Government / Public Sector · Cold Call
Government / Public Sector Cold Call Script: Getting a Council Officer to Book 20 Minutes
The person you're about to ring has a councillor request sitting on their desk with a due date, a Freedom of Information matter at day 17 of 20, and a briefing note for Thursday's Ordinary Meeting that isn't written yet. They did not wake up hoping a vendor would call. If you open with your funding round or the words "innovative platform for the public sector," you will be off the phone before you finish the sentence — politely, because they're polite, but permanently.
What gets you thirty more seconds in local government is naming something that is true about their week. Not "digital transformation." The general enquiries mailbox nobody owns. The two rating systems left over from amalgamation where the same ratepayer exists four times. The residents' action group whose third RTI request this quarter has swallowed a 1.5 FTE records team. When a Director of Corporate Services or a Records & Information Manager hears their actual Tuesday described back to them by a stranger, the reflex brush-off stalls just long enough for you to ask for a calendar hold.
This script assumes you know two things before you dial: roughly where the council sits in its budget cycle (bids drafted February–March, adopted in June, money from 1 July), and whether they're anywhere near a caretaker period. Get those wrong and you will spend a quarter demoing to someone with no money and no path to money. Get them right and even a "no" gives you a dated reason to call back.
The cold call script
Say it in your own words. The structure is the part that matters.
- 1
Before you dial — the 90 seconds that decide the call
Answer these out loud before the phone rings: **Who am I calling?** Exact title. "Director of Corporate Services, in seat since the 2021 amalgamation" is a different call from "Manager, Customer Experience, started nine weeks ago." The Records & Information Manager cares about the statutory clock. The CIO cares about what sits on top of two rating systems. The Director of Corporate Services cares about what the Mayor asks them on Thursday. **What's my trigger?** Recent amalgamation. A new Customer Experience Manager role advertised on their careers page. An Ombudsman finding named in their annual report. An adopted Customer Service Charter with response targets they're plainly not hitting. Councillor requests mentioned in the last three sets of minutes. If there's no trigger, the segment is the trigger: "every post-amalgamation council we work with has the same two-rating-systems problem." **One problem, written down.** Not three. For Corporate Services it's usually councillor requests with no status. For Records it's the statutory determination rate. Pick one. **The ask:** twenty minutes, two named slots, and say what it isn't. **Have the follow-up email drafted before you dial.** Subject line ready, sent while they're still on the line.
- 2
The opener (0–8 seconds)
"Morning Janelle — it's Tom at Kerbside. We haven't spoken, this is a cold call. Can I have thirty seconds to tell you why I rang, and you can tell me to get lost?" Then **stop**. Two full seconds. Do not fill it. Naming it as a cold call kills the "who is this and how do they have my direct line" loop, which in council is a real loop — half their inbound is a ratepayer who's been transferred four times and is now furious. **Tonality:** slower than feels natural, downward inflection on "thirty seconds." Council officers are used to being sold at by resellers with a script; the single fastest way to sound different is to sound unhurried. **Variants:** - Pattern interrupt: "Janelle — Tom, Kerbside. You don't know me. Bad time?" - Trigger-led: "Janelle, Tom from Kerbside. You've got a Customer Experience Manager role advertised — that's actually why I rang. Got a minute?" **Never say:** "How are you today?", "Did I catch you at a bad time?", "I just wanted to introduce our platform to Council."
- 3
The reason — problem, not product (8–45 seconds)
Two sentences. Who else, what they're dealing with, the specific consequence, then the check-in question that gives them an honest out. **For a Director of Corporate Services or GM/COO:** "We work with about a dozen regional councils, most of them post-amalgamation. The thing that keeps coming up is councillor requests — a ratepayer's been waiting six weeks on a tree or a dumped mattress, they give up on the depot and email the Mayor, and now Corporate Services is ringing the works crew for a status that doesn't exist in any system. So the number that hurts isn't the pothole, it's that you can't tell the Mayor what's happening with it before the next Ordinary Meeting. Is that anywhere near your world, or have you got that nailed?" **For a Records & Information Manager / FOI-RTI Coordinator:** "I work with records teams in councils your size. The pattern is one determined applicant — a journalist or a residents' group — putting in three requests, and suddenly your determination rate inside the statutory twenty days is the thing you're explaining in the annual report, with an Information Commissioner review attached. Is that a live problem or is your on-time rate holding up?" **For a CIO or ICT Procurement & Contracts Manager:** "Every council we've onboarded since amalgamation is running two property and rating systems and an asset platform nobody's been trained on since the vendor got acquired, and the person who understood the integration went in the last VR round. So the question isn't features, it's whether anything new can sit on top of that without a data cleanse first. Is that the shape of it there?" No product name yet. None.
