Cold calling

I know what it's like to have someone call you out of the blue (the proverbial 'cold call') to sell you something, and you are real busy, or tired, or sick, or right in the middle of something, and you listen for a while and realize you can't even come up with a decent brush-off, and so you simply hang up.

Since taking over The Clarksville Times, I've made a lot of cold calls to build up the paper's business, and I've had great success. But the other day I called a business in Paris and after 15 seconds got hung up on.

Well, I thought, I've done it to other people a few times in my life, so I have no kick. All you can do is try.

And maybe wait a few weeks and call back again.