In The Know with Kelly Grafton: How verbal cues drive cold call success

Hi, I'm Kelly Grafton and welcome to In The Know, a podcast where we explore what it takes to grow, lead, and thrive as a sales professional. Each episode, I'll sit down with sales experts to dive into the training, techniques, and real-world experiences that shape successful careers in sales. Whether you're just getting started or well on your journey, you'll hear practical insights and inspiring conversations to help you stay in the know. Welcome back to In The Know.

We have a return special guest here with us today, Miss Biddy Balducci, and we're so excited to have her. If you all already listened to the first podcast, great. If you haven't, go back and listen to it. We'll do a quick recap, but there's lots of good info on there, but we're excited for some more info coming at you.

But Biddy's background, she is a professor, assistant professor at University of Washington State. So you just flew all the way across the country to be with us. She has a PhD in marketing from, I can't say it how others would say, but I'm going to say University of Missouri. And what's really cool, she's published in a bunch of elite marketing and computer science journal.

And she says this, so I'm not calling her out, but she's a total nerd when it comes to getting into cold calls, which perfect marriage between her interests and her skills and memory blues. So, Biddy, we're so excited you're here. Thank you. I'm really happy to be back and happy to see you in person finally.

I know. This is so fun, right? So our other one was online. So this is so fun to have you in HQ in Virginia.

Yes. So fun. And so just a quick recap, you guys. So if you didn't listen to the last episode or you did, you just need a little recap.

We talked about pitch, speech rate, and volume. And we went into so many details on how to leverage those to have a successful cold call. And that's the point of this podcast with you, right, Biddy, is to give you guys I mean, what, 20,000 calls is kind of what you analyze and getting us real statistics. And so we're doing a different focus today.

But going back to those, you know, we were able to look at, you know, your tone of voice and your speech rate, meaning matching. How do you match your prospect and how important that can be? And then, of course, the volume and learning. It's OK to be loud, not obnoxiously loud, but it's OK to be loud.

And so I'm excited for today because we're kind of switching over to verbal cues. Yeah. And that is our topic today. So we're talking about words and phrases that you use when talking to prospects over the phones.

And, you know, it's kind of like if you're anything like me, you're like, OK, what's what are the difference between all these? We have Biddy to help us with that. So Biddy, what are you most excited about going into like our verbal cues topic today? Well, I think it's just an important piece of the puzzle.

So, of course, we talked about vocal cues last time, which those are the acoustic properties of the words that are being delivered. But you have to have verbal cues to deliver them acoustically. And so this is a big piece of the puzzle. So I'm excited that we're shifting over to talk about this element.

Yes. Well, we're going to get into it. So I know there was a couple of components that I mean, there's probably a million components we could go into based on your research. but you kind of like grab the most studied that you've done that can really help them actually apply into their cold calls.

I'm so excited because it's so practical what we're going to talk about. I know we got to discuss a little bit about this, but I'm learning as we go too. And so I know one of the first ones that you talked about was like the concept of being formal and informal. So I guess, could we define that?

What does that mean when it comes to the cues and and what are the differences, and we'll just kind of dive into that first part. Sure, sure. So formal language, and this is looking at a language perspective, it's basically on a continuum, right? You can be highly informal.

You can be highly formal. And so it goes from being very casual and conversational on the informal end to being more structured and official on the formal end. So all formality in terms of languages is just how structured or not you are with your speech or how casual or not you are with your speech. And just to take a step back as to why I started looking at this, SDRs, thank you.

I, you know, during my initial time working with Memory Blue, which at this point was about two and a half years ago. Yes, I had the opportunity to visit the Seattle office because that's my closest Memory Blue office to where I am. And I interviewed the SDRs. And one of the things that kept coming up was, like, I was like, what are your strategies to be successful?

What do you do? And they were saying, you know, I just try to keep it conversational. And that really struck me because when I was looking through the Memory Blue training materials, I hadn't noticed anything like specifically telling SDRs to keep it more casual. But this was something that they were just doing on their own and they felt was really working for them.

So that is why I was curious because as Kelly mentioned, like, you know, I'm, I'm a nerd for this stuff. I want to know if it works. And so what I did was I analyzed the textual components of these calls. Um, they're all transcribed.

And so I looked at how formal or informal the language was to figure out if there was something to this. And you know, that those reps in Seattle were not alone. Um, actually this morning I did a training with the SDRs in the Virginia office and I asked that very same question and two out of the four said that they keep it conversational. So there's something inherently to this that I wanted to get to the bottom of and that's why we tended to focus on this.

So long answer short, all formality of languages is how structured and official versus casual in conversation, your languages. Okay. Well, I'm excited because there's, you know, I naturally go more conversational or it's something that they learned because someone did this, or maybe they learned it from another SDR. I learned it from their manager, but what does the data say?

