Name yourself and your company, reference the specific application they submitted and roughly when, then ask one question and stop talking. The opening fails when it sounds like a cold call to someone who is not cold — a merchant who applied for funding this morning does not need to be sold on the idea of funding, and treating them as though they do is what triggers the brush-off.
On an exclusive, mobile-verified lead the merchant filled in an application and entered a code from their own phone, usually within the last few minutes. That is a warm inbound. The most common mistake on these calls is opening as though it is not.
| Opening | What the merchant hears |
|---|---|
| "How are you today?" | A call centre. Guard goes up. |
| "I am calling about business funding options" | A pitch to somebody who did not ask. |
| "Is now a good time?" | A free exit, which they will take. |
| "You applied for funding this morning — what is it for?" | Somebody handling the thing they just did. |
Called within five minutes, the reference to the application is a fact the merchant remembers and the call is a continuation of something they started. Called five hours later, the same sentence is an interruption, and by then three other brokers have usually been through them. The script does not fix the delay — it is the delay that decides which script you get to use.
This is the same finding as the fourteen-hour account: the sales problem and the speed problem are the same problem, and the opening line is where it becomes visible.
Name yourself and the company, reference the application they submitted and roughly when, then ask one open question about what the money is for and stop talking. Treat it as a continuation of something they started, because it is.
No. It offers a scripted exit to a merchant who has not yet heard anything worth staying for. If they are genuinely mid-something they will say so, and that produces a real callback rather than a polite escape.
Under fifteen seconds before your first question. The point of the opening is to earn the question, not to deliver information — everything you would put in a longer opening is better said after they have told you what they need.
Yes, as a reference point rather than as a quote. "You were looking at around fifty thousand" shows you have the file in front of you and invites a correction, which is useful — the number on the form is often not the number they actually want.
No. A good script on a five-hour-old lead loses to an average script on a five-minute-old one. Fix the timing first; the script only decides what happens once you are actually talking to somebody.
We will tell you straight up if we cannot help you. No commission deals, no free trials, no chasing you for three weeks.