Quick Summary
Curiosity builds trust on cold calls because it flips the dynamic: instead of pushing value at a stranger, you show genuine interest in their world, which lowers resistance and earns you the right to ask for a meeting. On this episode of the Sales Gravy Podcast, Ulysses Price sits down with Chris Beall, CEO of ConnectAndSell, who breaks down his seven-second rule for earning trust, the “calibrated caller” framework, and why he leads with curiosity instead of value.
Key Takeaways
- You have roughly seven seconds on a cold call to establish trust through tactical empathy and competence.
- Beall’s calibrated callers use a playful tone, lead with curiosity instead of value, and insist on the meeting.
- The best objection is the one you never trigger. Curiosity-based framing avoids putting prospects on the defensive.
- B2B buyers risk their careers on buying decisions, which is why trust outweighs product on a first call.
- Live calling under real pressure is the fastest way to build these skills. Theory doesn’t survive a dial tone.
Chris Beall Says Curiosity Is Your Key To Effective Cold Calling
On this episode of the Sales Gravy podcast, Ulysses Price, filling in for Jeb Blount, interviews Chris Beall, CEO of ConnectAndSell a software service that helps salespeople initiate conversations with prospects.
His prospecting philosophy requires the salesperson to build trust and demonstrate curiosity, master the first few seconds of the conversation to create emotional buy-in, and avoid triggering psychological reactance.
By breaking down the conversation and practicing each part in training, sales reps can improve their skills and conduct more successful sales conversations
Listen to the full podcast episode:
Gain Your Prospect’s Trust In Seven Seconds
Cold calling is still one of the most effective ways of reaching potential customers, but it can be a daunting task for many salespeople, especially when you don’t know where to start.
To start a conversation, we need to gain someone’s trust. Without trust, they won’t listen to us, and we won’t get far. When we make a cold call, the person we’re speaking with only wants to end the conversation while keeping their self-image intact. If they didn’t care about their self-image, they would just hang up. So we have a small window of opportunity to gain their trust— just seven seconds.
In those seven seconds is to help the other party see that we see the world through their eyes. We call it tactical empathy. Secondly, we need to demonstrate to them that we’re competent in solving a problem they have right now. Their problem could be me, but I can always offer to go away in exchange for something.
You want them to listen to you, so you make that offer. For example, you might open the call with a statement like:
“I know I’m an interruption. Can I take 27 seconds to tell you why I called?”
By saying this, you’re self-indicting right at the beginning. That’s what the other party is already thinking about you. You beat them to the punch.
As a seller, it’s essential to establish trust with your audience, especially in B2B sales. Eventually, they have to trust you more than they trust themselves and view you as the expert.
This is why the first seven seconds are crucial in establishing trust with your audience. Do it wisely, and they will trust you forever, but try selling to them, and you’ll lose their trust in an instant.
Then comes the pitch:
“We’ve made a breakthrough that eliminates the waste and frustration that hinder your best sales reps from being effective on the phone. My call today is to request 15 minutes of your time to share this with you. Do you have your calendar handy?”
Sounds easy, right? But it’s not. The waste is economic, and the frustration is emotional. That’s because frustration triggers the part of our brain that causes us to lash out. Be careful not to trigger anger and instead, use a tone of voice that shows you understand what frustration means.
You want to connect with your listener on an emotional level and build trust. Remember, your voice is more important than your words. Use it skillfully to deliver emotional information and show that you truly get them, their needs, and their challenges and want to help solve them together.
What Is A Calibrated Caller?
There are two things that make a calibrated caller. First, they become very comfortable using a psychological framework, which I’ll call a script framework. They get good at it and become comfortable with it.
The framework consists of several steps: throwing yourself under the bus, making your voice playful, leading with curiosity instead of value, and insisting that the person take the meeting.
The reps are trained to lead with value, but the resonance comes from leading with curiosity to see if somebody is curious enough to take a meeting. Insisting that the person take the meeting requires a kind of confidence and belief in the value of the meeting, which isn’t equal across all reps. You need somebody who can do the whole thing, who can throw themselves under the bus, make their voice playful, go to curiosity, and insist they take the meeting.
A calibrated caller is somebody who has proven they can do all of that work in a cold call, which we call an ambush call, and they can do it in any topic or product area. They’re not dependent on the message, just a belief in the potential value of the meeting for the person they’re talking with.
Live Calling Is The Best Way To Practice
Learning to cold call can be really challenging. Cold calling is associated with several issues. One of the problems is that until you can use your voice effectively under pressure, it can be problematic. People on the other end can detect insincerity and uncertainty in the same way that wolves can smell fear. Therefore, it’s essential to overcome this hurdle.
