Redefining Cold Calling: Ryan Pereus on Human-to-Human Sales Success

Speaker A: Founders, welcome Back to the Zero to 5000 podcast where we obsess over the convergence of human potential and business results. Today our hosts, Drew McClure and Jordan Mitchell have another insightful conversation for you. So let's jump right in.

Speaker B: All. Ah, right. Founders, welcome back to the podcast. Today we are joined by Ryan Paris. Ryan is the founder and CEO of Superhuman Prospecting, USA's premier cold calling outsourcing firm. Also the creator of the H2H method, a fully comprehensive methodology around cold calling in the 21st century. And today is Ryan himself. So Ryan, thank you for being here.

Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for having me. Happy New year.

Speaker B: Happy New Year to you, my friend. Okay, Superhuman, where did this concept come from? How did we, where do we start?

Speaker C: With this? Yeah. So I always had a knack for sales and cold calling. It was my first, uh, job out of college and even just kind of going door to door when I was younger. Um, so I always had some type of no fear about talking to strangers. And when I decided to start my business it was more of kind of rebellion, ah, against the old school, outdated ways of doing things. Aggressive cold call and sales tactics, forcing the hand of your customer and kind of doing things that would kind of make your, you know, prospect or customer regret doing business with you. And I kind of this existential crisis after my first real, you know, sales management job out of school. And I just thought, you know, I love sales but like, I can't uh, keep doing this if this is what it's all about. But after reading some books, taking some time off, I realized like, no, there's, there's definitely a way to do this that can not only get results now, uh, uh, or later and have a more relationship based, but also get those same results now and overall being more effective. And so I started off like doing consulting, actually doing script, cold call script copywriting was my first sale as a consultant and it was on fiverr for a while. Um, you know, have like, you know, 500 reviews on there and everything. And it started to turn into more service, uh, work. And after kind of playing around with it for a while, decided to buckle down on calling. So we had three people in 2020, 2017, um, and now in beginning, uh, 2025, we're right around 45, um, USA based.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Ah, W2 team members.

Speaker B: Heck yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: What was that, what was that first year like being a business for yourself?

Speaker C: Well, it's always exciting in the beginning. I mean it was more of an evolution. It wasn't like, oh, we're going to choose this franchise and then that's what it's going to be. You, you know, when you start a business and you are starting it from zero, there's um, a lot of iterations even to define what it is. And after reading a, um, couple books, I think one was um, uh, the Lean Startup by Eric Rice. He talked about kind of that pyramid of um, building your business from kind of a mission and manifesto. And then it goes into more of okay, what is your strategy, your offerings and then your pricing. And he says take the most amount of time to develop your mission and manifesto, what you're really trying to do, that hits your heartstrings and contributes the most and then you can start to build tangible products on top of it that are more fluid. So for instance, you know, ours was to be more human to human in the 21st century by getting short term results while not while preserving the long term and building trust. So what could you do with that? Well, we had a strategy of doing events, event lead generation consulting, B2B canvassing and cold calling. And then you know, those were a little bit more fluid. We started deciding to choose cold calling and cold emailing. Getting rid of the other things. Right. But the mission was still the same. So developing that kind of. Back to your question. From that mission to finding it, it was just like iterating and seeing what was going to hit the market the best and uh, what were the needs that still fit within that foundational philosophy.

Speaker B: Yeah. When you were working on the strategy piece, was speed important, like not sitting around too long debating is it going to be this or this or this, but just trying things.

Speaker C: Yeah. And sometimes, you know, my uh, now business partner and a couple of my team members would got uh, frustrated. Frustrated with me on that. I very, I very much, especially beginning phases, take a Seth Godin, um, create and ship approach. So uh, you know, something's half baked, you know, but uh, it's not fully there. Put it out there. As long as it's polished enough to be published or what have you, you know, put it out there and then you're going to get feedback on that much more quickly than trying to surmise and come up with this beautiful perfect plan that gets no feedback from your audience.

Speaker B: Yeah. It sounds similar to the character trait that would make you good at sales initially. Like you're okay just kind of being out there knocking on the door, seeing what happens.

Speaker C: Yes. You learn from failure fast, you know, and if you realize that's part of the process, then you're strategic about Your failure, and you can transpose that into success a bit more quickly.

Speaker B: Is that something you've always been comfortable with?

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, you know, to be honest. Uh, what's part failure?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Well, no. Um, there's certain parts of me that were never were. Have been very resistant to failure and very, like, vulnerable at feeling that way. But for this, the stranger part, talking to them for whatever reason, that was one that I didn't mind as much. I looked at it like a puzzle and kind of detached my emotion from. But I would say that that came. And this is getting really deep here. I grew up very conservative Christian. And early on my parents would send me to, um, youth group, and they would send us on mission trips, places, and we would have to go with a track and talk about Jesus to people on the streets. I'm just telling you exactly what happened.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And so I would have to go to people in Central park and tell them about this, about this. And so this. I'm like between 12 and 18 years old during this. So, uh, it was a multiple time where that conversation, feeling weird and awkward about talking to someone and kind of manufacturing. This conversation became, um, less fearful for me. And over time I was able to adapt it and become a bit, uh, more strategic and. And um, you know, better at it. But that fear from that kind of conversation, you know, really didn't exist too much from the beginning.

Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And it. It's. I like to hear that because sometimes when I talk to someone like you, I'm like, oh, man, is this trait or is this learned? Right.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: And it's always encouraging. Maybe you have a higher trait than. Than maybe most. Uh, but you also developed it over time incrementally.

Speaker C: Well, well, see, that's. So the initial kind of, you know, the old beginners, beginner's luck. And, uh, you kind of get your initial push and it all seems to come together. I think that was trade and kind of initial instincts and timing. Right. Kind of a little lucky. But at the same time, from there it was very, very drilled and trained. Because what happened from Superhuman as we went was a methodology that developed. So the method is really from the experience we have m in every industry learning how humans connect from 0 to 1 in the B2B space and then documenting that in a method that now our team must follow. And so now they have success based upon that initial ramp, um, up period and then findings. And now they have accelerated success at scale a bit better because of that process.

Speaker B: Yeah. Can you talk about that process.

Speaker C: Some, um, so the HST method.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Okay, so the HH is all about that human to human connection, uh, from zero to one. And that's, that was back in, um, you know, the reason I started this whole journey was that human to human method. And the idea is the purpose of selling, the purpose of calling, you know, in that first cold call is to build trust. And so, you know, that's the purpose of a call. So getting on that human to human level is kind of where that comes from. And you build trust by, by uh, building trust through the process. And the way you go about your strategy, the people, or excuse me, your person and how you come across to them and then finally the uh, the product. So how quality is your product? How much do they trust the product? So there's a ton of faulty products, but how much do they trust it with where it's at right now? Yeah, you know, and so I think that all kind of coalesces into this methodology that starts with a philosophy and then plays itself out through strategy, you know, values and frameworks.

Speaker B: Yeah. So take me into a, you know, a cold call example. Like, yeah, I know if I get a cold call, I got no trust or patience is my starting point.

Speaker C: Well, so first of all, people don't think about this, but it actually starts with a technology strategy. In outreach, there's 80% of the calls you probably get are spam or there's a gap between pickup and answer and you're like, oh, here we go. And then lastly, you know, many times still, which I can't believe they're overseas. And so while that's cheaper for them, it's actually hurting cold calling. See, it creates with this stigma that they already have a natural law of buyer's resistance, which we talk about in trust call. But then you add in this kind of years of um, beating down customers through an outdated poor sales ethics. Right. So the technology strategy has to be solid. Uh, we only make manual sales dials. Uh, doesn't mean we dial up an analog phone. It just means that they have, they have to manually press to go to the next call. So when we get on the call, there's no gap between pickup and answer and we don't show up as spam likely.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker C: So immediately we can get into a conversation, get past the instincts, the negative instincts of the prospect, and get into a conversation quickly.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So that transitions into what you say. Right. So we have a technology strategy which helps make more fluid transition. And then once you start talking to the person It's a bit, um, different than what you see out there. We don't necessarily always recommend permission based what, what we do is a professional opening, you know, where I'm from, a statement. And then what we try to do is really focus on getting them into the first question. You want to get the prospect talking so then you can start building rapport in the conversation, getting past those first seven seconds. So I'll stop there, but that's pretty

Speaker B: much, you know, what would an example of a first question be?

Speaker C: So, uh, it depends. We have five different frameworks we use. It depends on the market we're reaching out to, the Persona type. But the one that we work through a lot is, you know, people who are behind a desk and they have time. It's called the consultative conversation. It's built around a statement question. Statement question structure. So if I just do an outreach to you and I would say, hey, I'm. This is Ryan superior prospecting. You know, I can do like a preferential add on, like, hey, I'll just be transparent. This is a cold call. Puts the ball in their court to hang up the phone, something like that. Some people prefer permission based. We don't really recommend it, but you know, if it works for you, go for fine. Hey, this is r. Superhuman. I'll be transparent. This is a cold call. But we do cold call, um, appointment setting for, you know, those who have, uh, podcasts to get more guests on, you know, have you considered a partner with USA based team members to make cold calls for you to help your pipeline. And so it's a very specific discovery question. We call it a balance question because you can only answer it yes or no. Yeah, unless you, unless you put more effort in and you know, hang up the call or do something. Right. So that's the first thing that we would do. We don't like to say, hey, you know, uh, what are you doing for your marketing? Because that opens up a whole can of worms that it might take me a long time to pull back in. And we don't like to say something, are you happy with your current, uh, provider or current strategy? Because then that closes the door on you and you have to open it again.

Speaker B: How so how's that? That's a yes or no question, isn't it?

Speaker C: It's yes or no question. But it's a, it's a pigeonhole question. Are you happy? Because like you. Yes, I'm happy. Well, then now I gotta like start over, right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Okay, well, great. Well, you could be even happier. You Know, what do you say to that? It's harder than if you were to say, well, we are using something, okay, well perfect. We can actually complement that very well. We actually work better with those because you already see the value in using an outsourced team. And then we can go from there if they say no, I haven't considered it. Well, sometimes that sounds like it's better, but it's actually sometimes harder for the salesperson because now you have to sell, sell the idea of that channel. Yeah, right. But either way I'm fine with either of those answers because they're ones that I can respond to and still set up a meeting with later.

