Once, I spent a
fun-filled week doing cold calls, or they were for me.
As most young people, I had a desperate need for money, so I even took this, though I knew it wasn't what I was cut out for. I think I was trying to sell dinner club memberships in some hotel in North Toronto; I had never been there, and I still haven't.
What attracted me was not the commission, but the statement no experience required, and the promise, if not of easy money, but of a minimal salary, even if I didn't make any sales--at least for the first week; I needed the money that bad.
Never have I been so stiff, and scared, going into any place day after day. The morning routine didn't help much: the high-flyer--the guy--would read the horoscope from the The Toronto Sun, and then dive in. The female high-flyer just started her calls.
I was given a pile of index cards, from where I never knew, except that both high-flyers had culled all the easy sales already! I went through the same numbers day after day, hour after hour: the construction sites with no one there, the homes with no one home during the day, the phone numbers with nothing there.
If I was lucky, I had a not uncivil rejection when I finally did make contact.
I observed the high-flyers in hopes of copying their style, and making some sales: the woman, well, I could never imitate her sexy, seductive voice, and I didn't even try. The man, instant best friends was something I just did not feel in that place, at that time--I just wanted to hide.
Actually, he seemed to be that way even when he was not on the phone; she seemed only to turn it on when she was selling--but I guess that style did not work well in the ordinary world, as his did.
After a week, the manager took me aside, and told me. And so ended my week in the world of cold calls.