No, No, No! Everyone is scared of the word no.  Why????  It totally empowers you.  I mean the most wonderful feeling I have, one of them anyway, is to be able to say to a client no I’m sorry. They want me and I say I can’t do it. I then proceed by saying it’s not my expertise let me turn you onto someone else who can do it or we’re not a good fit. No is a wonderful word. And if no is said to you in this case, it should just propel you to the next phone call to someone who will say yes hopefully.

The Dialogue I want to drill down a little bit further. You call and say, connect me to the person in charge of your parties and events. They go sure hang on please and transfer you. Hi this is (insert name here) and I’m an event producer and a caterer. We do primarily corporate events, entertainment, catering. We’re full service or parts thereof. We’ve been in business 30 years, we give great parties and I would love to be able to send or email you some information on us and hopefully help you with your holiday party or picnic or business meeting, whatever you need. Would that be okay?

Guess what? They almost always say yes.

…So basically when you’re cold calling you don’t ask them right away if they need a planner.   All you’re trying to do, the lily pad you’re trying to leap to, is to get them to give you permission and a way to contact them and that opens the door.  In that process you inform them of the things that you do. So if you primarily do corporate, you know what “they” do, etc.

Who You Talkin’ To? Get a list together. An example of this is for corporate events, get the LA Business Journal and the Orange County Business Journal and so on because what they do is every issue which comes out once a week they give you a list somewhere of the top 25 or top 50 of a certain category. For instance, here are the top 50 law firms in Los Angeles either by amount of money they make or whatever their criteria is for that particular one.

In addition, at the beginning of the year they send you a very thick book of all of their lists. So you have probably 75 to 100 different categories of between 25 and 100 of the clients. They send you the list, there’s the phone number, their address, the President usually not the person you want to contact but the President, etc. So there is your list.

What about the Jones-es? Ha! Yeh, don’t keep up with everyone else. You’re sure to get trampled. These companies/people are getting hustled by everyone. You’re just one of the pack at that point. Your job is to get them in front of them and get them to like and trust you, loosen them up, make them relaxed and make them want to find out more about my company.