Nobody likes a cold call. I get them too, and I know the reflex to cut it short.
It is worse on the other end of the line. Making a cold call is terrifying, because nobody likes to be rejected. Ego plays a role, and so does personality. The few people who do not seem to mind a "no" have usually heard so many of them that they have become immune.
But over the years I have learned that taking that call matters. You never know where a conversation, or a chance meeting, can take you.
The salesman who called for three years
There was a salesman at one of the large companies in New York's diamond district who kept calling me. For three years I did not buy a single stone from him. He kept up the relationship anyway. He never pushed, and it was genuinely pleasant to speak to him. I appreciated that.
When I finally bought my first diamond through him, we got talking. He told me he was frustrated in his role as a cold caller. I was looking for ways to grow, and my team is young, so I needed someone with experience.
One thing led to another. Today he works with me, and he runs a small team of callers that brings in new clients for our memo programs every week.
Three years of calls with nothing to show for them, and then one conversation changed both our businesses.
Our best marketing tool
To this day, cold calling has been our most successful marketing tool. Most of our clients came to us that way.
It beats going door to door to stores. Not because visits are expensive. In September a colleague and I spent three days in the Northeast and visited about 60 stores for around $2,200, gas prices included. If one of those stores becomes a regular client, the trip pays for itself many times over.
The problem is that you cannot do it every week. Those three days were exhausting, and you cannot keep that up all year. And turning a store you met once into one that gives you regular business is easier said than done. A phone call, on the other hand, can be made every day, to anyone, for almost nothing. Economically, it makes far more sense.
Compare it person for person. On that trip, the two of us managed about 10 stores each a day. Our callers reach 25 to 30 stores each, every day, with ease. And unlike us, they can do it again tomorrow.
We believed in it so much that we tried to have an AI agent do the calling for us. It sounded remarkably real. It did not work. Maybe it will one day. But in this trade, for now, people still buy from people.
Why a jeweler should pick up
Jewelers complain about cold calls as much as anyone. But think about what that call can tell you.
I recently read a post in Jewelers Helping Jewelers from an independent store owner complaining about a cold caller. The caller worked for one of the biggest diamond wholesalers in the world, the kind of company newcomers to this trade aspire to become, with a whole floor of people making these calls every day. Next to a firm like that, even a group of ten stores is small. And if you run a store in America, I can almost guarantee you will need to work with them one day. They supply nearly everything a typical store needs: natural and lab-grown diamonds, finished jewelry, even watches. That is not a call to brush off. You do not have to like the call. But a little respect for the person making it goes a long way, and so might the conversation.
How do you know the prices you are paying are the best you can get? How would you know that a custom piece can be made in as little as three days after the CAD is approved? How would you know what designers actually charge for a CAD?
You find out by listening to the people who call. I do not need to walk you through the arithmetic. Better costs mean inventory turns faster, and faster turns mean better profits.
Or take the holiday season. Your store needs more goods. Do you think every dealer listing a pair of 1 carat total weight lab-grown studs at $225 will give them to you on long memo, so you can sell them for three times that in December? He will ask you for payment in advance, my friend. After a point, your cash flow will not allow it. You would rather put your money into exquisite designs, and pay a small premium to take the basics on long memo from someone who offers it.
You do not find that out unless you talk to the person trying to reach you.
Independent stores and family jewelers share the struggle we all have: how do you compete with the big guys? Part of the answer is knowing your options as well as they know theirs. Often that knowledge is one phone call away.
Hear the fella out
I still get frustrated with cold callers. Some, especially the banks and lenders, sound like scammers before they finish their first sentence.
But my rule is simple: hear the fella out. Give him a minute. He picked up the phone knowing you would probably say no, and that takes more nerve than most of us admit.
We live on our phones and socialize less than any generation before us. Talking to a stranger feels awkward, so we let technology handle it. That is exactly why the call matters more now than ever.
Most calls will lead nowhere. One might lead to a supplier, a client, or the next person on your team. You will not know which one until you take it.
So the next time an unknown number rings, pick up.
Falak Shah is President of YF Diamonds. The Loupe is his view of the diamond and jewelry trade.