Speaker B: Yeah. It feels like the very beginning is the most critical point of the call.

Speaker C: It is.

Speaker B: What's the biggest mistakes we can make as a salesperson at the beginning of that call?

Speaker C: Not knowing what you're going to say after. People spend so much time on openers, permission based openers, what's a great one liner. And then they get through it and then their conversation after that is so weightless, carries so much fluff and not enough meat to it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: So what we do is we build that structure to just get in there and then once you get into the conversation now you have to perform, you've done the work and if you don't, then that's, that's on you, you know, from, from that point as well.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Sometimes in the beginning there's a little bit of grace there because you know, some people just don't want to talk. They're in a meeting, catch them at a bad time, but if they give you the permission to get that far, they haven't hung up. Uh, you really gotta be ready.

Speaker B: Are you in investigation mode or education mode at that point?

Speaker C: In what way? In what, what aspect?

Speaker B: Like I've seen some people jump straight to telling me about their product or their whatever versus others kind of investigating and more asking questions.

Speaker C: And you know, so we call that a survey framework or we have another one called a compound. But basically if it's a, the design is that way, then sure do investigation. I think it has to be drilled and you have to know what those questions are. So it comes across like a pre discovery call and um, information gathering as the strategy. Because sometimes doing that kind of creates, creates a lure intrigue by asking them kind of disqualification questions. They want to know what you're going to do with the information like why are you asking? Or just creates those thoughts just innately. Right. So some, some like saturated markets can use that. Some like more qualifying based anyway, like logistics companies or sometimes IT companies, like they can't work with anyone with less than 10 users. That type of thing can work with surveys. Yeah, okay. But in our consultative framework where it's very product interest building, meaning like you're trying to really go through this and sell it. The idea of a appointment, uh, based upon the interest you build in the service itself or product, then, then you ask that first question, you know, you get that first question out of the way and then you go into a one or two line. We have very specific quantity of words here that we want to say one or two lines about how it works. So I've already told you that I do cold calling. We do a cold call appointment setting. Then I would say, okay, well cool. So it sounds like you already have someone or something that's a uh, team that's doing this. We work well with companies like with yours. What's different about us and how it works is you have a USA based team. You're an account strategist that iterates with you quickly. Right. And we do confirmation calls for you 24 hours before the meeting with the lowest entry level rates in the market. Go right back into a question, statement question, statement question. So you need to be fed some information. Otherwise you get to uh, a meeting, you're just asking a bunch of questions instead of a meeting. And they don't know what it's about. Yeah, they have to know it's about the product or service. Yeah, right. So you know, tell me now I can start getting in. You know, what have you done with cold calling in the past? How are you utilizing it? What success have you seen? You know, how many leads a month do you need? And then. Yeah.

Speaker B: Are you trying to get to uh, a close at the end of the first call? Is the first call, the first step,

Speaker C: always get a close. Try to get a close. So, so it's a statement question and then another statement. What I was just saying that value prop statement and then a discovery question which can be a little bit more open ended now that you've gotten farther in the conversation and say, oh yeah, we've, you know, um, you know we need about 15 leads or appointments a month, right. About 10 right now or whatever, Whatever your conversation questions are like, okay, understood. Yeah, makes sense, makes sense. Well listen, the whole reason for my call is I'm reaching out to see if you'd be open to you know, five minutes or whatever. So always ask. That is what we say. Uh, now there's different Ways to ask the neck. It's into our kind of skill set. Superhuman sales skills. So, like, some people might say no right away. And if you say, okay, no problem, then you can actually back into just getting an email. It's not as hard to accept an email after you've said no to an appointment. And there's all sorts of different skills that you can do from there. But yeah, always ask for, um. Always ask for that meeting at some point.

Speaker B: So the close, though is getting another call on the books.

Speaker C: Absolutely.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, that's what I meant. So you're not actually trying to get their business and that from, I don't know, you to our business by the end of this call? No, that feels too fast.

Speaker C: That never happens. Actually, I shouldn't say never. That did happen once last year. We had someone buy from the first call.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. We kind of pitched them like we got right back on, got into a meeting, and then the next day or two he signed. So. But that never happens. Never expect that. That's not the way it works. The goal of a cold call, the strategic objective, see, like the philosophy is to build trust. The strategy is actually to spark interest in your offering and then sell the next step.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: Right. I mean that it's kind of should be like just sales law. That that's what it is. Like you just do that because it's like I said, it's all about building trust. And especially with B2B space, you know, it's never going to be a one call close. Yeah. And you know, it doesn't really help you to ask in the beginning anyway.

Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I found. You know, I work with businesses and I was like, man, we were rushing too much at the beginning.

Speaker C: No.

Speaker B: And there's too much resistance. You're coming up against like one, I don't know you yet. I haven't had a chance to research your offering.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Two, I might not be the only decision maker.

