He’s Been Compared to David Letterman

The Los Angeles Times calls Jerry Hocutt “the Zen master of cold calls.” But he prefers the Star-Ledger’s comparison of him to David Letterman. “Okay, so he’s not David Letterman.” Not as flattering, but funnier.

He got his first taste of cold calling at the age of 10 when he rode his bike through his Waco, Texas neighborhoods selling his homemade potholders door-to-door to sympathetic housewives. Two for a quarter. What a deal.

With success under the belt, Jerry quickly became his Boy Scout troop’s top down-the-street candy salesman at the age of 11. His cold calling and sales skills grew. Pushing his dad’s first power lawnmower (made from a washing machine motor) down the summer-hot Texas streets, and knocking on hundreds of strangers’ doors, he made a good living as a sixth grader mowing down lawns.

After graduating from the University of Texas at Arlington, and giving Uncle Sam four years of saluting in the Air Force, Jerry landed his first professional sales job in the school picture business in Dallas in 1973. He then moved to Seattle where he, at various times, sold Sony dictation equipment, Motorola 2-way radios, and Motorola pagers and cellular phones (when no one knew what a cell phone was back then). Go figure.

While at the then Fortune 1000 McCaw Communications Telepage Northwest, Jerry became their #1 salesman in the nation and salesman of the year – 3 times. And this was even after he told the sales manager on the first interview that “cold calling sucks!” He still got the job. Go figure, part deux.

In 1992, Jerry started his own national sales training business. “How did you get into the business?” seminar attendees ask at every program. He has two things to thank for his career change fifteen years ago. The first is his wife Linda. The second is because of the worst sales training experience of his life.

Getting home after five days of training Linda asked him why he was in such a sour mood. He blamed the poor sales training. Not more than thirty minutes into the first day, the instructor informed the salespeople that this was his first training assignment, he’d never sold anything in his life, but “This is what the book says about selling”.

His wife had no sympathy. “Look,” she said, “if you think you can do better, do your own sales training!” Over 150,000 students later Jerry is grateful to his wife. And to that lousy training.

All these years of cold calling and selling and teaching has led to his new book, Cold Calling for Cowards: How to Turn the Fear of Rejection into Opportunities, Sales, and Money. You saw that coming.

Jerry’s philosophy is that cold calling is nothing more than knocking on doors and starting relationships. He knows the truth. Opportunity does not knock. You knock. Opportunity answers.