[Mike Halliday]

had a girl working for me for the last 2 weeks.

 she is sat in the office ringing companies just to find who to send information to about carpet cleaning.

  basically she say......

"Hi I'm Lucy from Henry halliday carpet cleaners, we have some £20 discount vouchers we are sending out to  hotels in the local area..... I'd like to send you one.... whose name shall I put of the envelope?"

then she fills out an envelope.

here's the strange thing.........

this week we changed what she said

"Hi Im lucy from henry halliday carpet cleaners I'd like to send you some information about carpet & upholstery cleaning... whose name shall i put on the envelope?"

this got double the amount of contact names!!! the offer of a £20 voucher  must have put people off

the biggest reason for not giving a name was 'we have our own cleaning staff'


I think people must be so cynical when they get a genuine offer they think its a con.

[wynne jones]

Think you are on to something there Mike.

If someone came up to you and said here's a tenner, take it, it's free. You wouldn't would you because no one does that unless they are wanting something in return.

One way round that is to give a plausible reason why. Here take this tenner, I've just won the lottery and I always said I would hand out some money on the street if I ever won. Would you take it then?

If you want to test scripts you need to alternate them as you go, otherwise other factors may influence results. You also need a biggish sample ie well over 100. Only change one phrase at a time, words like I'd and we are not interchangeable. 

[Peter Sweeney]

Why not drop the gimic and play on peoples (mostly) justified cynicism. The who you are, what you do, why you are ringing and whats in it for them intro is the most effective and that will never change. Keep it simple, most people trust simplicity.