Cold calls

For those of you who have never taken a job that involved making lots of cold calls, let me offer this piece of advice: Don't.

As a journalist, I quite enjoy the writing aspect of my job. And despite fancying myself to be an aspiring creative writer, I also enjoy the fact that I don't have to make up any of the information or subject matter for my writings in this line of work. I simple write a summary of what people tell me in interviews.

Furthermore (that's a very writerish word, so I thought I'd use it), I enjoy the process of interviewing executives about their businesses, learning their goals and what value they see their company adding to the world -- which is not to say I don't sometimes doubt said value.

But what I do not enjoy about my job is calling these people out of the clear bloody blue to try to convince them to tell me these things over the telephone, because I've never met these people and most of the time they've never even heard of me, nor the publication for which I write. And so here I am, leaving voicemails for people, trying to sound like the kind of swell fellow they might enjoy speaking with on the phone. I do this in the hope that these people I've never met will call back and share some of the most confidential information and thoughts I could possibly ask for about their business -- with me, the guy they've never heard of who writes for a publication they've also never heard of.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that so many people never call back. The real miracle here is that anybody does call back.

There's a reason I didn't go into sales. Actually a number of reasons. For one, I am naturally filled with self-doubt. For example, I write infrequently on my blog and am slow to speak up in group conversations because I question whether I have anything unique enough or interesting enough to contribute. In the case of cold calls, this means it's difficult to persuade people to share sensitive information with me (or call me back, for that matter) when I really can't see any good reason for them to do so.

Also, I didn't go into sales because I HATE COLD CALLS. Both making and receiving them, apparently. When telemarketers call me, I try to be polite and wait for a small break in their monologue before saying 'I'm not interested' and hanging up. But if they catch me in the wrong mood, I'll probably just hang up mid-sentence.

At least I don't think any one has hung up on me mid-sentence so far. But quite a number of executives have forwarded my voicemail message along to the company's PR rep, which is almost as bad.

Well, it's a good job all in all, aside from this frustration -- plus my nagging guilt over using my skills to serve an investment community I suspect to already be quite high on wealth and low on scruples, but that's another post.

So I won't complain too much. I just figured I might warn my readers away from jobs such as telemarketing, which I know would otherwise represent a highly appealing career opportunity.