" Hi! This is Kate from the University of Missouri calling..."

So, I have just started this "awesome" (but not really) job with the Mizzou Alumni Association. Basically I call Mizzou Alumni and beg them for donations (yeah, I'm one of "those" , don't judge). And though sometimes the job can be quite boring and/or degrading, I do find myself using quite a bit of rhetoric when conversing with the Alumni ( that is when they actually pick up!). They (meaning "the man") provides us with a script to follow when taking to the Alum. It's supposed to have the power to convince the "unassuming" Alumni into giving me their money. In my training packet it's called "building an argument" and I am currently debating whether it can really work over the phone (or at all). It says that by introducing myself as a current Mizzou student and by using my first name, right then and there the caller and I make a bond "that cannot be broken" haha. Then, after the first mini bond I'm supposed to build rapport by talking about other things that might interest them thus convincing them they can "trust" me. Sometimes I think it works, but I also think a lot of it depends on if the people I am talking to are empathic or spawns of satan. When I talk to a lot of the Alum I do like to hear about what they have done with their lives and what they plan on doing in the future. But usually these "deep" conversations are ironically had by people who cannot give any money. And more times than none I get hung up on rather than talked to , so who knows if this "building an argument" stuff really is effective in the telemarketer world as my boss claims it to be. However, whether it works or not, I still have the joy applying rhetoric to my everyday life ( that is once again if the people I call ever pick up the phone!) .