Like what did you discover? Yes, yes, yes. So that is what we all want to know, right? We want to know what actually leads to success in these calls.

And so what I did was I analyzed tens of thousands of calls from Memory Blue across all the offices, and after which I figured out that formality actually informality in language actually does help you And what I mean by that is that SDRs who are less formal in the way that they talk to the prospects are more likely to get that meeting booked. Now just to give a little bit of background as to why that might be, because I know when I was speaking with some of the leadership at Memory Blue, they had said like, hey, SDRs want to know the why rather than just this works do it which I very much admire because I am a person who likes to ask a lot of questions so the reason behind that is formal formality or informality signals something very important basically it will signal how socially close or distant you feel from someone else that you're speaking with so for example if you are speaking less formally you you might be with a friend or a colleague whereas if you are at like doing something like the state of the elephant you know you are going to be presenting maybe facts or your own experience it's going to be more formal and structured than it would be in just like a regular conversation with one of your best friends so that is that's the difference with this and looking at like how this communicates social closeness or distance, the idea behind this is that by conveying information informally through your words, you are kind of throwing the prospect off a little bit in a good way.

You know, they are getting the signal from your language that you are socially close when in fact that couldn't be further from the truth, right? So never talked to this person before yes yes and so it kind of makes them do a little bit of a double take and actually pay attention to what you're saying hmm that's so interesting can you go off the deep end and be too casual have you noticed any research on that so I love that you asked that question I did check that so hmm okay so I I'm like how technical should I get and then I was in this training earlier and I realized some of you guys are like math people so basically I tested that I'll just leave it at that I tested if you could be too informal and if you could be too formal and there is and and keep in mind I'm constrained by the data so what I mean by that is that there really aren't SDRs saying like yo what up like so I don't not going off the deep end yeah yeah That's good.

Good job, memory blue. Yes. So I can't, I can't empirically test if there was an instance of that. I would be pretty sure that would have a negative effect, but I didn't see any instance where low formality hurt your chances in what you're currently doing.

Once again, just noting that SDRs are not going on that far, far end of the spectrum. However, I did notice that being too formal can hurt. So it is kind of this continuum, as I mentioned, but it gets worse the more formal you get. And my ad hoc explanation for this is that you kind of just start to sound robotic at that point.

Sure, okay. You know, they already don't know you, they already don't have a face to the name, and they didn't request this conversation in many cases. And so it's like, okay, I'm getting like, you know, robo-called or something like that. So yeah, you can't be too informal, you can be too formal.

Okay. And I know with some of the data you've shared with me, you know, you start formal and get informal. I don't know, but you start, you know, strong and then you change it throughout the call. Is this one of those instances?

Like, do you start formal or is it always informal is the way to go throughout the call? Well, this is, this information here is just looking at an average. So on average, there could be times where you, you know, you need to convey information more formally. Maybe you're discussing the benefits of your client's offering, for example, that might be a good time to be a little bit more formal.

But for example, like introductions, closing, things like that, those are good opportunities to incorporate a little bit more casualness into the conversation. Once again, to kind of signal that social closeness. And that's something that people pay attention to because we're kind of hardwired to figure out, is someone in my in-group or not? And so you can communicate that with informal language.

So interesting. I don't know. I know we're going to have some, um, some calls to listen to you, excuse me, but can you give an example of what, what you've like, what if you listen to that is good informal? Like what would be a good intro?

Well, um, I'm like, I'm sorry. So yeah, it's hard for me to come up with examples of the top of my head but I'm gonna try so hi Kelly I'm calling with memory blue and just curious how your day is going so far how are you doing today okay versus you know hi Kelly I'm calling with memory blue I know that you're the VP of sales I wanted to connect to talk to you about your delivery systems okay so it's a great to the point very formal first one you're like I'm even thinking you know it's a Monday or Friday, like, Hey Biddy, like hope your Friday's going well.

Just reaching out to you because that's like an example, more informal versus like, it doesn't matter what day it is, get to the point and be very like, yeah, exactly. Okay. Okay. I can see it.

I can see it. Um, I know we're going to, I think our calls will dive into this so they can share this too, which will be really cool. But I think that's just even just like a good takeaway of, um, even like what works for you when it comes to like your own informality. Cause, um, I mean, you have to feel good about it too right and like what you're saying and kind of I think that's what you know with our academy program we teach you know we teach a structure but then you also like once you have the structure you have like you know the training and you can really make it your own too and you bring and we always say bring your own personality to it there's a reason why you have a personality like use your strengths yeah and this could be an example of doing that I totally agree.

