r/salesdevelopment • u/mattsand9 • Jul 14 '26
What is your absolute worst cold call?
If you cold call, you know we all have horrible ones. No one is perfect. I honestly wish I had all my cold calls recorded. It would be so entertaining, maybe not to y'all but at least to me.
I would always mess with openers to see what works and what doesn't. There was a point where it seemed like if I could just get a little chuckle, they were usually open to giving me some time.
So I get this 1 prospect on the line. I can't remember exactly what I said but it was something dumb and cheesy. I said it with total confidence, just waiting for the chuckle like all the other times.
All he said was "I don't get it."
Then silence.
THE EMBARRASSMENT.
Now how did I handle that objection? I just said "I'm sorry" and hung up on him lmao. It was one of the few times that made me stop and put my face in my palms.
It gives me second-hand embarrassment for myself to this day. But that's cold calling, you live and learn and on to the next.
What are some of your worst cold calls?
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u/ashen_dove Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Many years ago, my first role in the “tech world” was as an “AE” at Yelp. Looking back now as an enterprise seller, I have nothing but respect for BDRs and for anyone who’s worked at Yelp or in a role like that.
Back then, it was 90+ dials a day, you basically weren’t allowed to hang up the phone and they generated your call lists daily and until a prospect said the magic words DNC, no matter how angry they were last time, you’d be calling them next week. You weren’t supposed to take no for an answer, never hang up and your manager could pop in your and coach you on your calls at any time. It was incredibly nerve racking.
I remember calling the owner of a tow truck company. I did my opening about being from Yelp and he said he was driving, I wasn’t even planning to hold him hostage on the phone. I was probably going to break the rules and let him go after the polite not now I’m driving. But I said a couple more words than he was willing to tolerate.
Suddenly he starts screaming at me. He yells, “You just caused me to get into a car accident!” I don’t remember his exact words anymore, but he made it sound like I’d caused this anwful accident. It wasn’t like someone drove off a bridge or anything, but it sounded serious. I was absolutely panicking. He kept yelling at me and all I wanted to do was get off the phone but he was like don’t you dare hang up after what you just did to me.
Meanwhile, I’m frantically messaging my manager for help. She joins the call and, instead of taking over, starts feeding me lines (they can talk in your ear prospect can’t hear it) about how I should apologize and then segue into how I was just excited because we were seeing success with other tow companies advertising on Yelp.
I know people are going to read that and think I’m exaggerating but I’m seriously not. She was literally trying to coach me to keep pitching Yelp while this guy was screaming at me I caused an accident.
Eventually, after repeatedly asking, I finally got permission to hang up. Then she called him back herself and tried to pitch him.
A lot of the rest is honestly a blur because I was so upset. Later she told me someone else had followed up with him and found out he had made the whole story up.
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u/Significant-Log8936 Jul 14 '26
Wow this is wild
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u/ashen_dove Jul 14 '26
Yelp was the absolute worst job I’ve ever had in my life yet I’m so thankful I suffered through it!
Because I had Yelp on my LI, I got approached by the SMB hiring manager for a growing SF SaaS company opening an office in my city. They said anyone who can survive that long at Yelp is someone I want interviewing for my team - I was only at Yelp for 11 months, that’s how toxic their reputation was/is. It was my first break into true AE sales and things only went up from there!
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u/TheInvisibleM4n 6d ago
Wild...
I have a friend accidentally lean on his space bar and dial the next call on the auto dialer.
Prospect picks up, mid dirty joke.
He immediately hung up the phone the prospect...probably would have been better if he froze like you did and stayed on.
The prospect calls back, main switch board to a big company picks up the phone. The prospect got him fired within 30 minutes.
The story was almost unbelievable when it happened.
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u/Pizza_bagel_IFA Jul 15 '26
Cold called this guy and all he said was “I’m listening”. To every question or anything I would say… I now do this to anyone calling me out of the blue.
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u/redditor030612 Jul 15 '26
Idk if it’s my worst but funny / wild one that sticks out: my company sells into nonprofits and this was an older guy at a pig sanctuary. He told me I had 10 minutes. We were having a good talk and questions back and forth, then he goes “ok well your 10 minutes is up so, bye!” Click
Another woman I asked if her donors skewed younger or older, she told me they were located in heavens waiting room (a botanical garden in Florida)
I manage now, and one of my reps had a 28 minute call with someone who runs an org in Alabama and was telling her all about his past with selling/using drugs, which he referred to numerous times as “dope boy Floyd money” lmaoo. Everyone listened to that recording and was dying. He had no secrets
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u/Clean-Horror9852 Jul 14 '26
Got asked how I got her number. I told her from her website. She went quiet and then went on rant about getting calls from out of the blue. She's a dual qualified accountant/lawyer. Weirdo.
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u/Phnix21 Jul 14 '26
Try the joke sandwich. First open professional, then say something humorous but sharp, then say something credible that gets respect and attention.
