📞 The Barncat Cold Calling Guide

How to book more meetings without sounding like a salesperson

Cold calling is simple.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy.

This guide is my interpretation and practice of cold calling. Some of what I’m going to tell you is supported by research. Some of it isn’t. Some of it is simply what I’ve learned from experience, instinct, and interrupting more than 30,000 people’s days.

After enough conversations, you start to notice patterns.

Here’s what I learned.

---

🐈 A Little About Me

My name is Barnaby, although I’ve been called Barncat for years.

I was the highest achiever at Samanage, an IT Service Management startup in North Carolina that was later acquired by SolarWinds.

We sold a cloud-based service desk and asset management solution.

I was hired to cold call, generate leads, and fill the top of the sales pipeline with approximately 12–15 booked meetings per month for my sales representative.

That meant a lot of dialing.

And a lot of people answering the phone who absolutely did not wake up that morning hoping to hear from me.

Which brings us to the fundamental question:

☎️ What Is Cold Calling?

In my own words:

Cold calling is interrupting a potential client’s day to share a value that could benefit them, if you can get them to listen for another five seconds.

That’s it.

You’re interrupting someone.

They’re busy.

They weren’t expecting you.

And you have a very small amount of time to establish why continuing the conversation might be worth their attention.

That’s why the first few seconds matter.

And one of the most important words I’ve found in cold calling is:

Because.

Not a particularly glamorous sales technique. No revolutionary neuroscience. Just one word.

Try:

“Hi, I’m calling because I have a question.”

You’ve immediately answered the prospect’s most important question:

Why are you calling me?

You’re also giving them a reason to keep listening.

Another approach I found useful was asking for help:

“Hi, I’m calling because I need some help.”

People are often more willing to engage when you aren’t immediately trying to convince them of something.

You’re starting a conversation.

---

🧠 Don’t Assume You Know What They Need

One of the biggest lessons I learned in cold calling was to stop assuming I knew what the prospect needed.

My job wasn’t to force someone into a predetermined conversation.

My job was to create enough space for us to figure out whether there was a reason to continue talking.

That meant asking open-ended questions.

Not:

“Are you happy with your current service desk?”

That’s a yes-or-no question.

Instead:

“When do you typically evaluate your service desk and asset management solutions?”

Now you’ve created room for a real answer.

---

📞 My Basic Cold Call Framework

Here’s what my approach might sound like:

“Hi, my name is Barnaby with Samanage. I’m calling because I need some help.

I’m not sure if having a cloud-based service desk and asset management solution is top of mind, but I had a question to see if we might be a resource.

When do you typically evaluate service desk and asset management solutions?”

Then:

Stop talking.

Take notes.

Listen.

Human beings have a remarkable tendency to keep talking when silence would actually be more useful.

Your job now is to understand their situation.

When does it make sense for them to evaluate a solution?

What are they currently using?

What is working?

What isn’t?

And, most importantly, is there actually a problem worth solving?

---

🔎 Ask One More Question

Don’t turn the call into an interrogation.

You don’t need twelve qualification questions.

Ask another question that helps you understand their situation and identify potential pain points for your sales representative.

For example:

“What are some current frustrations you have with your service desk?”

Then again:

Shut up. Take notes. Listen.

The prospect is giving you information.

Don’t interrupt the information-gathering process because you suddenly remembered another feature you wanted to mention.

---

📅 Closing the Call

Once you’ve heard them out and understand their needs, thank them for their time and move toward the meeting.

For example:

“When are you available to meet with our team so we can see whether we might be a fit? Does Tuesday work, or would Wednesday be better?”

Give them options.

Find a date and time that works for both sides.

Close the call.

The prospect has already spent several minutes talking with you about their situation. If there is a legitimate reason to continue the conversation, make the next step easy.

---

🎯 Cold Calling Isn’t About Convincing People

This is probably the most important part of my sales philosophy.

Cold calling isn’t about convincing someone to buy something.