I couldn't agree more. And in fact, if you are just a very formal person, this might feel inauthentic. And in which case, I do recommend you operate within the confines of what feels right for you Because if you feel awkward trust me it going to sound awkward So just do it You could practice with your fellow SDRs You could practice with your manager just to make sure that you are really implementing these things in a way that feels organic Yeah. Because that's pretty important as well.

Yeah, 100%. Okay. So do we want to get into the clips or? Well, I have another piece I'd like to share.

Oh, gosh. Okay. What else? What else are we digging into?

So, for example, one of the things that we talked about before was those vocal cues, right? So every word that you utter has an acoustic property to it. That is how those words are delivered. Okay.

And so you ask, like, can you be too informal? Now, linguistically, i.e. the words being spoken, that's what I was talking about earlier.

you I have never seen an instance where it's bad like the language was too informal however you can convey formality with your vocal cues as well so specifically pitch which is the highness or lowness of tone as we talked about in our last podcast that can convey important information about how socially close or distant that you you feel that you are from that other person where higher pitch is more informal and lower pitch is more formal. So you can imagine like, I don't know, like for example, state of the elephant, I'm using that again.

But if you were sharing information, you're going to naturally fall to the lower level of your pitch range. And I will say this, the insights I'm going to share are based on, sorry, math, standardization, meaning I'm accounting for within person difference so i wouldn't expect kelly you to have as low of a voice as you know ray for example this is just within your own natural range the lower end of it so i don't have to pretend and like talk like this you don't have to talk like that no you don't have to be elizabeth holmes don't worry because that's not authentic so i would be it feels uncomfortable so that's good to know yes yes so the lower end of your pitch range with informal language that's the key because that means that you are conveying in that instance linguistic informality that social closeness yeah but you're not going overboard and like you know acting too close because once again this is a cold call and so if you have high pitch with that informal language it's kind of it can trigger um like why is this person speaking so informally to me whereas if you have an element of formality you can still convey that social closeness that will get them to peak uh you know it'll pique their interest but it won't be so overboard that they take notice in the wrong way okay oh that's so good i'm i'm even mathing in my head right now so so like the lower part of your own personal pitch voice exactly plus the informal language equals prospect will be like okay you're human yeah i'm a human we can connect and it's not like okay you're not my you're not my just just picturing an older person picking up the phone woman or man is like you're not my daughter why are you talking to me this way but being able to keep the lower so even going back to the example of it's a friday like hey pitty so thank you so much for taking my call hope you're having a good friday versus hey pitty thank you so much for taking my call you having a good friday you got any fun plants like we're not friends exactly okay that's a perfect example okay and another way to think about it is the informal language can convey I'm a human to your point the formal ie low pitch can convey I'm professional mmm so we can convey both of those yes simultaneously oh I like this this is so practical you guys catching this like this is so practical I hope you guys go back and listen to your calls and like it notice how you're doing with these so this is yeah it's cool is there anything else on those two components before I know we want to show Um, I think, I think that that is, that is it.

Yeah. I'd love to dive into the clips and maybe you could just, uh, like, I don't know if you want to have the SDRs guess the combination. Okay. All right.

So we're going to have three calls, right? We got three recordings and so we'll have them guess and then you can give us the answer. Yes. And they're clips of calls.

So they'll go kind of, kind of fast. Yes. Our first one, I think it's just, yeah, it's just a couple seconds here. So I will play this, make sure I can hear it.

All right, here we go. Yeah, for sure. Well, in that case, a little bit more about Siri is like I said, we move at four to six times the speed of Azure and AWS without zero downtime. We're a cloud agnostic data migration tool.

So we're able to move data from cloud to cloud, from the cloud, and even in some cases, cloud back to from okay thoughts reflections what did you think Kelly I'm so not good at this like I can't really hear I mean I feel like he was very formal but I I don't know it's hard to figure out the pitch piece and if it was good or bad I mean I do think that that one's harder because you guys don't know what this guy's normal pitch is like I don't either the only reason I know is because I've calculated mathematically what his like standard deviation is for his pitch okay but um that was on the lower end of that person's pitch okay so you could hear probably linguistically the formality just think about how technical he was speaking yes um and it was very you know fact-based very technical very structured that is an example of formal language okay great okay yes all right So I got that part.

All right. So I'll give myself a C on that one. I'll give you a B. Okay.

All right. So we're going to play another one. So this one, I think, is also just a couple seconds. All right.

Here we go. I just know that with supply chain being messed up, it's been hard to get technology. So I was just reaching out to see what sort of tech you guys have been purchasing and how that process has been going for you. Thoughts?

There was a word he said that made it sound informal. And then, like, what you got. Oh yeah, messed up. And like, I think at the end something that you got or something like that.

Yeah. So it's a low on the formal language. Yeah. Yeah.