Speaker C: Oh my God.

Speaker B: Three, I gotta think through the budget, all that kind of stuff. And you're putting that pressure and they're resisting you versus. Let's just get to the next call. Does this even make sense for us to explore this further? You know, something like that?

Speaker C: Yep, 100%.

Speaker B: Do you guys use language like that? Does this make sense?

Speaker C: Yeah, uh, we, we aren't opposed to that language. Uh, I don't think it's bad. I think it's good language. I think the, uh, idea with us is we're not necessarily trying to solve a problem. Unless it's a specific use case. The, uh, main philosophy we. Primary philosophy we go by is we're trying to transfer belief that this can help them. So, you know, it covers all, you know, whether or not they're considering it. If you transfer the belief that this could help, then whether or not that they needed it, it still could help them. So we like to say, hey, are you open to learning a little bit more about this through a zoom call? I'd rather say something like that because then it's like, do you think it makes sense? Like, well, it doesn't really make sense, even though I'm interested.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker C: So that's kind of where I don't think it's a bad question. I think it can, you know, be one to choose. It's just we try to train our team members. We got away from saying, is that fair? That's so 80s and 90s. And so now we say, you know, are you open to learning a little bit more or are you open to a meeting? Yeah, are you open to that?

Speaker B: You know, is there any. Is there any philosophy or style of sales, you don't have to even attach a name to it, um, that is counter to your philosophy, or you just feel like, does not work. Why are we still doing it this way?

Speaker C: Well, you know, I guess there's, like. I guess there's, uh, you know, some books, right? Like, there's like. I think we're probably closest to, like, the Challenger sale, um, because you're kind of challenging them with some questions that they may not have thought of. Um, and it can be a little bit assertive and less customer. I, um, think probably the closest thing I could say is just some of the books. And I've ordered every cold call book I can before I wrote Trust Call to make sure I wasn't plagiarizing or seeing what else was out there. And I think that the best thing I could answer this with is those that have no regard for, um, telling the truth or being honest on a call. And I think that's counter to. That's the whole reason I started the H H method to begin with was to build trust in the market. You don't have to lie to be the best salesperson in the world.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And I think a lot of that does happen with the gatekeeper conversations I see the most in there. Like, oh, yeah, yeah, he knows why I'm calling. He's expecting my call. Get me through. He knows why I'm calling. Why are you wasting my time here?

Speaker B: Yeah, I Completely. I feel again, as a, uh, someone who's had to sell as well as someone who has gotten approached. You know, my inbox is about 20 a day. You know, some marketing service, something. Um, what I've found is I've got a sensitivity to two ends of a spectrum too. Slick or unprepared. And I don't like either of them. Right. Unprepared is like, you're maybe trying not to be slick and you're trying to be human and whatever, but it comes off as not professional or clunky or you don't know what you're talking about. The other, I mean, that would be like, I've gotten calls for extending warranties on cars that I haven't owned in 10 years. And I'm immediately like, what are you doing, dude? Like, you don't even have up to date information on me. Get out of here. Sometimes it's even my dad's car. I'm like, what are you doing? Like, what is this? Uh, then second would be too slick. Where it's so good and it's so like, uh. To the next thing. And next thing I'm like, are you listening to me? Or is this just a insanely well practiced script that you're running on me? And it doesn't matter who I am. That turns me off as well.

Speaker C: Right. And so, you know, you can bring it back to. You don't trust something there. Right. And I think interest is the beginning of trust in sales sometimes. So it's like, I'm not interested in this because I don't feel like you're hearing me. And that's like baseline. Like, I don't trust this process. I would. Or, um. Or what have you. I would say that's probably. Maybe the person. They're. They're too. They're too fabricated.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And that they don't trust the person in that. In that situation. Um, I have a perfect example of this where I don't trust the process because it's too slick. Where this guy called me. He goes, yo, Ryan, it's Justin. I'm like, justin? And he's like, yeah. Like, he's like, uh. I don't forget we said something. Like, uh, yeah. Um, I'm just calling you to see if we can set up a meeting. Like, well, what is this about? Who are you? And then he's like, oh, well, I'm glad you asked. Then he went to go pitch.

Speaker B: Come on, man. That's a joy. And disingenuous. Like, you got me thinking, is this A friend. I don't remember.

Speaker C: I know.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, I don't like that. Yeah.

Speaker C: So. So it makes me ask a question based out of mistrust. And then. And then he. He kept. He got me.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: You know, so that's kind of what I'm saying. There is, There is tactics out there in books that specifically designed, um, with. With those, uh, kind, uh, of mentalities in mind. So.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I get it. It's a delicate balance, right? Like in your. In your business, you have. There's an art to overcoming an objection. Right?

