Cold Calling

[Decadent Ambition]

Salams all,

Any ideas on how to get through borderline paranoid executive secretary so she can let you speak to the MD, partner or even CFO? How about merely giving you their emails so you can follow up with a cold email to the proper person up the chain. Any innovative ideas, tips? Much appreciated all. Cheers

[grasshopper]

I feel your pain. It's so tough to get around some secretaries...here are some advice I learned/picked up:

- listen carefully at the beginning and use their names when you speak to them.. "Janet, thank you for speaking with me, bla bla bla"

- BE NICE! this one's kind of obvious but the second you lose your cool or patience you can forget about speaking with the boss

- Be persistent.. There was a lady at the UNICEF office who remembered my voice when I was trying to get to the Finance director..I eventually got to speak to the person but I think I called over a dozen times

- Be clear on why you're calling - their job is to weed out unnecessary call volumes and if they feel that your call is valuable they'll put you through.

- Don't underestimate how helpful THEY can be. Even though they're not the head, they're still a wealth of information. Plus they'll appreciate people asking them for advice.

This one is a little underhanded, but it worked for me:

- If you know the CFO was at a function recently, tell the secretary that you met and spoke to their boss at the event and that they asked you to get back to them with more information on something. Make it sound urgent and time sensitive

 

That's all I can think of now..wishing you luck. Keep at it, you'll get through one of these days!