"Hi, uh, is Richard... available? Oh, um, this is Stephanie calling from _____ bank. I just wanted to... you are? He is? Oh. Okay. Well have a good-"
Second try, a bit more professional.
"Hello, this is Stephanie calling from ______ Bank, Is-"
Try again.
"Hi, is this Deborah? Hi Deborah, this is Stephanie calling from the bank. ...______. ...Bank. Well we used to be ______________. Yeah, listen, Ijustwantedtofollowupwithyouinregardstothe$100offerwemailedoutlastweek. Yes ma'am, just one hundred. Oh, well I can understand that. Bye."
This has been my life at work over the last week. Calling customers that I have never met, offering them $100 to transfer their checking accounts to our bank, and accepting tired sighs and other expressions of frustration in return Cold calling is not my forte. I have never been a good salesman. I like people, I am good with people, but I am terrible at selling things to them that they don't need. I get a "no", I take it as a "no" and move on.
My current branch is located in Illinois' North Shore and it makes East Grand Rapids look more like the corner of Eastern and Franklin. Offering millionares $100 is like offering a decorative bottle of sand to a Saudi. A lowly banker from the "backwoods" of Michigan* is insignificant and a minor blemish on their otherwise pristine autumn day.**
The biggest culture shock in relocating to Chicago has not been busy streets, crowds, or the area's attachment to Vietnamese food, it has been interacting with a class of people that have spent their entire lives oblvious to a lower class of people. These are the people that throw the latest iphone in their 11 year old's hands, and ask if she can have a checking account. "She never likes what I pick out for her," a mother will tell me, casting a loving smile at the ugg-boot-wearing-versace-toting tween in her shadow.
*Grand Rapids is not backwoods. A lot of people I interact with assume if they haven't heard of it, it's backwoods.
**Last week I witnessed the street cleaning crew washing the leaves on the trees. Never mind homelessness, human trafficking, or the cholera epidemic in Haiti, our trees look dingy.