What is the permission-based cold call opener?
It is an opener that admits the call is cold and asks for a short window to explain why you called, leaving the prospect to decide what happens next. 30 Minutes to President's Club (30MPC), the sales media company founded by Armand Farrokh and Nick Cegelski, teaches a version it calls the Tailored Permission Opener and covers it in their book, Cold Calling Sucks (And That's Why It Works).
In a newsletter of 26 January 2024, Farrokh starts from the traditional version: acknowledge that the prospect didn't expect your call, ask for a minute, and offer to let them judge whether a chat is worth it. The weakness, in 30MPC's view, is that the prospect can't tell whether you are a telemarketer working through the phone book or someone making a professional cold call. The tailored version fixes that by saying why you called this person in particular.
30MPC's cold calling framework (19 July 2024) breaks it into three steps:
Lead with context
Open with something related to the problem you solve, such as a product launch, a funding round or a new office. You will tie your pitch back to it.
Own the cold call
Say plainly that you have interrupted their day or that this is clearly a cold call. 30MPC suggests a little humour to break the tension.
Get permission to pitch
Tell them how long you need and that what happens after 30 seconds is their call. The framework's argument is that giving the prospect a sense of control makes them listen.
The framework also warns that the untailored version has become popular, so prospects lump you in with everyone else who uses it.
What does Gong's 300M-call data say about openers?
The permission-based opener scored 11.18%, second of the four openers Gong compared. The figures come from a Gong blog post published on 24 July 2024 and last modified on 27 May 2026, in which Gong says it analysed more than 300 million cold calls. This is Gong's own data, and the post was written by Farrokh as part of a Gong Labs and 30MPC series for the book's release.
| Opener | How Gong's post words it | Gong's success rate |
|---|---|---|
| Bad-time opener | Did I catch you at a bad time? | 2.15% |
| Small-talk opener | How's your day going? | 7.6% |
| Permission-based opener | Could I get 30 seconds to tell you why I called? | 11.18% |
| Heard-the-name opener | Have you heard our name tossed around? | 11.24% |
Read the table with five limits in mind:
- Success isn't defined. Gong's post calls the figures success rates without saying what counts. 30MPC's guide to the same data (15 April 2026) describes them as the percentage of calls where the rep got past the opener into a real conversation.
- No period. Neither page says when the calls were made. The 30MPC guide says they were recorded on Gong's Revenue Intelligence Platform.
- No baseline figure. Gong says the bad-time opener's 2.15% is just slightly higher than the average baseline, without giving the baseline.
- Generic or tailored. The 11.18% is for the permission-based opener. The post then describes the tailored version as the way 30MPC personalises it, and reports no separate figure for that version.
- Not independent. Farrokh, a founder of the company that teaches these openers, wrote the post using Gong's data.
The heard-the-name opener edged ahead at 11.24%. It leads with a common thread, such as customers in the prospect's industry or a shared investor. 30MPC's January 2024 newsletter says there is always some connection you can find, even a small one, and suggests falling back to the permission-based opener when the prospect hasn't heard of you.
Why does owning the cold call work?
Gong's answer is honesty. The post says the permission-based opener "owns that you're making a cold call and disarms the prospect with brutal honesty." It reads the two weaker openers the other way round:
- Small talk sounds insincere. Gong argues that nearly every salesperson asks how the prospect's day is going, that the prospect knows you don't really care, and that the opener lumps you in with every other telemarketer.
- Asking if it's a bad time invites a yes. It's a cold call, so of course it's a bad time, the post says. Asking also lowers your status, and the prospect picked up, so it was a good enough time to answer.
30MPC adds what the prospect is trying to work out when an unknown number rings: who this is, why they are calling and how long it will take. Its January 2024 newsletter says both of its openers do one job, showing you aren't a random caller within the first seven seconds. In our reading, the tailored version answers all three questions at once: the context says why you called, owning the call says what this is, and the 30 seconds says how long.
How do you write your own tailored permission opener?