You should be doing the research before you call.

Build a good prospect list.

Identify the people involved in evaluating the solution.

Understand the organization.

Understand the persona you’re calling.

Then call them with a legitimate reason for having a conversation.

I never thought of my job as delivering a sales pitch.

The idea of “pitching” during a cold call makes the whole process feel less human.

I’m calling to have a normal conversation with another person.

Not to verbally vomit on them.

Prospects are busy.

Respect that.

In my role at Samanage, there were plenty of times when prospects actually thanked me for calling.

That’s the goal.

You should be bringing enough potential value to the conversation that the interruption feels worthwhile.

---

📱 The Voicemail Rule: Brevity

You don’t need to explain your entire company in a voicemail.

I recorded my voicemail and dropped it using SalesLoft.

Here’s an example:

“Hi John, this is Barnaby with Samanage. I’m calling because I had a quick question about your service desk and asset management solution. I look forward to hearing from you.”

That’s it.

Brevity.

That’s the name of the game when leaving a voicemail or making a cold call.

Don’t over-explain yourself.

You aren’t going to close a deal in a voicemail.

You’re trying to create enough curiosity for someone to call you back.

---

🛡️ Objection Handling

Cold calling means hearing objections.

A lot of them.

So what is an objection?

In my own words:

An objection is anything the prospect doesn’t understand or isn’t ready to engage with.

Your job isn’t to trick someone into taking a demo.

Consider this classic exchange:

Prospect:

“We’re happy with our current system.”

Salesperson:

“I completely understand. A lot of our customers said the same thing until...”

Please stop.

They’re probably trying to get off the phone.

Don’t immediately launch into your objection-handling script.

Instead, be candid.

Understand why they gave you the objection.

You aren’t trying to overcome the objection.

You’re trying to understand it.

If someone says they’re happy with their current system, you don’t need to defeat that statement.

You can simply acknowledge it:

“Okay, that’s great. When would be a good time for me to circle back and see if we can be a resource?”

Then move on.

Your time matters too.

---

🧩 Frameworks Beat Scripts

This is one of the biggest distinctions I learned.

Create a framework for what you want to say.

Don’t create a script that dictates every word.

Scripts are predictable.

You’re talking to an interrupted, complicated human being whose response you cannot possibly anticipate.

The traditional model looks like this:

Prospect says X → salesperson says Y → prospect says Z → salesperson deploys objection handler #14 → meeting booked.

My model is:

Have a framework → listen → understand → respond to what is actually happening.

That’s the difference.

Sales is about listening.

Not dominating the conversation.

Not trying to pitch someone into submission.

Listening.

---

🚪 Learn When to Stop Selling

This is incredibly important.

You need to know when to stop.

If the prospect is clearly brushing you off, end the conversation.

You could ask when would be a better time to follow up, make a note, and move on.

There are other people you can call.

You could spend ten minutes trying to force one person into a meeting, or you could spend those ten minutes talking to someone who actually needs your help.

That’s not giving up.

That’s using your time intelligently.

---

🎨 Cold Calling Is Storytelling

Here’s another thing I’ve learned:

A cold caller is a storyteller who sells.

You’re sharing a narrative about how your solution could help someone.

You’re taking an abstract product and connecting it to a real-world problem.

For example, instead of saying:

“Samanage is an easy-to-use cloud-based service desk.”

I might say:

“Think about your help desk technician sitting at their desk with 20 tickets in front of them. They need to close tickets, find information about an employee’s computer, and keep track of what equipment is where. The last thing they need is to fight with the software they’re using to do their job.

Samanage was designed to make that process simple, so your technicians can spend less time figuring out the system and more time actually helping people.”

That’s painting a picture.

I’m not simply telling them what the product does.

I’m giving them a situation they can recognize.

That’s storytelling.

---

👁️ Help Them See It

Don’t just tell people what you sell.

Help them see it.

Use concrete language.

Describe:

• The person

• The problem

• The situation

• The frustration

• What changes when the problem is solved

You don’t need a ten-minute story.

