOT. One agency I saw three years ago no longer exists but another agency has sprung up with a near identical name, so imagine the confusion when I ring up the new agency believing it to be the old one and ask for the director by name...

Anyway, one receptionist offered me a valuable insight the other day that I'm ashamed to admit I never fully grasped before. "You are basically cold-calling" she said "that's why they [the ad-execs] won't take your call". Queue light-bulb moment <TING> I am a cold-caller! When I'm trying to arrange portfolio viewings I'm not a photographer: I'm a salesman. So perhaps I should learn how to do that better?

Turns out there's lots of advice about cold-calling techniques and how to be successful at cold-calling. Apparently (this according to the second linked article) there are only two techniques you need to know to cold-call successfully (bad news for those who have already invested half an hour reading the first article). These techniques are: "ask the right questions and listen to the replies".

Judging by experience the right question must not be "Would you like to see my portfolio?" because the reply too often seems to be "No".