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, but then there's a. Like, again, I've had door to door, people come, and I've clearly got stuff going on, like the kids are right next to me, bothering me or the dog's barking or whatever, and they roll into their thing and I try to tell them, listen, I've already got a provider. I'm happy with them. I know, I know, I know. But just. And they just keep going. And I say again, hey, man, today is not a good time. And, yeah, fine. And they just keep rolling. I'm like, you're not listening to me. No, Like, I am not. I'm going further away from the sale right now. Right. That kind of stuff pisses me off. I get it. You read a book about the art, you know, overcome the objection or whatever, but I've got a kid, a baby crying back here, and it's the middle of the day that you just showed up. And so how do you walk that balance between, like. Yeah, of course we've got to overcome objections at the same time. We want to, like you said, be human and read the room a little

Speaker C: bit, you know, 100%. I mean, that's exact. That is literally the reason why HGH exists. Because I do think that there is a line we cross. A line that is a line between trust and, um, and I think, hurting, uh, a relationship. And so you don't always have to just toe that line for the sake of being, uh, you know, I don't know, provocative. But I think that there's ways that you can toe that line and never cross it. And you will find success in the short term, but then preserve the opportunities for the long term. M. Right. So if I try to force. So like we say, like, even so, like, you know, ask for the meeting a maximum of three times, but always more than once. M. You know, as a rule of thumb. Yeah, as a rule of thumb. And I think that what that does is if I keep asking for it and asking for it, then I'm going to lose that client altogether.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because they're just going to feel pressured and then, you know, this is not a partnership. This is all about you, the salesperson.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: However, if I don't ask enough, it can just turn into a friendship farm. And I have a great network of, um, of people that I know, but, you know, no revenue to kind of show for it.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, yeah, I like that. Uh, I mean, I probably err on the side of not asking enough and so.

Speaker C: And that's fine. Yeah. And, and it's not fine.

Speaker B: That's the error. Right. Like you said, you can get a great network that you've never found some potential partnerships that could have been there because you didn't even ask.

Speaker C: No fair. We'll work on that. I got you. We'll work on that. But I think it's okay that like, you starting there, I think it's probably easier to train someone that, than have to change character.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because people, people, people get their ego in the way and they, they don't want to change that. They think they're special salespeople and the next Grant Cardone or somebody and they can just get away with anything, you know, so it's, I think it's easier to train that skill than it is with the right, um, kind of heart, I guess, and traits than it is, you know, to try to convert someone to the good side.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, probably most of who's listening to this podcast is like, many of us are relationship based already. And so we're like, man, I don't want to cross a line. I don't want inconvenience, I don't. But something that somebody helped me years ago and I still need help implementing this, but was like, yeah, but if you are a good fit for them or if, if you could help them, you're not doing you or them any favors by not exploring the possibility.

Speaker C: And that's where the idea of belief transference comes in. There's a little bit of like, I believe this can help you. And actually, you know, Grant Cardone really thinks that like, and as much as he has some weird traits, like some of the things he said. Is that so true that, you know, if, if you're not kind of, we, we try to toe the line in the book, in the in trust call, we say, um, you know, assertive, not aggressive. So if you think about that, you know, what level are you being assertive about that this can help versus crossing over and being aggressive and pushy.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, and so just ask yourself that question over and over. Like, hey, did I. Was I assertive enough or was that aggressive? Yeah, so I think you start to answer that yourself a little bit based on the feedback you get.

Speaker B: Yeah. So you guys work primarily with BE. B2B, or do you do any, like, B2C?

Speaker C: We have B2C. Couple, uh, they're different, though. They're more, um, reaching out to leads that have already come in through different channels. So we have a solar company out of Long island that we make. They have 50, 40 to 50 leads a day that come in and we call. We make about 300 manual dials for them a day.

Speaker B: How does that differ for you? Is it. Does the strategy differ at all?

Speaker C: No, the scripting frameworks are the similar, uh. Uh, they're just, you know, you add a little like, hey, how you doing? How have you been? Hey, you reached. You know, we saw you filled out this information, and then you just kind of go from there. It's pretty. Pretty much the same, other than the intro.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, but, you know, we. We don't really do B2C cold calls at all. That's not really existent. And it's a whole different set of laws, uh, when it comes to compliance that we just don't. It's too hairy.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And there's, uh, enough B2B business to go after. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah. I would even imagine there's less resistance. There's still resistance, but, like, it just feels different when a business is contacting another business than a business is contacting me at home on my personal phone. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's gonna be a whole new level of resistance.

Speaker C: It is, for sure. Yeah. I feel. It feels personal, you know, it feels vulnerable. Like you're vulnerable.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: Where business. It's, like, protected. There's, like, a lot of, um. It's, uh. It's more just about one topic, and they kind of go away for now, you know?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: It definitely has a different feel.

Speaker B: Yeah. Just talking with you out loud now, thinking about sales stuff and people are listening, probably. Imagine, like I said, I get dozens of emails a day, and I'm not even sure how I got on their list. I'm not even sure what's going on. But the ones that piss me off the most are the ones that will guilt me by the second or third email. Like, they'll say something like, drew, it's clear this is not of value to you, or whatever. And I'm like, huh, huh? Like, I haven't responded to one yet. Like, and now you're putting me in this like it's clear this is not a value to you. And I'm like, you don't know me. You just showed up in my inbox. I own.

Speaker C: I know.