Sometimes a few well-chosen words are enough to make someone visualize what you’re describing.

Whatever solution you’re selling, you should understand how it actually helps people.

That example isn’t a script.

It’s an example of how I synthesized what I knew about the product into a situation that a prospect could recognize.

When you sound like you’re reading instead of sharing your knowledge, people notice.

---

🐈‍⬛ The Barncat Cold Calling Guide

So let’s say you’re new.

You just got hired this week.

You’ve never cold-called before.

You’re hungry.

And now someone has handed you a headset and a list of people who did not ask to hear from you.

What would I teach you on your first day?

Well, this is The Barncat Cold Calling Guide.

So let’s start at the beginning.

🗂️ Pre-Call Setup

Before you make a single call, answer a few questions.

Who the hell are we calling?

Are we buying a list?

Are we building one?

Who is the target persona?

At Samanage, we were typically looking for people such as:

• IT Directors

• IT Managers

• CIOs

• CTOs

We used tools such as DiscoverOrg when building prospect lists.

But simply finding someone’s phone number isn’t enough.

You need to understand whether they’re actually a qualified prospect.

---

🎯 What Makes a Qualified Lead?

You need to learn enough about the prospect to determine whether there is a legitimate reason for a sales conversation.

For an ITSM solution, that might include questions like:

• How large is their service desk?

• How many technicians are using the software?

• What solution are they currently using?

• When do they evaluate new solutions?

• What problems are they experiencing?

• Who is involved in the evaluation?

The goal isn’t to collect information for the sake of collecting information.

The goal is to determine whether there is a problem we can actually help solve.

That’s where good cold calling begins.

Not with the script.

Not with the pitch.

Not with the objection-handling flowchart someone laminated and taped next to your monitor.

It begins with research, curiosity, and a reason to call.

And once you have those three things, you can finally pick up the phone.

Would you like me to turn this into a tighter LinkedIn article or a polished training guide?

make it so I can instantly copy everything

Absolutely. Here is the clean, copy-and-paste-ready version with no commentary around it. I also kept the formatting compatible with Substack.

📞 The Barncat Cold Calling Guide

How to book more meetings without sounding like a salesperson

Cold calling is simple.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy.

This guide is my interpretation and practice of cold calling. Some of what I’m going to tell you is supported by research. Some of it isn’t. Some of it is simply what I’ve learned from experience, instinct, and interrupting more than 30,000 people’s days.

After enough conversations, you start to notice patterns.

Here’s what I learned.

🐈 A Little About Me

My name is Barnaby, although I’ve been called Barncat for years.

I was the highest achiever at Samanage, an IT Service Management startup in North Carolina that was later acquired by SolarWinds.

We sold a cloud-based service desk and asset management solution.

I was hired to cold call, generate leads, and fill the top of the sales pipeline with approximately 12–15 booked meetings per month for my sales representative.

That meant a lot of dialing.

And a lot of people answering the phone who absolutely did not wake up that morning hoping to hear from me.

Which brings us to the fundamental question:

☎️ What Is Cold Calling?

In my own words:

Cold calling is interrupting a potential client’s day to share a value that could benefit them, if you can get them to listen for another five seconds.

That’s it.

You’re interrupting someone.

They’re busy.

They weren’t expecting you.

And you have a very small amount of time to establish why continuing the conversation might be worth their attention.

That’s why the first few seconds matter.

And one of the most important words I’ve found in cold calling is:

Because.

Not a particularly glamorous sales technique. No revolutionary neuroscience. Just one word.

Try:

“Hi, I’m calling because I have a question.”

You’ve immediately answered the prospect’s most important question:

Why are you calling me?

You’re also giving them a reason to keep listening.

Another approach I found useful was asking for help:

“Hi, I’m calling because I need some help.”

People are often more willing to engage when you aren’t immediately trying to convince them of something.

You’re starting a conversation.