- 4
Two questions maximum — then close
You are not running discovery. You're getting just enough to make the meeting relevant. Narrow and factual only: - "How are you tracking overdue requests today — is that a system or is it a spreadsheet in the depot?" - "Roughly how many requests are open and past service level right now? Ballpark." - "What's your on-time FOI determination rate sitting at this year — is it the number you'd want published?" - "Is that on someone's work plan this year, or is it just being lived with?" - "Are you inside a budget bid window, or is that February?" **Bad questions for a cold call:** "Walk me through your current process," "What are Council's strategic priorities?", "Who's the decision maker?" You haven't earned any of those, and asking about the decision maker in local government signals you don't understand delegations. **Listen for the admission.** "Yeah, it's a mess." "We've had two Ombudsman matters." "Honestly the spreadsheet is the system." The moment you hear it, stop asking and start closing.
- 5
The ask
"Here's what I'd suggest. Twenty minutes, not a demo — no deck. I'll walk you through what two other post-amalgamation councils did about overdue requests by ward, and what it cost them in officer time to get there. If it's not relevant you tell me on the call and I'll leave you alone. I've got Thursday at 8:15 before your day starts, or Friday after 2. Which is less bad?" Then: "Sending the invite now — can you tell me it's landed before I let you go?" **Elements that matter:** name the length (twenty beats thirty), say what it isn't, offer two slots not an open calendar, state the exit, and get the invite out while they're still on the phone. And ask who else should be in it — in council the answer is almost always a records officer or the customer service team leader, and having them in the first meeting saves a month.
- 6
Gatekeeper / switchboard
Council switchboards are staffed by the same customer service team that takes the pothole calls. They are experienced, and they will transfer you to the general enquiries mailbox if you're vague or cute. "Hi — I'm after Janelle Reeves, Director of Corporate Services. It's Tom Baird at Kerbside, she won't know me. It's about how councillor requests get tracked between Corporate Services and the depot." If pushed: "It's a vendor call, I'm not going to pretend otherwise. If she's not the right person I'd rather find that out than fill up the enquiries mailbox." Honesty gets transferred surprisingly often. Do not say "it's regarding a matter Council is aware of" or claim a prior relationship. If there's a live tender and a probity advisor engaged, that kind of line is how a vendor gets ruled non-compliant.
- 7
Voicemail — under 20 seconds, no ask
"Janelle, Tom Baird at Kerbside — you don't know me. Calling about councillor requests and overdue service requests by ward; it's the thing we hear most from post-amalgamation councils your size. I'll try you again Thursday morning. 02 5550 4418." The voicemail's job is name recognition for the next attempt and the email that follows. No pitch, no calendar link, no "looking forward to connecting."
- 8
The soft no and the recycle
If they won't book, you're now after one dated reason to call back and one piece of intelligence. "No problem. Last thing and I'll let you go — is this a timing thing or a not-a-priority thing? … Right. When do budget bids need to be with the Executive — February? … And who owns the request-management piece, is that you or does it sit with the Customer Experience Manager? … Good. I'll come back to you first week of December so you've got runway before the bid's drafted. I'll send one email so you've got my name." **A cold call that produces "call me in December, bids due February, Priya owns requests" is a good call.** A cold call that produces "send me some information" and nothing else is a polite hang-up you've logged as a win.
- 9
Immediately after
Within five minutes: send the email, subject line "Our call just now — councillor requests and overdue by ward." Three sentences, one attachment maximum. Do not send the generic capability statement. Log their exact words. "The depot spreadsheet," "we're at day 17 on two of them," "the Mayor's office chases us" — those phrases go straight into the discovery call and the eventual business case. Log the disposition honestly: "booked Thu 8:15, records manager joining" or "callback 1 Dec, bids due Feb, caretaker until Sept." Not "interested."
How the call actually sounds
Prospect on the left, the rep on the right.
Rep
Morning Janelle — Tom Baird at Kerbside. We haven't spoken, this is a cold call. Can I have thirty seconds to tell you why I rang, and then you can tell me to get lost?
Buyer
I've got about that. I'm walking into a briefing.
Rep
Then I'll be quick and you can hang up on me. We work with regional councils, mostly post-amalgamation ones. The thing that keeps coming up with Directors of Corporate Services is councillor requests — a ratepayer's been waiting six weeks on an overhanging tree, gives up on the depot, emails the Mayor and their ward councillor instead. Now it's a councillor request with a due date and someone in your team is ringing the works crew for a status that doesn't exist in any system. Is that anywhere near your world, or have you got it sorted?
Buyer
Look — that's not inaccurate. But I'll stop you there. We're in caretaker from next month. Nothing is getting decided, and frankly I shouldn't be having vendor conversations at all right now.
Rep
Agreed on the decision — no council should be signing anything in caretaker and I'm not going to ask you to. Can I check one thing though: is there a live tender in market that I'd be cutting across? Because if there's a probity advisor engaged I'll get off the phone right now.