Speaker B: You know, it's such a weird, like, manipulative language and it does get me at first. I'm like, I do care about my business. Wait, who are you? I don't, I don't know you.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Are you okay? You know, like, they'll respond with like, is everything all right? Because I haven't heard from you.

Speaker B: Yeah, I'm like, you're acting like we had a connection in the first place. Like we met at a, at a, uh, networking dinner and now I'm not responding to you. I'm like, you just showed up in my, my email. I don't owe you a damn thing. You know, um, so I'm assuming that's not part of the way to go that's not going to build that long term trust is manipulation language or.

Speaker C: No, but usually there's a, there's something, um, to be learned from those that is a good, like, there's something in there that can be a little bit, you know, molded into something positive so like, you can ask a promoting question without being provoked, personal, you know, um, you know, so I, it depends. I'd have to read that, that email and like, you know, come up with that. But I think there's a way, like I said, to be assertive without um, you know, hurting that trust and because that's the goal is you don't want to uh, push people away or make them regret doing business with you or lose that relationship, but you can still be provoking. And I think that's something that we can, we can all, all be, um, okay with.

Speaker B: Yeah. Good. Provoking questions that come to mind to jog the audience's ideas.

Speaker C: Well, it depends. Like cold email, um, versus like cold, cold calling. Um, you, uh, know when you're getting into conversations in the cold call, it's usually more um, about a product or service than it is about the responding. You know, like, like, I'm not going to sit there and say, like, uh, well, you know, you say you didn't want to call. Why would you not want an appointment? I don't think I would say something like that.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker C: You know, but if they're not interested, I, you know, I would, I would sometimes ask like, well, why aren't you interested? You know, like, well, not interested. Because sometimes in the beginning it's an emotional. No. It's a reaction, and it's not a, uh. True. No.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And so you kind of got to. There's a little bit of an arc to that and understanding when. But if, like, I've gone through the whole conversation, um, and I've asked for a meeting, like, you know, you gotta be careful with trying to question why they're not. Because then, then you're kind of hurting, beginning to hurt that trust if you're not careful. But hey, if they say not interested. Okay, well, could you please explain to me why maybe I haven't explained myself well enough? Yeah, you know, I like that. You know, or is there, is there something about cold calling that has. That bothers you or. I don't think those things are, are personal and I, you know, they're more about the challenge and challenger sale. Kind of gives those, um, those values and those, uh, uh, skills. So.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because they might say, yeah, man, I just, I don't want to piss my customers off. I feel like cold calling is going to piss them off. And that gives you an opportunity to go, oh, man, so glad you said that.

Speaker C: Like, oh, it's amazing.

Speaker B: Yeah, right?

Speaker C: Yeah. There's always a reason why, if they're willing to talk with you. Not interested. It's hard when they, when they hang up because they're not giving you anything to work with. It's like, it's like, uh, this guy, I think his name is Roger Dawson, he wrote a negotiation book and he basically said that, um, it's better to have your partner throwing plates at you than for them to just not care at all. And, you know, I think that's. You can't take all of that, you know, into a cold call. But I think that there's something truthful about that. When they give you negatives. No, I don't think this is something I'd be interested. And they take the time to tell you that.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Okay, well, I appreciate you letting me know. Is there something that's disinteresting you right now? You know, um, where in another life this could be interesting.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Or this could work. You know what's kind of got you, uh, blocked there? Uh, you know, what would make you

Speaker B: interested, so keeping the conversation productive and going, it gives you more opportunity to respond.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And there's nothing non trust building about that. You know, you're, you're, you're curious because you want to help them. And I think like that belief transference mentality kind of comes in. Well, I think uh, we could potentially help. I really interested now. But if you were able to learn about it maybe sometime down the line when it's a better time or when you've been able to really see how it works, it could be helpful.

Speaker B: Yeah. When you do get, when you do get someone saying, yeah, uh, I'd like to learn more, do you find it important to go ahead and schedule that right now versus I'll send you an email sometimes?

Speaker C: And yeah, so, so there's also something where in our process, you, you kind of have trust built in. So once you've gotten two no's or like, no, I just don't think so right now, you know, there's, listen, I can always send you an email, um, and stay connected and at least look at our information before, uh, you know, before you're open to an appointment. And then you can go back into a call. Hey, once you've had some time, do you mind if I follow up, call with you? And uh, then you can even turn that, you know, hey, when's a good time? And then move into like, hey, I don't know if this would make sense or if you're open to it, but I do have this time available and we can just review that information in two weeks from now.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Okay. So there's a little bit of those micro commitments that build up back into a meeting. Yeah, so there's different ways like that too. Um, that are kind of more kind of detailed skills.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The thing that I've found is at first, again, I come from the non pushy way of approaching things. And I would say like, they might be really interested. Like, yes, I would love to learn more. Let's do a discovery call. And I would be like, great, I'll send you an email with some times and whatever. But I started noticing like that gap leaves a lot of open for. Got busy, forgot whatever. And so what I started doing in the way that made it feel human to me, I would frame it this way. I'd say, hey, while we're here, do you have time for us just to go ahead and look at your calendar and mine and book something. And the way that I framed it was I hate walking away with an obligation. And so I don't want to give you any homework. I don't want to put another thing that you've got to watch out for my email, we're already here with that work. But I'm also, if they say no, like I'm already out of time, then I'm like, great, I'LL send you an email then, if that works best. But it allowed me to feel like I was being human with them and saying, like, it actually logically makes sense. If we're already here, let's knock it out. So you don't have a task that you're walking away from this to do. Is that.

Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I think, I think there's a lot of freedom there to move accordingly along the sales cycle. But I think you have to be very attuned to their volatility.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And how the conversation is going and making sure that you're partnering with them on this. Making them feel like it's a partnered, you know. You know, there's an obligation for me as a salesperson. Get as many sales as possible, and I will take that and be a number. I want to be number one on the sales board. But at the same time, if I overstep my boundary and try to push too much, I'm going to lose it altogether. So slowing it down allows me to keep that relationship for the long term. Say, all right, maybe not this one, the next one. Maybe this one I'll put in my nurture.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And I think it's. That's, that's where you just, you have to know that for your market.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You have to know when it's too much or for that person. Person. If, like, hey, uh, I need to back off here and just let it be. Or, you know, get, get as much permission as you can at the end to do certain outreach. Yeah.

Speaker B: I love that you said that. Because I found this. There's a mo. So I work with a lot of Chick Fil a operators and work with one to one with their teams and doing personal development and leadership training and stuff. And I was, uh, in the middle of closing a deal, which we did with an operator in Canada, and I, I had the deal like. But I could still tell there was a lot of fear around a certain, uh, uh, a few things. And one was the cultural differences between Canada and America and really wanting to make sure that I understood their unique business and whatever. And I was like, man, I could push right now, but I'm still going to be coming up against this resistance if I don't understand it really well. And so I told her that, uh, hey, I'd actually like one more call. And she was like, why? I'm ready to go. And I was like, I just keep hearing, you know, this fear about me not understanding this. Would you be okay if we did one more call? And I could really understand Your culture, your team, your whatever, before I make a recommendation of what we would do. And she goes, drew, I was already feeling good, but that just made my Trust in you 10x. She was like, I would love that. And I was like, great. Cause we might even want to customize what we do for you. Like, I don't want to push something that we've done over here that doesn't work for you over there. So let's just take our time. And that was so helpful building. Even though it slowed down the sales process, it accelerated our actual working together in the long term.

Speaker C: And that's a great, uh, instincts by you to know that for this particular type of culture, you know, um, you know, the only thing I would. That I would say, like, something you could do is, listen, here's what I love to do. I'd like to give them the option, listen, I'm happy. I'm ready to go forward now. If you want to. I can write that up. But I'm also, you know, happy to do another call if you have more questions. I'm sensing you might. You want another day to think about it, but I'm good either way. What's best for you.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And that way, you still leave the clothes now on the table.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, that's true. Open it up. But, like, it's. But you read that right. Like it didn't matter, because at the end of the day, that's what, you know, that's what was helpful for that relationship. And it's a complete. We, uh, don't. That's the reason we don't do outreach to, um, to. To overseas. Like, uk People ask me to call it UK because it's a different culture.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: We're so much more direct here in the US and get to the point where there you're, like, have to ask about the weather and the day and how you're doing, and then.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Hey, I have a quick. I have a question to see. What would you think about this?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, what would you think about this tool that helps this, this, and this? What would you say? That's how, like, they like to go about it in England? Because when we try to call them direct, like, they just. They just think were assholes.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: But here you're getting to the point and you're respecting their time, and it's. It works better here, that. That approach. So, yeah, it's interesting so that. That, you know, that's. That's why we try to stay where we know. But, like, in Canada, it's it can be different.

Speaker B: Right. That's why I was curious about. I was like, I don't know, am I walking into a landmine that I don't want to get involved with or is it not that? And I don't think it actually is that big. It was a few, just a few differences that I was like, oh, totally, I understand that we can work with that. But my big picture thinking was I'm, um, not just thinking about this sale. I'm thinking about this might be our first testimony in the Canadian market. And so I want to really make sure we nail it so that we could, uh, expand and build trust in that whole market. Right. Versus we can get kind of myopic in sales. And we're only thinking about this person, this sale versus like, hey, let's treat this with a little bit of care because this might represent an end to this entire industry if we haven't been in this vertical before and now we've delivered a result here. That's a great testimony for somebody else we might meet in that. Does that make sense?

Speaker C: Oh, yeah. 100%.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah. It's kind of like that builds the referral base as well.

Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Um, man, what's got you most excited about where the business is today and where it's headed?