So that one clearly is easy to point out Yeah Okay So he did have a low linguistic formality he keeping it very conversational saying like oh the supply chain messed up I don know what you got you know things like that um so that would be low formality and once again the I would say it was low too it sounded like he had a low that that was yeah yeah for him that was low and once again this this the the pitch piece is kind of hard to know because you don't know what these people's baseline is, but you know your own baseline.

So if you can detect that linguistic piece, implementing the pitch piece will come kind of naturally, I think. Yeah, well, that's good. Okay. Did you guys pick up on that one?

I think that one was easier. Okay, we got one more. Okay. Have, you know, those talks come up, you know, not, I know you said not immediately, but I know Q4 is coming up.

That's usually a strategic planning time. Has it come up, you know, maybe a year or two out? Maybe start looking. I mean, I feel like he kept it pretty formal.

Okay. I think there was like, have you been looking kind of sound a little casual? So maybe a little informal. Yeah.

But I think for the most part, I would say maybe 70% formal. Well, I would say that was a little bit on the informal end. I don't know if you noticed he had a lot of filler phrases. He said, you know, a bunch.

Oh, I need to read. can we replay it yeah of course of course i want to replay okay yes i want to hear what you're you're hearing okay okay have you know those talks came up you know not i know you said not immediately but um i know q4 is coming up that's usually a strategic planning time uh has it come up you know maybe a year or two out uh maybe start looking kind of sounds nervous i would say yeah so makes it less yeah so he's less confident which i would say brings yeah i can lots of ums lots of you knows so that contributes to the communication of inform like informality because it would be you know you can say that exact same message so i don't know if you're looking at this immediately but i know q4 is coming up so you know what i mean so yeah it's just very very different in terms of these small little things can convey vastly different yeah aspects.

And so that would be an example of low verbal formality with high informality vocally as well. So that's kind of like a double whammy in terms of like, okay, we're being a little too informal here. So yeah, so that middle one that you played, where you have the low verbal formality, but you also have high vocal formality, that's kind of the golden ticket there. okay you guys want to listen to that one more time I feel like it was a short yeah yeah yeah let's go this is what we're looking for this is what good looks like okay I just know that with supply chain being messed up it's been hard to get technology so I was just reaching out to see what sort of tech you guys have been purchasing and how that process has been going for you okay okay that's good that's great that means the person hey you're human on the other side of this phone and professional and you're professional yes yes absolutely yeah so if you can master that which it sounds like a lot of you guys might even be doing the informal piece already.

So it would just be something simply like going to the lower end of your pitch range, which by the way, you guys might not know me, this is the lower range of my pitch. So this is going to vary from person to person. So just do what feels natural to you, but try to keep that conversational piece while having your pitch a little bit lower than maybe you would typically do. yeah that is so cool okay so and you said we can kind of hear our own pitch range yeah and maybe it's not it might be something new that you guys are looking into right i don't know how often we're really looking at that i know we probably get coaching on like tone and stuff but the pitch is another component but i think that's where it's nice to have like your dm help you with that or your delivery manager or other strs also totally help you notice when you're coming a bit higher or lower.

Yeah. Or just listening to your own calls. Yeah. Because no one knows your pitch better than you.

Yeah. You know, to the point where we were listening to those calls and, you know, Kelly, your very valid comment, like, I don't know what this person's normal pitch is like. You know, you have these two components, that humanness, that professionalism. And I would encourage SDRs to just focus on one at a time.

You don't have to do it all at once. It can feel like a lot to implement both things at once, particularly if you're not one of those people who's already doing that strategy of keeping it casual. So if that happens to be you and you say, wow, I've been trying to be very professional, so I've been speaking very formally, and you can determine if that's happening based on are you using slang? Are you like being very like structured and like putting a lot of detail into what you're saying?

If you're putting a lot detail into what you're saying that would probably be more formal so you can kind of think about it that way and you can just take it bite by bite and try to implement one thing whichever thing for you is going to be the most easy to implement across the board focus on that and then once you feel confident in your mastery of that then you can implement the other piece would be my personal recommendation just so it feels a little bit more manageable yeah no that's that's really great advice because I feel like sometimes we hear this stuff and we're like all right let's redo everything and no no just those tweaks and like you said at the very beginning was make it sound like you because then you'll it'll be confident you'll sound confident and then you'll be more formal naturally yeah absolutely yeah or i should say you will be more professional naturally yes i love it well anything else on this topic i know we'll we'll dive into more soon but anything else on these i think that's a wrap that's awesome well hey, our challenge to you is like Biddy was saying, go break down your calls.

What do you notice? And then what's that next step coming out of here that you can adjust? And remember, this is all based on a lot of data analysis. So this isn't just Biddy's opinion.

This is her going into so many calls and being able to extract the data across the United States. And so it's going to be something that you can implement to just be more effective on the calls. You're already putting in great work. Now you can put in a little bit more smart work too.