Cold-Call Tactical Guide

1 The stack in one look

Four surfaces. Each has one job. Everything else stays closed during the block.

The dial screen — queue left, words middle, one outcome click right:

The daily call sheet — the band strip at the top tells you the day's shape before you dial:

2 The daily block

The 19 Aug plan rules 100 calls a day inside a protected 8–12 block, 500 a week, counted on working days.

• 1Before the first dial: read the opener, the 30 seconds, and your three worst objections out loud. Ten minutes. Every day.
• 2Dial warmest first — the queue is already sorted that way. Do not reorder it.
• 3Protected block: no Slack, no inbox, no building. Dial screen and calendar only.
• 4After the block: send every demo and lead you promised, confirm bookings, run call_tracker.py, listen back to one call.

3 Work the queue in this order

The sheet ranks bands by value, never by age. Top band first, always.

• 1Replied to cold outreach — they answered you by email or text. Highest-value dials on the page.
• 2Fresh inbound — they applied through a funnel. Run the triage script, book the audit live.
• 3Booked-call prep — protect calls already on the board. Build the preview, confirm the time.
• 4No-shows and reschedules — recover them same-day.
• 5Aged follow-ups, then warm reactivation — volume after the high-value bands are clear.

4 The cold call — six steps

Full script with objection turns lives in the canonical script file; the dial screen shows it while you call. The spine:

• 1Permission: "It's Alex — can I grab thirty seconds, and you tell me if it's relevant?" Then stop talking. Eight seconds of silence is fine.
• 2Identity, one sentence, nothing added: "I run a local page that generates [niche] leads." Say estimates or inspections, never "leads," when you name the unit.
• 3Capacity question: "Can your crew take another ten to twenty estimates a week — or are you already full?" Write down crews, backlog, who runs the phones.
• 4The give: a live lead in their market if you have one, the free chatbot if you don't. "Can I text it to you?" — that yes is the whole call.
• 5The bridge, only if they lean in: book 30 minutes, two specific times, send the invite while still on the phone, confirm it landed.
• 6Exit clean whichever way it went, mark the outcome, next dial.

Voicemail every time, 20 seconds, number said twice.

The full script, with the objection turns and the do-not-say table:

5 Gatekeepers and call centers

You are giving, not asking — that is the only reason either of these gets through.

• Gatekeeper: "Hi — this is Alex. I've got a [niche] job in [city] I'm trying to hand to somebody. Is [first name] around for two minutes?"
• If they take a message: ask when he's usually off the truck, and call back then. Log the callback time as a follow-up in the dial screen.
• Call center or front desk (big outfits like Acculevel): never pitch the rep. "Who handles new lead partnerships on your side? I've got homeowner jobs in [market] to hand off and I want them going to the right person."
• The win at a call center is a name and a direct line or email — get it, log it, move on. Two minutes maximum.
• Never fake familiarity with the boss, never imply he asked you to call, never leave the pitch with the gatekeeper.

6 What you may claim

• Banned outright: fake-customer openers, "we were supposed to talk," implied referrals, borrowed logos, invented scarcity, any number without a row behind it. The only real scarcity is territory — one contractor per market.

7 Price rules

• On a cold call: no price. Not a number, not a range, not a percentage. If pushed: "I'd be guessing — that's what the thirty minutes is for."
• On an inbound triage call, answer only if asked, then move: "$8,000 all-in — three grand to build it, the other five only after your tenth signed contract. Ad spend's separate," then straight back to booking.
• On the discovery call, the offer of record (sales manual, 17 Aug, reconfirmed 19 Aug): $8,000 total — $3,000 build and launch, $5,000 due after the tenth signed contract is recorded. Ad spend separate. Miss the ten in 6 weeks after launch and the final $5,000 is simply never owed.
• No ladder under this offer. "$0 down" quoted from an ad = the 3-day trial, last resort, never volunteered.
• Never invent: a refund of the $3,000, ad spend inside the fee, week-seven or renewal terms. The signed agreement controls exact terms.

8 Rules that never bend

• You are Alex, never Akash, on every outbound call.
• 9 AM to 7 PM in their local time zone. Watch the West Coast rows in the morning.
• Two real attempts after an objection, then book, set a dated callback, or exit clean. Never argue with a no.
• No cold texts, ever. A text goes only after they replied, applied, or said yes on the phone — and every text carries STOP.
• STOP and DND are forever, on every channel. A DNC row on the sheet is display-only: do not dial it.

9 Scoreboard and kill rules

Read the funnel per stage in call_tracker.py — one blended rate hides the leak.

• 100 dials a day, 500 a week, on working days. The dial-screen header fills as you go.
• Connect rate under ~5%: stop and check list and number health before touching the script.
• Zero positive replies after 50 touches: change the opener or the list, not the volume.
• A cluster of STOPs or complaints: pause the channel and review the list source.
• The scoreboard number is booked calls, then signed contracts. "Send me info" is not a result.

10 When a call turns into a sales conversation

The cold-call tools stop at the booked meeting. From there, three discovery-call surfaces take over — all live on Sales HQ.

11 Every link

• This guide: stpierre-cold-call-tactical-docs.pages.dev — registered in the brain as cold-call-tactical.
• Dial screen: localhost:8787 (or --port 8788 if 8787 is busy) — start with python3.12 dial_screen.py in 01-Projects/St_Pierre_Digital/sales-engine/.
• Call sheet + canonical script: local files in the same sales-engine/ folder — call-sheet-today.html, canonical-cold-call-script-2026-08-18.html.
• Discovery stack: Sales HQ · Sales manual · Call cheatsheet — HQ also links the live prompter, script trainer, and war games.
• Booking link for the 30-minute call: calendly.com/stpierreai/demo — the dial screen's "Open the booking link" button points here. Never use the retired akash-stpierre/30min link.