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There's No Such Thing as a Wrong Number

Voodoo sales wisdom from David Rosen, the happiest cold caller you'll ever meet.

R. Jerome Ferraro

Warm Regards Because David Rosen develops his own leads, he looks forward to every call he makes.

As matches go, this one was near perfect: a chance meeting of a freelance writer always on the lookout for his next story and a commission-only salesman constantly looking for a lead. We met over a copy of this magazine. Literally.

I stood in line to pay for a newspaper and the December-January issue of Inc., which I had grabbed off a rack at a newsstand at the San Francisco airport. Referring to the headline on the bottom right-hand corner of the cover, the man behind me volunteered, "I could write a story about micromanaging my first company."

It wasn't long before he was introducing himself and handing me his business card, which identified him as a personal wine broker with Grove Street Brokers in Healdsburg, in Sonoma County. I fumbled for my own business card. Realizing I didn't have one with me, I pointed higher on the cover to the slug "Five Years of Start-Up Insanity: Was It Worth It?"

"I wrote that story," I said, and told him he could reach me through the magazine. He e-mailed me the following day. And when we spoke on the phone a week later, David Rosen sold me.

Not a case of wine. (Though he did inquire if I prefer reds or whites and asked a few questions about what characteristics I prefer in the wines I drink.) Rather, calling from his home office in a suburb of Cleveland, he sold me on the idea of writing about the sales strategies that allow him to sell half a million dollars' worth of wine a year to private individuals nationwide. If not at hello, he pretty much had me when he told me about his extensive database and the dozens of customers coded with the initials ACI, for accidental call-in. Rosen's repertoire includes cashing in on wrong numbers!

Granted, Rosen's patter pertains to a nuanced, enjoyable, lifestyle-type product that opens the door to a playful approach. If you sell hip replacements or home security systems or caskets, not all of his techniques and tips will necessarily work for you. (You will probably want to forget No. 9, which involves making a pitch while naked.) But any salesperson can learn from the following cache of cold-calling tips, performance techniques, and e-mail procedures, which have made Rosen the top seller at Grove Street Brokers.

1. There's No Such Thing as a Wrong Number

For some reason, in his first stint with Grove Street Brokers, from 1992 to 1998 (he left to start a Web application development company), Rosen rarely went more than a week without an incoming wrong number on his toll-free phone line. One day, instead of cursing yet another unwanted interruption, he opportunistically countered with a kind of verbal jujitsu.

"Unless you're a wine drinker," he said, "it looks like you've dialed the wrong number."

He paused a second and then smoothly flipped the call. "Tell you what. Since I've got you on the phone and I'm not shy, I'll give you my quick 60-second speech, and you can see what you think..."

Although he hasn't kept track of all incoming wrong numbers, Rosen's 30-megabyte database has 92 names coded ACI. Meaning, these individuals listened to his spiel, told him a bit about their wine preferences, and provided him with contact information. Seventy-five of these ACI's, more than 80 percent, became customers. Among them is Keith Burgess, a seller of commercial window treatments for Hunter Douglas.

Three years ago, Burgess misdialed trying to reach his mother. He got Rosen's fax line and quickly hung up. Then Burgess's phone rang.

"Did you just call my number?" Rosen asked.

"Yeah; sorry about that."

"Wait, can I ask you a question? Do you like wine?"

As it happens, two of Burgess's best friends own wine stores, and he loves nothing more than to visit them. Wine talk ensued. The dialogue continued.

"He'd call about every three months, just a quick, few-minute conversation," says Burgess. "I told him when I got my bonus in January, I'd probably buy from him. Salespeople are harder to sell than anybody else. I was quite impressed that he called back and then was able to flip the conversation. He was taking a 50-50 gamble: I'm either going to say yes, I like wine, or no. Between that and his tenacity of follow-up, I finally said, 'I'm going to give this guy a try.' "

2. Cold Calling Is a Matter of Degree

Yes, you can work from income- or home-value-sorted lists provided by lead-generation companies, but why live with meager success rates (1 percent to 2 percent, a fellow Grove Street broker confessed to Rosen in a recent sales training session) when you can push your success rate considerably higher by much more narrowly prequalifying leads you gather yourself?

Rosen rustles up plenty of potential clients with creative online searches. He plumbs the letters columns of various wine publications, scrolls through wine blogs, and Googles fruitful word combinations like wine club and the names of various cities. As one of 11 brokers at Grove Street, he sells limited-batch wines made by small, mostly California, wineries to private individuals who otherwise probably wouldn't have access to such wines, which range in price from around $15 per bottle to many times as much.

Read more:

Mastering the Art of Cold-Calling

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