🧠 Don’t Assume You Know What They Need

One of the biggest lessons I learned in cold calling was to stop assuming I knew what the prospect needed.

My job wasn’t to force someone into a predetermined conversation.

My job was to create enough space for us to figure out whether there was a reason to continue talking.

That meant asking open-ended questions.

Not:

“Are you happy with your current service desk?”

That’s a yes-or-no question.

Instead:

“When do you typically evaluate your service desk and asset management solutions?”

Now you’ve created room for a real answer.

📞 My Basic Cold Call Framework

Here’s what my approach might sound like:

“Hi, my name is Barnaby with Samanage. I’m calling because I need some help.

I’m not sure if having a cloud-based service desk and asset management solution is top of mind, but I had a question to see if we might be a resource.

When do you typically evaluate service desk and asset management solutions?”

Then:

Stop talking.

Take notes.

Listen.

Human beings have a remarkable tendency to keep talking when silence would actually be more useful.

Your job now is to understand their situation.

When does it make sense for them to evaluate a solution?

What are they currently using?

What is working?

What isn’t?

And, most importantly, is there actually a problem worth solving?

🔎 Ask One More Question

Don’t turn the call into an interrogation.

You don’t need twelve qualification questions.

Ask another question that helps you understand their situation and identify potential pain points for your sales representative.

For example:

“What are some current frustrations you have with your service desk?”

Then again:

Shut up. Take notes. Listen.

The prospect is giving you information.

Don’t interrupt the information-gathering process because you suddenly remembered another feature you wanted to mention.

📅 Closing the Call

Once you’ve heard them out and understand their needs, thank them for their time and move toward the meeting.

For example:

“When are you available to meet with our team so we can see whether we might be a fit? Does Tuesday work, or would Wednesday be better?”

Give them options.

Find a date and time that works for both sides.

Close the call.

The prospect has already spent several minutes talking with you about their situation. If there is a legitimate reason to continue the conversation, make the next step easy.

🎯 Cold Calling Isn’t About Convincing People

This is probably the most important part of my sales philosophy.

Cold calling isn’t about convincing someone to buy something.

You should be doing the research before you call.

Build a good prospect list.

Identify the people involved in evaluating the solution.

Understand the organization.

Understand the persona you’re calling.

Then call them with a legitimate reason for having a conversation.

I never thought of my job as delivering a sales pitch.

The idea of “pitching” during a cold call makes the whole process feel less human.

I’m calling to have a normal conversation with another person.

Not to verbally vomit on them.

Prospects are busy.

Respect that.

In my role at Samanage, there were plenty of times when prospects actually thanked me for calling.

That’s the goal.

You should be bringing enough potential value to the conversation that the interruption feels worthwhile.

📱 The Voicemail Rule: Brevity

You don’t need to explain your entire company in a voicemail.

I recorded my voicemail and dropped it using SalesLoft.

Here’s an example:

“Hi John, this is Barnaby with Samanage. I’m calling because I had a quick question about your service desk and asset management solution. I look forward to hearing from you.”

That’s it.

Brevity.

That’s the name of the game when leaving a voicemail or making a cold call.

Don’t over-explain yourself.

You aren’t going to close a deal in a voicemail.

You’re trying to create enough curiosity for someone to call you back.

🛡️ Objection Handling

Cold calling means hearing objections.

A lot of them.

So what is an objection?

In my own words:

An objection is anything the prospect doesn’t understand or isn’t ready to engage with.

Your job isn’t to trick someone into taking a demo.

Consider this classic exchange:

Prospect:

“We’re happy with our current system.”

Salesperson:

“I completely understand. A lot of our customers said the same thing until...”

Please stop.

They’re probably trying to get off the phone.

Don’t immediately launch into your objection-handling script.

Instead, be candid.

Understand why they gave you the objection.

You aren’t trying to overcome the objection.

You’re trying to understand it.

If someone says they’re happy with their current system, you don’t need to defeat that statement.