Buyer
No, there's no RFT. There's nothing, that's rather the point. We haven't got as far as a spec.
Rep
That's actually why caretaker is useful. It's the only window where your team has capacity for the unglamorous work — mapping how a request gets from the counter to the depot, counting how many are open and past service level by ward, and drafting the functional spec. If that's done, you're ready the week the new Council is sworn in instead of starting from a blank page in October.
Buyer
And I suppose you'd write the spec for us. I've been in local government twenty-two years, Tom. I know how that ends — a specification only your product can meet, and then an evaluation panel and a probity advisor who'll pull it apart in about four minutes.
Rep
Fair, and you're right to say it out loud. What I'd give you is the functional requirements, the records-compliance clauses — retention and sentencing, disposal, export on exit — and the evaluation criteria we'd expect to be scored against. You'd take it, strip our name out and add whatever else you want. If a competitor writes a better spec than we do we deserve to lose it. My interest is that when it does go to market you're comparing apples to apples, because the alternative is you get four responses that aren't comparable and the whole thing defers a year.
Buyer
Even if I liked all that — there's no money. Operational's committed. Anything new is a bid drafted in February and adopted with the annual plan in June, and we just deferred the pool upgrade, so a councillor is going to ask me why a software system beat the pool.
Rep
Then the bid has to survive that exact question, and you can't build it in February from nothing. What number would make it survivable — is it overdue requests by ward, or is it FOI? Because the councils that get these funded usually lead with the statutory determination rate. If you're not determining inside twenty business days and that's published, that's an Information Commissioner review risk, not an efficiency argument.
Buyer
It's both, honestly. We had two Information Commissioner reviews last year and our on-time rate isn't something I'd want on the front page. But the request backlog is what generates the mayoral referrals.
Rep
That's the admission I needed. Twenty minutes, not a demo, no deck — I'll bring what two post-amalgamation councils reported as their overdue-by-ward count before and after, and what officer hours went into their FOI processing. You tell me whether the numbers are the ones your Executive would accept in a bid. Thursday at 8:15 before your day starts, or Friday after 2?
Buyer
Thursday. But I want our Records and Information Manager on it, because she'll be the one who tells you it won't work with what we've got. We're still running two rating systems from the merger.
Rep
Bring her — she's the person I actually want in the room, and two rating systems is the normal starting point rather than the exception. Sending the invite now, Thursday 8:15, twenty minutes, and I'll title it so it's clear it's not a procurement conversation. Can you tell me it's landed before I let you go?
Buyer
It's here. And Tom — if you send me a capability statement between now and Thursday I'll cancel it.
Rep
Noted. You'll get three sentences confirming what I'm bringing and nothing else. Enjoy the briefing.
Objections you will hear
What they say, and what you say back.
| Objection | How to answer it |
|---|---|
| “We can't just buy this. Anything over our procurement threshold has to go to public tender.” | "Understood, and I'd be worried if you told me otherwise. Two quick questions: what's the threshold, and is there an existing panel or whole-of-government arrangement we could be listed under? If neither, the useful work right now isn't a proposal — it's helping you build a defensible spec and business case so that when it does go to market you're comparing apples to apples. I'll give you the functional requirements, the records-compliance clauses and the evaluation criteria we'd expect to be scored against. If a competitor writes a better spec than we do, we deserve to lose it. Separately — is there a below-threshold pilot in one service area so you're testing rather than guessing before the RFT is written?" |
| “Data sovereignty is non-negotiable. It has to be hosted onshore.” | "All data sits in onshore regions, no offshore replication, no offshore support access — I'll send the hosting attestation and our assessment report before we go any further. Who's your assessor? Does this clear an internal security review, or does your ICT strategy require a formal certification level? I'd rather have that person in the conversation in week one than have them kill it at evaluation. And separately from hosting: retention and sentencing, disposal authority and export on exit are where councils actually get burned, so I'll show you how records are captured, sentenced and handed back if you ever terminate." |
| “There's no money this financial year. It'd have to be a budget bid.” | "That's fine — it's the conversation I want. When do bids need to be with the Executive, February? Then we've got eight weeks to build the numbers with you rather than for you. What I need from you is the current cost: FTE hours on FOI processing, overdue request volumes by category, what last year's Ombudsman matters cost in officer time. If we can't build a bid that survives a hostile question from a councillor who just deferred the pool, it shouldn't get funded. What format does your Executive expect, and whose bid are we competing against internally?" |
| “Which councils our size are live on this? I want to speak to them.” | "Fair, and I'd ask the same. Three references — one post-amalgamation authority with a similar headcount, one in your state so the FOI legislation matches, and one that went to open tender so they can tell you what the process was actually like. Talk to their Records & Information Manager, not just the CIO, because the records manager will tell you what went wrong. Do you want a site visit? Most of our best decisions came from an officer spending a morning watching another council's contact centre." |