Speaker C: So we spent a lot of time the last few years building our position. And it's something that we've, uh, talked about internally. A lot internally. So we went through the same things during COVID you know, lost 30 of our customers overnight. And the message that I kept telling our team is position can be. Can is the, is the operative word. There can be more priority and sometimes more important than revenue. And so we fought for position. And what that means is you work on your process internally, bolster it. So when the time comes that the market is fertile again, if you will, then you're that much farther ahead than your competition and you're ready to serve. And so we've done that a lot the last few years and it's really served us well because there's a lot more competition and the economy is still recovering. 2023 was a really difficult year for us, and we made a lot of adaptations to the market and made bite size products. So we didn't reduce our, our, uh, margins at all. We just made them more bite sized. So instead of starting at 3 grand and our, like our competitors start at 3 to 10 grand, we started 1125amonth. M. Absolutely. We said, how do we make this a no brainer?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: And it's the same level of service as the if not better. That's what we said. Premier cold call company. We've been around for eight years. We made the Inc 5000. We have a cold methodology. All USA based team members. There is no other business out there. And we put all of our recordings a lot of like one a week, couple of weeks. Excuse me on YouTube. M. So all we're doing what the top, if not we are the best cold call company at the, at the lowest entry level rates. The only other place that you can get the same spend the same amount of money is up is like a freelancer.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: Or internal.

Speaker B: Yes, that's it. That's huge. Like the noticing that right now this is too big of a bite and saying okay, that we could chunk it up some and still get customers and at least get some revenue coming in and serving them and that's. That could be huge for business. Especially if the economy is just in a unique situation and their normal offering is triggering unusual resistance right now because they have strapped budgets or whatever.

Speaker C: Right? Oh yeah, yeah. It's definitely a uh, something that has bode well for our clients. We've got way more one call closes now again they inbound leads or what have you. Way more one call closes, two call closes this year than any other year and they're staying and we're finding out much more click. Without breaking the bank. So it's been very helpful for us but even more helpful for our clients uh in that way.

Speaker B: Do you find that once they get in at that, that lower price point and see that it works, that it's easier to then scale up to that 3,000 or beyond.

Speaker C: Yeah, oh yeah, yeah we see that. You know sometimes we say that cold calling can work 100% of the time if you have 1 a product or service that people want or need and 2 people pick up the phone in your industry from there it's just whether it takes one month, six months or more. So we find out first those two, those two checkpoints and then we start to work and really honing in the messaging, the product relevance, the target. Right. And if budget allows so sometimes we'll get something, hey we have this amount and uh, it didn't work in the two months but they come back a few months later because I got this new list, got this new offering.

Speaker B: Gotcha.

Speaker C: You know um, we have customers that come back every, every year. They do one or two projects every year, but they're not monthly.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You know so uh, uh, but we have plenty, plenty that test it out. They're nervous, they're afraid they're bootstrapping their company. They don't have investors. And then they give that, you know, that first entry level a try, it goes gangbusters. They double down, triple down and um, continue.

Speaker B: Yeah. Do you, yeah. Do you create the list or do you, do they give you a list?

Speaker C: So we consider ourselves a boutique company. We don't provide a lot of services, but we, we do a few. Uh, One is calling. 80, 75, 80% of our work is that calling activity. But then we also have a team of four. List building team. So they work around the clock using B2B contact databases, AI LinkedIn, web scrapers and manual research, um, to build lists. And then we do some email as well. We have a sales copywriter on staff. Cool. Yeah.

Speaker B: When you. So what would like that? I'm trying to give you some free promotion here. And I'm learning from myself like on the 1100amonth thing, what does that give somebody?

Speaker C: So you get a certain amount of call activities per month. Um, in every one of our service levels you get um, an account manager, someone who is trained in the HCH method and writing scripts, understands strategy and knows how to train our team that we put on your campaign to call. So account managers typically don't call, but they're in charge of products, local product, service level training of your offering. They're trained in the HGH method in writing scripts and they work with you to identify strategy to move forward. Uh, you get the custom script, you get live reporting. So as calls are being made you can see them populate and it transforms into KPIs as well live. So you can see every single call, the disposition, what time and the notes from every call. We also do free complimentary confirmation calls on any appointment that's set and that's really valuable. We started adding it in as a part of the service a few years back because it was too much to have our clients try to do that for themselves is too much of a complex thing. And we saw if we get them on the phone in 2024, there was a 70 to think 75% confirmation rate when we got them on the phone.

Speaker B: Wow.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, uh, you know, you get the sales leadership. I think that's something that's kind of overseas. Like we have a one to five, uh, manager to employee ratio on our operations team. So that way there's really tight leadership and culture building quality assurance. Every single lead that's uh, generated is reviewed by a human and, um, listened to if it's available. And, uh, so you get all those things no matter what package. It's just as you increase the call activities, the price per activity goes down. So m. You get more bang for your buck.

Speaker B: That's so good.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, Ryan, final question. If a business owner is listening to this and you and is interested in more of your services, where do we send them?

Speaker C: Yeah, superhumanprospecting.com just all one big word there. Uh, you can also go to Amazon or thehmethod.com to find trust call if you're interested in that. And I'm, um, on LinkedIn.

Speaker B: Heck, yeah. Well, brother, this has been fantastic. Thank you for coming on here. I've learned a ton and I know our audience has as well.

Speaker C: Awesome. Thanks, Drew.

Speaker A: Founders, thanks for listening. We. We hope you enjoyed it. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and hop into our monthly founder email so we can ensure you stay on the edge of peak performance and massive business results.