Fanatical Military Recruiting

14Telephone Prospecting Excellence

If the phone doesn’t ring it’s me.

—Jimmy Buffett

• Question: “What’s the easiest way to get a recruiter to stop working?”
• Answer: “Put a phone in front of them.”

This joke is all too true for thousands of recruiters for whom picking up the phone and calling a prospect is the most stressful part of their day. These reluctant recruiters procrastinate—get ducks in a row, work to ensure that everything is perfect before they dial, default to social media, and secretly hope that the phone will disappear.

They make excuses—and I mean any excuse—to do anything other than call prospects.

They work over their leaders, too. Whining that no one answers the phone anymore. Arguing that calling is a waste of time. Complaining that people don’t like to be contacted by phone.

Last month at a Fanatical Military Recruiting Boot Camp, a First Sergeant grabbed me before the session to thank me for being there. He then complained that the single biggest challenge facing the battalion was getting the recruiters to pick up the phone and call prospects.

His words: “We are having such a hard time getting them to just pick up the phone and talk to people. Most of them waste their days f#@king around on Facebook.”

As soon as I began the module on telephone prospecting, the normal whining began about how teenagers don’t answer the phone. Two recruiters (both egregiously behind on mission) insisted that social media was the only way to communicate with “this new ...