A Tug on the Line

The first time I got a positive response to one of my cold calls I nearly jumped for joy.

I had been spending a Friday afternoon going down the list of potential customers whose radio advertisements I had transcribed from Victorville radio footage. I'd pluck out a name on the list, find the number of their business headquarters (searching the internet, if possible) and give them a call hoping to pitch my wares. Even though I had taken the time to write out a general script of my sales pitch, these were still cold calls to the presumably hardy denizens of the High Desert and I was, well, nervous. Nobody likes a salesman. It wasn't such a hot day, but I pulled off my shirt and flipped on the ceiling fan.

The first few calls were a squeamish mess. I dropped words (and even letters) left and right, repeated myself copiously and generally muddled my introductory sales pitch. My background in improvisation served me well in picking up the shards of syntax I scattered every few lines, but the tense pep in voice belied the cool the tone I tried to put on at the beginning of each call.

It didn't hurt that the negative responses were not as forbidding as I'd braced myself for. Perhaps people were just happy the weekend was near, but I got far more "I'll pass your name along to the higher-ups" than "go jump in an active volcano." Plenty of advertising execs were already on vacation, it seemed, for the looming Independence Day weekend. This is not to say, of course, that everyone was pleased as peaches at having some upstart kid from the city call up to take their money. (One establishment, a promising local restaraunt called The Brass Pickle, told me to "call back next month," meaning next week, as it was the last week of June. When I called again the next Tuesday politely asking to speak to the person in charge of advertising for The Brass Pickle, the response was "there's no one here right now" followed by an emphatic hang-up.) But I grew more confident with every cold call, eventually throwing off the uncomfortable mantle of Am I Really Doing This? to take up the laurels of the intrepid young entrepreneur. After all -- I told myself before starting -- I can always just laugh it off if I fail.

Ironically, my first real laughter came followed not failure but a hint of success. When I told the gentleman at the skating rink I called sixth on my list that I had a way to significantly increase the strength of his advertising, he seemed intrigued.

"Do we need a jingle? This guy writes jingles," he called out to his wife, before checking with me about the proper vocabulary; "Do you write them? Sing them? 'Make' them?"

I calmly explained that I do it all -- write them, record them, produce them and sell them, all custom-made to suit needs and budget of your business. After more banter with his wife/business-partner, the man gave his name as B____ and told me to call back next week. Like everyone else, it seems, they were going on vacation.

When I hung up the phone, I leapt out of my desk chair, pumped my fist and shouted "yes!" Even though the business week was fading fast, my heart was pumping too much joy and shock into my bloodstream for me to make any more calls for the next half hour. And as I turned to the look in my bedroom mirror between regular intervals of excited pacing, I marveled at how such a lean, poorly groomed 23-year-old creature had found the untold balls to embark on this crazy little adventure. "Yes, Michael," the enterprise seemed to be telling me, "you can make this work."

Not a bad feeling for a couple hours' work. And the first sign that I was on the right track.