Here’s a transcript of a Poke the Bear cold call.

Permission
SDR: Hi Pete, Beth Jones with CaptivateIQ. We’ve never spoken before. And I know you weren’t expecting my call, but I was hoping you could help me out for a moment.

Prospect: Sure, how can I help?

Verify You’re Talking to the Right Person.
SDR. Thank you. To make sure I’m in the right place, are you involved in calculating commissions at ACME?

Prospect: I am.

Context
SDR: Thanks. We’re working with sales teams with over 70 reps, and I came across your name.

Identify if There’s a Problem
If you don’t mind me asking, is calculating and running commissions a manual process involving spreadsheets, or is it automated?

(This is a qualifying question to determine if the prospect has a problem.)

Prospect: It’s manual.

Labeling
SDR: Sounds like you’re getting data out of Salesforce, hard-pasting Excel pages into Google Sheets and then manually making adjustments, one sheet at a time.

Prospect. Actually, I use Excel.

Poke the Bear
SDR: I often hear that for orgs your size, it takes a few days to calculate and send statements to reps. How does that compare with your experience?

Prospect: That sounds about right. What are you calling about?

Tease What’s Possible
SDR: I’m calling to see if you’d be open to learning about a different approach sales orgs with over 60 reps are using to calculate error-free commission statements in a few hours.

Prospect: What do you mean? How does that work?

Conversation started.

This is for CaptivateIQ, but you can easily modify the framework for your prospects.

Ditch the pitch.

Poke the bear.