You can simply acknowledge it:

“Okay, that’s great. When would be a good time for me to circle back and see if we can be a resource?”

Then move on.

Your time matters too.

🧩 Frameworks Beat Scripts

This is one of the biggest distinctions I learned.

Create a framework for what you want to say.

Don’t create a script that dictates every word.

Scripts are predictable.

You’re talking to an interrupted, complicated human being whose response you cannot possibly anticipate.

The traditional model looks like this:

Prospect says X → salesperson says Y → prospect says Z → salesperson deploys objection handler #14 → meeting booked.

My model is:

Have a framework → listen → understand → respond to what is actually happening.

That’s the difference.

Sales is about listening.

Not dominating the conversation.

Not trying to pitch someone into submission.

Listening.

🚪 Learn When to Stop Selling

This is incredibly important.

You need to know when to stop.

If the prospect is clearly brushing you off, end the conversation.

You could ask when would be a better time to follow up, make a note, and move on.

There are other people you can call.

You could spend ten minutes trying to force one person into a meeting, or you could spend those ten minutes talking to someone who actually needs your help.

That’s not giving up.

That’s using your time intelligently.

🎨 Cold Calling Is Storytelling

Here’s another thing I’ve learned:

A cold caller is a storyteller who sells.

You’re sharing a narrative about how your solution could help someone.

You’re taking an abstract product and connecting it to a real-world problem.

For example, instead of saying:

“Samanage is an easy-to-use cloud-based service desk.”

I might say:

“Think about your help desk technician sitting at their desk with 20 tickets in front of them. They need to close tickets, find information about an employee’s computer, and keep track of what equipment is where. The last thing they need is to fight with the software they’re using to do their job.

Samanage was designed to make that process simple, so your technicians can spend less time figuring out the system and more time actually helping people.”

That’s painting a picture.

I’m not simply telling them what the product does.

I’m giving them a situation they can recognize.

That’s storytelling.

👁️ Help Them See It

Don’t just tell people what you sell.

Help them see it.

Use concrete language.

Describe:

• The person

• The problem

• The situation

• The frustration

• What changes when the problem is solved

You don’t need a ten-minute story.

Sometimes a few well-chosen words are enough to make someone visualize what you’re describing.

Whatever solution you’re selling, you should understand how it actually helps people.

That example isn’t a script.

It’s an example of how I synthesized what I knew about the product into a situation that a prospect could recognize.

When you sound like you’re reading instead of sharing your knowledge, people notice.

🐈‍⬛ The Barncat Cold Calling Guide

So let’s say you’re new.

You just got hired this week.

You’ve never cold-called before.

You’re hungry.

And now someone has handed you a headset and a list of people who did not ask to hear from you.

What would I teach you on your first day?

Well, this is The Barncat Cold Calling Guide.

So let’s start at the beginning.

🗂️ Pre-Call Setup

Before you make a single call, answer a few questions.

Who the hell are we calling?

Are we buying a list?

Are we building one?

Who is the target persona?

At Samanage, we were typically looking for people such as:

• IT Directors

• IT Managers

• CIOs

• CTOs

We used tools such as DiscoverOrg when building prospect lists.

But simply finding someone’s phone number isn’t enough.

You need to understand whether they’re actually a qualified prospect.

🎯 What Makes a Qualified Lead?

You need to learn enough about the prospect to determine whether there is a legitimate reason for a sales conversation.

For an ITSM solution, that might include questions like:

• How large is their service desk?

• How many technicians are using the software?

• What solution are they currently using?

• When do they evaluate new solutions?

• What problems are they experiencing?

• Who is involved in the evaluation?

The goal isn’t to collect information for the sake of collecting information.

The goal is to determine whether there is a problem we can actually help solve.

That’s where good cold calling begins.

Not with the script.

Not with the pitch.

Not with the objection-handling flowchart someone laminated and taped next to your monitor.

It begins with research, curiosity, and a reason to call.

And once you have those three things, you can finally pick up the phone.