At the moment I spend 3 days a week working as a Sales Manager for a green travel company. For this job I have a life time of 28 years of experience…but not in Sales. Thankfully though the team are great and I mostly speak on the phone…both the speaking and the phoning prove no problem so it’s grand.
My job is to call people…sometimes the dreaded cold call, sometimes the ‘Is that you Rachel?’ said with both love and contempt, sometimes at the same time. Sometimes the long wait whilst listening to a noise considered by robots as music. Twice in my 200 working days with this company have I received the curt ‘We’re not interested thank you!’ And more than twice I’ve called back some old friends who own a yurt or a shepherds hut to have a chat with them.
Some of these faceless voices I’ve come to know very well, and some reveal much more than you would expect or even desire to hear. So here are a few of the gems so far collected…every one of them genuine.
“Oh…they’ve hatched” she says interrupting the flow of my sales reel.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“The baby ospreys, they’re hatching, oh god Rachel, can I call you back?”
The times when people answer and you wonder how and why they did:
“Hi Rachel, great to hear from you, we’re really interested but …ow….um…I’m knee deep in screws and springs as I’m, you'll like this, just constructing a trampoline for children!”
“I'm just in the middle of baking a cake and it's at the crucial stage!”
If it’s crucial let it go to answer phone, seriously woman!
“Ah yes, Rachel, Look...Can you call back,” he says getting quite annoyed, “I've got my hand up a cows rear end”
How was I to know that man, I’m on the phone, and you, you are meant to be running a B&B…
Then there are the sad stories. These are the sad times when you call and there has been a death in the family and the awkwardness in being a faceless friendless sales voice is horrible. They’re the worst because I do care that they are hurting and in the midst of hurting the last thing you need is some idiot calling about advertising.
“Hi there, it’s Rachel from that green travelling company, just checking in regarding your interest in a listing”
Silence. A quiet deflated voice starts, “Well it’s a rather difficult time…”
Sensing what’s looming I make my apologies.
Gently I try to leave, “No worries, not a problem, I’ll call back later in the year.”
“You see Rachel…my wife…well…she has just run off with another man.”
I can’t remember how I finished that conversation, there is no nice way to end it because I am not his friend and I cannot be there for him.
And then to be honest you get the downright gross too much information situations.
“Well Rachel yes, we’re really glad you’ve called us. We’re very interested, it’s just we’ve been with websites before and sometimes they send us awfully strange people. Honestly we’ve just had some people and they have been oozing and squeezing all over the place, I’ve had to put their pillows in the
bin. They were sarcastic and she was picking her legs all over the place…”
There are no helpful responses to a statement like that on the phone.
There are the rare occasions when I make a sale because of my accent, not only have I brought money to the company but I’ve nearly ended up on a date or two.
And chatting to yoga centres is like chatting to honey. It’s essential to have coffee before calling them because their yoga calmed voices can lull me into a coma of relaxation. They live a good life!
So there you have it, to keep my creative brain engaged I keep my ear to the ground for all of life’s nuances and the people it holds.
Things learnt:
Don’t pick your legs in B&B’s.
Call people you don’t know on the phone.
Travel green.
