I made 64 dials in about an hour and a half one day. The first 40 were rough. I mean rough. I fancy myself a pretty good dialer, I have set a lot of appointments and done a lot of business over the phone, and for 40 straight calls I ate it anyway. No interest, hangups, wrong numbers, the whole buffet.
Then the next stretch broke open, and by the end of the session I had seven proposals going out the door. Seven, from one morning on the phone. That night my wife wanted hot dogs, so we grilled hot dogs to celebrate. Glamorous business, this one.
Everybody hears that story and takes the volume lesson: keep dialing through the rough patch because the law of averages pays the people who stay in the chair. That lesson is real. Three calls tells you nothing. Sixty tells you the truth.
But volume was not the hero
The list was the hero. Before I ever picked up the phone, that list got scrubbed hard, and the scrubbing is what turned 64 dials into seven proposals instead of zero.
- Every big national chain came off the list. I am not calling a big box store to reach a decision maker. That decision lives with a board six layers up and six years out. I want the deal now, not after a corporate committee retires.
- Owners with small portfolios stayed on. I filtered for properties where the owner holds fewer than 20 buildings. That means the person who answers can actually say yes. Not a real estate trust, not an investment firm, a human whose money it is.
- Every record had a name and numbers attached. The research was done before the calling session, not during it. When the rep has to stop and dig for the owner between calls, dial volume collapses, and I have watched that exact thing kill call teams. The person in the chair should be doing exactly one job: talking to people.
Volume times targeting, not volume versus targeting
People love to argue this like it is one or the other. Grinders say it is a numbers game. Snipers say quality over quantity. Both are half right and half broke.
Sixty four dials into a garbage list is a wasted morning with sore ears. Six perfect dials into a great list is a hobby, not a pipeline. The math that works is a scrubbed list hit with real volume. That is when the law of averages stops being a slogan and starts being a paycheck.
So split the work in two. Research time is for building the list: right kind of customer, right size, decision maker identified, numbers verified. Calling time is for burning through it without stopping to think. Never mix the two in the same hour.
And when the first 40 are rough, remember they are supposed to be. The list already did its job. Yours is to keep dialing until the back half pays for the front half.
Hot dogs taste better after seven proposals. That is just science.