Sales Cringe

The first item on this morning’s agenda at Baldwin Colour is to make a few sales calls. I need to drum up some new business, maybe even reconnect with some old business, and an old-fashioned phone call is still one of the best ways to get the ball rolling.

Working for myself these days means I’m juggling four full-time jobs: Salesperson, CFO, Barista, and whatever it is that I actually do for a living. It’s often difficult to remember what my real job is because wearing those Salesperson and CFO hats eats up so much of my time, especially when I’m negotiating the size of my own expense account with myself. And the line at my Barista counter also gets really busy if I’m color grading a Kung-Fu feature film from the 1970s. It takes a lot of coffee beans to get through all those mismatched shots from different sources.

Speaking of coffee, maybe I should drink a cup before making my sales calls. After all, a little extra caffeine boost will surely be helpful when I‘m trying to close the deal. In fact, let’s make it three cappuccinos and an almond biscotto. That should do the trick. I know it does seem like I’m procrastinating here, but ….

Well, let’s be honest, I’m terrible at cold calling and I hate making them. My calls aren’t just merely cold, they are positively Arctic. Whatever cold calling skills I possess are buried deep beneath twelve feet of permafrost. I immediately turn into a frozen fool when anyone answers. For example:

‘Hi, I was wondering if you guys needed any help color grading your latest video?’

‘No, not really.’

‘Okay. Thank you for your time.’

It could be dialogue from Arthur Miller’s famous play Death of A Salesman, but it’s actually the complete script of my own self-penned drama: Cremation Of The Salesman And The Scattering Of His Ashes To The Four Corners Of The Earth, performed by the Tongue-Tied Amateur Theater Company with sets by Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The matinees are particularly bad because the actor hasn’t had lunch yet.

I also tried putting on a Dog And Pony Show at a client’s office, once, but that quickly turned into a Three-Ring Circus when my demo reel inexplicably refused to play and I was left holding the keys to the clown car. That client might hire me to provide the entertainment at his children’s party but I wasn’t getting anywhere near his broadcast spots.

So to attract new business I’ve always needed to rely on the oldest and greatest salesperson of all: Word Of Mouth.

Word Of Mouth is a sales pitch dressed as friendly advice and it goes something like this: ‘If you want to add some much needed pizzazz to your video and really make it stand out, there’s this color guy called Baldwin. He’s been around for a while and he’s pretty good. I’ve used him a number of times and he always does great work. You should give him a call. He’s not expensive so you can definitely fit him into your budget without breaking the bank.’

I couldn’t put it better myself.

Unfortunately, as the years go by, many of the people I know are getting out of the business, meaning all that good word-of-mouth is increasingly falling on deaf ears. Former creative directors are now full-time into Real Estate, and ex-cinematographers are hawking their homemade pies at Farmers Markets in the city. Some of my contacts are so ancient they don’t actually need to work anymore anyway. I’ve recently had a number of conversations go like this:

‘Hi, I was wondering if you needed any help color-grading your latest video?

‘No. I don’t have a latest video because I’m retired.’

‘Well, okay then, does your Assisted Living Facility needs help color-grading their latest video?’

‘Yeah, maybe. I can put you in touch with Dennis who runs our YouTube channel.’

Personally, I’d mark that down as a successful sales call. The result may only be working on a short clip about old folks playing backgammon in Sunset Lounge, and I doubt they can pay full-rate on a fixed income, but from such small acorns do mighty oaks grow. Who knows, I could soon be jazzing up niche video for Retirement Homes across New England and beyond. Work is work, as they say, and it all adds up.

Meanwhile, second item on this morning’s agenda at Baldwin Colour is to cross-post this Suite Talk entry on my LinkedIn and Facebook pages. Hey, it’s almost like I’m creating a whole sales campaign right from the comfort of my home office. Maybe there’s hope for me yet.