| “We've got two rating systems and an asset platform from before the amalgamation. Nothing integrates with anything.” | "That's the normal starting point, not the exception. We don't require you to consolidate first — we sit above and pull identity and property data by API or scheduled file, and we handle duplicate address records rather than assuming they've been cleansed. But I won't promise integration I haven't scoped. Can I get your CIO or the systems owner for 45 minutes to look at what's actually there? If one of those systems can't be integrated safely I'd rather tell you now and phase it than find out in implementation and blow the go-live." |
| “We're heading into caretaker. Nothing's getting decided.” | "Agreed, and no decision should be made in caretaker. But caretaker is when your team has the most capacity for the unglamorous work — mapping the current request workflow, quantifying FOI hours, drafting the spec. Do that now and you're ready the week the new Council is sworn in instead of starting from a blank page. Who's likely to be the sponsor on the other side, and does the executive structure survive the election?" |
| “My staff are already stretched, and the union will have a view about workload.” | "Then the implementation plan has to be honest about who does what and when. Realistically it's about a day a week from a records officer and a customer service team leader for eight weeks — that's it, and if you can't commit that we should delay rather than fail. On the workload point: bring the union in early and be straight that this changes how requests are logged, not headcount. The councils that hid that had a rough time. What's your consultation obligation for a system change like this?" |
| “Just send me some information.” | "Happy to, but if I send the generic capability statement you'll bin it and we'll both have wasted the effort. Give me two things — roughly how many service requests are open and past service level, and whether request management is on this year's work plan — and I'll send you something that's actually about your council. If it's still not useful, tell me and I'll stop." |
Questions reps ask about this call
- Is cold calling a council officer even allowed if they might go to tender later?
Yes, until a procurement process formally opens. Once an RFT, RFQ or EOI is in market and a probity advisor is engaged, all contact must go through the nominated procurement contact — approaching the sponsor directly at that point can get your response ruled non-compliant. So make it your second or third question on any cold call: "Is there anything live in market that I'd be cutting across?" Asking it unprompted signals you understand probity, which does more for your credibility than anything in your pitch.
- Who should I actually cold call first at a council?
It depends on the problem you lead with. If your angle is service-request backlogs and councillor referrals, start with the Director of Corporate Services or the Manager, Customer Experience. If it's statutory turnaround on FOI, GIPA or RTI, the Records & Information Manager or FOI Coordinator feels the pain first and daily. The CIO owns whether anything can integrate with two rating systems and an orphaned asset platform, but rarely owns the pain — call them second, not first. Avoid calling the General Manager or COO cold as your opening move; they'll delegate it straight back down and you'll have burned your one call.
- When in the budget cycle should I be cold calling?
The best window is roughly October to January, because budget bids are drafted around February–March, argued at the workshop, adopted with the annual plan in June and funded from 1 July. Calling in April with a proposal means you are eleven months early, not three. That said, don't stop calling outside the window — the goal for an out-of-cycle call is a dated callback tied to the bid deadline, plus knowing who owns the bid. "Call me in December, bids due to the Executive in February" is a successful cold call outcome.
- What do I say when they tell me they're in caretaker period?
Accept it completely and immediately — arguing makes you look like you don't understand local government. Then reframe: caretaker is the one period where officers have capacity for preparatory work that doesn't require a Council resolution. Mapping the current request workflow, counting overdue requests by ward, quantifying officer hours spent on FOI processing, drafting a functional specification. Book a twenty-minute working session, not a decision meeting, and ask who's likely to be the sponsor after the election and whether the executive structure survives it.
- They asked for a reference from a council our size in our state on the first call. What do I do?
Give it, and give three rather than one: a post-amalgamation council with a similar staff headcount, one in the same state so the FOI or RTI legislation matches, and one that ran a full open tender so they can describe the process honestly. Then push the reference conversation down a level — suggest they speak to that council's Records & Information Manager or customer service team leader rather than only the CIO, because operational staff will tell them what went wrong. Offering a site visit at the cold-call stage is unusual enough that it often converts the meeting on its own.
- How do I quantify the problem on a cold call without inventing numbers?
Use the metrics the council already reports on itself and ask them for the figures rather than asserting any. The ones that land: percentage of FOI/RTI requests determined inside the statutory 20 or 30 business days, count of open service requests overdue against service level by category and by ward, average days to close by request type, number of Ombudsman or Information Commissioner reviews and adverse findings last year, contact centre abandonment rate, and the community satisfaction score for "ease of contacting council." Ask which of those they'd be uncomfortable seeing published — that question alone usually produces the admission you need to close for the meeting.