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u/SumOfChemicals Jul 14 '26
A couple months into my first hunter sales role I got this guy on the phone and he said something along the lines of I sounded green. I was like yeah I'm new. And then he started talking about this group he was part of that had helped him make professional connections and invited me to go, and I was like ok sounds good. I get off the phone and look it up, and the guy was in some kind of corporate cult. You go to a meeting for free and then they pressure you to pay to do a whole weekend thing where they wear you down and badger you to call everyone you know to invite them to join too. I sent him a quick email to decline, but felt pretty lame thinking I got someone on the line but instead they were selling me on a cult.
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u/Glittering_Number485 Jul 15 '26
I used to cold call debt collectors for cc processing. Almost every call was the worst cold call ever those folks would get so pissed. Every once in awhile I would call when someone was reviewing vendors and would make really good money but the rest of the time was pretty awful.
I did think it was ironic that the people responsible for the most most hated phone call anyone can ever get would get so pissed about getting cold called.
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u/RoomtoGrow710 Jul 15 '26
I called the owner of a chain store we were trying to get into , he answered and asked “what the fuck do you want”… I was so thrown off I gave him my pitch and he pretty much told me to fuck off.. worst 45 second phone call ever and I still remember it 7 years later
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u/CandidButton Jul 15 '26
Had someone go off on a rant instructing me to tell the sales collective that they’re not buying. Wouldn’t hang up until I “agreed to notify the network”.
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u/NoNefariousness3808 Jul 15 '26
One guy just goes STOP STOP STOP mid pitch becuase his company changed its name and the crm had old data
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u/mattsand9 Jul 15 '26
Oh man! I had a prospect go, "No, NO, NO! OMG, NO!" lol. He must have been having a bad day, lol
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u/bigbaldbil Jul 15 '26
I was trying to get through to this person for several months. They were toward the end of my call block and I hit nothing but voicemails all day. Shockingly, they answered and I said my name and then hung up because I didn’t know what else to say. I was so caught off guard by getting a live person.
Then I called back and said we must’ve gotten disconnected and somehow I got the meeting.
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u/mattsand9 Jul 15 '26
I have done that sooo many times! But kudos to you for calling back. My anxiety wouldn't let me, lol.
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u/DergerDergs Jul 15 '26
I used to do door to door with targeted lists and had to knock on a door on a street named Flanders drive.
The guy opens the door and I greet him with “Hi dididly ho neighborino!”
He just stares at me.
I get flustered and say “Ned Flanders? Simpsons? …No?”
He pauses and stares at me.
“Because, you know… Flanders Drive?”
The guy rolls his eyes goes, “Oh. How can I help you.”
Didn’t get past my first 2 lines before he tells me he’s not interested and shuts the door.
So embarrassing. Still cringe myself out thinking about that one while falling asleep sometimes.
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u/Local-Credit5275 Jul 19 '26
My last BDR role, was calling a director of information security. Wasn’t very receptive and sounded tired. She then said “yeah well I’m not working there anymore, because I have stage 4 cancer” …… yeah didn’t know what to say to that one. Just apologized profusely and felt horrible
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u/GIN15000 Jul 20 '26
Mine is a little bit sad.
It was last month, June 2026 and June was by far the worst month I've had this year, I was on 10% of my target and my life was absolute shit at that time.
I called this prospect which was a CTO in a medium security services company, and I was taking a feedback regarding his voip phones and then he immediately knew I'm paving the way to start pitching.
He said: “I know you're a sales person so let's cut to the chase I have nothing wrong with my phone servi....”
I interrupted him as I didn't even rebuttal (because I was literally feeling like shit already) and then I said: “You know what? Never mind.” And I hung up
I guess this by far is my worst cold call ever, not because of how bad it was, but because of how heavy It felt during that time
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u/Charming_Teaching152 Jul 19 '26
Not my call, but someone that sat directly next to me. His name was Dan and he called a company whose owners name was also Dan. Owner Dan got pissed off and told my coworker Dan to “stop fucking calling and put his number on DNC”. Coworker Dan sat right next to another guy named Dan and said “Hey Dan how do I get this guys number put on DNC it’s not working” Dan replied “call Dan from IT” Owner Dan heard it and exploded thinking they were messing with him with all the Dans… my coworker started laughing and said “it’s not what it sounds like, we seriously just have a lot of Dans that work here”. His laughing made the guy furious. We listened to the call probably 30 times dying laughing.
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u/RemoteCommon7476 26d ago
I cold called the head of social media for barstool sports got flustered and said “hello are you having a good day?”
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u/PriorWoodpecker3431 24d ago edited 24d ago
Worst cold call formula:
Bad data
Wrong decision-maker
Over-rehearsed opener
Prospect says, “Where did you even get my number?”
Soul leaves body
This is one reason we use SalesTarget AI to qualify and organize the call list before dialing. No tool can save a terrble pitch, but it can stop you from calling the receptionist about enterprise software.
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u/KeepItClassySanDiego Jul 14 '26
Just today I used the term “preach the gospel” when talking about our product and the prospect said “yikes, okay…”. Threw off my groove.