How can you do it? By practicing under pressure. Live calling is an excellent way to practice. It’s also important to keep the cycle time of practice in mind. Before you start dialing check out the five elements of an effective cold call.
Learn How to Make Effective Cold Calls In 4 Steps
The first stage is getting the opener right. This is where the seller needs to grab the prospect’s attention within the first few seconds of the call. Using a playful, curious tone encourages the prospect to want to hear more.
The second stage is getting the curiosity message out. This is where the seller needs to pique the prospect’s interest and make them curious about what the seller has to offer. Using a storytelling approach will help you to build a narrative that will engage the prospect and make them want to learn more.
The third stage is learning how to handle objections. As you well know, the best objection is the one you don’t get in the first place. Avoid objections by staying away from value-based statements that could make the prospect feel like they are not doing their job well. Instead, he suggests using a curiosity-based approach that focuses on the prospect’s needs and pain points.
The fourth stage is asking for the meeting and sticking to your guns. This is where the seller needs to be confident in the value of the meeting they are offering. They need to deeply believe that the meeting will provide potential value to the prospect, even if they never do business together. By sticking to their guns and asking for the meeting, the seller can build trust with the prospect and establish a relationship that could lead to future business opportunities.
This approach to cold calling focuses on building trust with the prospect and understanding their needs. By using a curiosity framework and deeply believing in the potential value of the meeting being offered, salespeople can master the art of cold calling and achieve great success in sales.
Curiosity Is One of the Keys to Mastering Sales and Cold Calling
Beall believes that all salespeople can master the art of cold calling and achieve great success in sales. Some people even say that you can make cold calling fun.
Mastering cold calling requires a well-thought-out approach that takes into account the prospect’s needs and unique challenges.
According to Chris Beall, the purpose of a cold call is to establish trust with the prospect. This can be achieved by using a curiosity framework to build a narrative that will engage the prospect and make them want to learn more.
Where I Agree With Chris, and Where Sales Gravy Comes at It Differently
Chris and I agree on the things that matter most. Confidence and building trust matter on cold calls. Your tone carries more information than your words. Confidence in the value of the meeting, and the willingness to insist on it, separates the pros from the pretenders. And to truly master cold calling you have to practice it on live calls under real pressure.
Here’s where we differ. Chris opens by naming the interruption and asking for seconds: “I know I’m an interruption. Can I take 27 seconds to tell you why I called?”
At Sales Gravy, we don’t ask permission and we don’t open on an apology, because in our experience both moves hand control to the reflex part of the prospect’s brain that wants any excuse to say no and you get hammered with objections.
We open with a because statement: who you are, why you’re calling, and one relevant reason to say yes to meeting with you, then a confident ask. Curiosity still does heavy lifting in our approach, it is how we build the relevant because statement.
It also shows up in the questions we ask on cold calls when our objective is qualifying and information gathering rather setting meetings. ; it just shows up in your tone and in [when questions belong on a cold call], not as the opener itself.
But as I always say during cold calling training, there are few black and whites or rights are wrongs in sales. Instead is about choosing methods that give you the highest probability of gaining your desired outcome. So pick the technique the works for you.
Want the exact words that turn an engaged prospect into a booked meeting? Download the free Cold Calling Guide and get 25 word-for-word ways to ask for the appointment.
Common Questions About Curiosity and Trust on Cold Calls
Instead of opening with a value pitch, you show genuine interest in the prospect’s world: their situation, their problems, their perspective. Curiosity lowers a prospect’s defenses because it makes the call about them, and it earns the trust required to ask for a meeting.
Chris Beall’s principle that you have roughly seven seconds at the top of a cold call to establish trust. In that window you demonstrate tactical empathy (you see the world through their eyes) and competence (you can solve a problem they have right now).
Chris Beall’s principle that you have roughly seven seconds at the top of a cold call to establish trust. In that window you demonstrate tactical empathy (you see the world through their eyes) and competence (you can solve a problem they have right now).
Beall’s term for a rep who has mastered a psychological script framework: a playful, confident tone, leading with curiosity instead of value, and insisting on the meeting, and who can execute it on any product or topic under live-call pressure.
Beall argues curiosity outperforms value because value pitches trigger resistance while curiosity invites engagement. Sales Gravy’s approach opens with a because statement, one relevant reason for the call, and lets curiosity drive your tone and your qualifying questions. Both beat pitching at a stranger.
Show them you understand their world before you ask for anything, keep your tone warm and confident rather than scripted, and prove competence by connecting your reason for calling to a problem they actually have. Trust on a cold call is earned in seconds, through empathy plus relevance.
The Cold Calling Edge™ training from Sales Gravy is used by millions of salespeople around the world. But to truly master cold calling you must pair training with lots of practice on live calls.
Related article: The Reasons Salespeople Fail at Cold Calling
