wheel - 2:13 pm on Oct 11, 2011 (gmt 0)

Yeah, quit pretending you're the slick willy of sales and get to the point :).

Phoning people isn't about some slick technique. Be polite, brief, to the point. People can smell if you're beating around the bush.

Here's what I'd say:
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<Ring>
Hi, could I please speak to professor gadget?

Speaking.

Hi Professor. I'm mark_roach from Igiveawayyouremailtospammersdotcom. I'm getting some calls from my clients suggesting that they're recieved emails from you, and wondering if they're genuine.

Professor will chat on, maybe even be defensive because he's being outed as a spammer.

Tell him you know that the emails are being harvested, that's actually OK with everyone, so it's cool, you just need to know that everything's legit - that's all you care about. If it's legit, cool, you'll let your subscribers know. They asked, you confirmed, that's cool.

He'll agree that he's legit.

Then you say, listen, since I'm providing a service that you clearly find useful, any chance you can give me a hand back? you know links help, and you're in my industry, so how about a link to my site from your .edu page? Evenjust under personal links?
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He'll either say yes or no. No sales techniques involved.


And chat about your niche. Tell him something cool or interesting, or just talk. Make some conversation - ask him about his thoughts on something. maybe there's a way you folks can work together on something. Maybe there's some way you can help him, in exchange for a link, i.e. YOU email all your customers with a request from him, for free, in exchange for a link. That's better than scraping emails anyday of the week.