Write three short sentences, one for each step, and tie the context to the problem you solve. 30MPC's examples of context include a press release, job postings, blog posts and a podcast interview the founder appeared on. The openers below are our own examples, for a fictional founder selling rota software to restaurant groups:
| Context source | Example opener (ours) |
|---|---|
| Job posting | Hi Sam, I saw [Company] is hiring three site managers. I'll be upfront: this is a cold call. Could I take 30 seconds to explain why that made me ring you, and then you decide if it's worth a chat? |
| Announcement | Hi Sam, I read that [Company] opens its seventh site in March. This is a cold call and I know I'm interrupting your afternoon. Can I have 30 seconds on why that made me call, and you tell me whether to keep going? |
| Podcast | Hi Sam, I listened to your episode of [show] on weekend staffing. Full disclosure, I'm cold calling you. Give me 30 seconds on why that episode made me pick up the phone, then it's your call whether we carry on? |
After the yes, 30MPC's framework moves to what it calls a problem proposition: describe the problem in specific, triggering detail, offer a one-sentence solution, then check their interest before asking for a meeting, because a meeting feels like a heavy ask. Prepare for pushback too. The framework says most objections are reactions to the interruption, not to your product, so agree with the objection first, get them talking, then sell the test drive: a reason to take a look even if they don't buy.
How do you track which cold call opener works?
Log every answered call on one sheet and compare openers only after each has been used 50 times. 30MPC's January 2024 newsletter ends its opener advice with: "run it 50 times, and don't change it until you've got real data."
Fifty uses means fifty answered calls, which takes a lot of dialling. 30MPC's guide to Gong's data puts an average rep at 5.4 answers per 100 dials and a top rep at 13.3. At those rates, 50 answered calls take about 926 dials (50 ÷ 0.054) or about 376 dials (50 ÷ 0.133). Here is our own tally sheet to copy; the first two rows are examples, not results:
| Call | Opener | Context used | Got past the opener? | Objection heard | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 (example) | A: tailored permission | Hiring three site managers | Yes | We use a spreadsheet | Meeting booked |
| 2 (example) | B: your current opener | Seventh site opening | No | Not interested | Call ended |
| 3 to 100 | Alternate A and B | One line per call | Yes or no | In their words | Meeting, follow-up or ended |
| Totals | A and B separately | Count of yes, divided by 50 | Most common three | Meetings per 50 answered calls |
Your past-the-opener rate is your own measure. It resembles the definition in 30MPC's guide, but you can't be sure it matches how Gong counted, so compare your two openers with each other and treat Gong's 11.18% as a rough marker only.
A one-week cold call opener test for founders
Run the test in short daily blocks over a week, and keep calling until each opener reaches 50 answered calls. The schedule is ours; the numbers come from the sources above.
Monday: write both openers
Opener A is your tailored permission opener in three sentences. Opener B is whatever you say now. Read both aloud until they sound like you.
Monday: find a context line per prospect
One line each: a job post, an announcement, a post or a podcast. Siela doesn't make calls. Its AI SDR works on LinkedIn, X and email and saves each lead to the CRM with the reason it was picked, and that reason gives you a line to start from.
Tuesday to Thursday: dial in blocks
Alternate A and B on every answered call and fill in one row per call straight away. We suggest short daily blocks over one long session that keeps getting postponed.
Book on the call
When someone agrees to meet, send a link from a booking page that checks every connected calendar and sends reminders, before you hang up.
Friday: count, then keep going
Total each opener's past-the-opener rate and meetings. Don't switch openers until both reach 50 answered calls. For how calls fit beside email and LinkedIn, see our guides to founder-led sales and multichannel outreach.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best cold call opener according to Gong?
In Gong's analysis of more than 300 million cold calls, published in July 2024, the heard-the-name opener scored highest at 11.24%, just ahead of the permission-based opener at 11.18%. Asking how the prospect's day is going scored 7.6%, and asking whether it's a bad time scored 2.15%. Gong's post doesn't define success rate or say when the calls were made.
Is it a mistake to ask if you caught someone at a bad time?
Gong's data says it is the weakest of the four openers it compared, with a 2.15% success rate, which Gong describes as just slightly higher than the average baseline. Gong's explanation is that a cold call is always a bad time, so the question invites the prospect to agree, and asking it lowers your status in the prospect's eyes.
How long should you ask for at the start of a cold call?
30 seconds, in 30 Minutes to President's Club's version of the permission opener. Its framework says to tell the prospect how long you need and that what happens after 30 seconds is their call. Gong's post words the permission-based opener as asking for 30 seconds to tell the prospect why you called.
How many calls do you need to test a cold call opener?
30 Minutes to President's Club suggests running an opener 50 times before changing it, which means 50 answered calls. Using the connect rates in 30MPC's guide to Gong's data, 5.4 answers per 100 dials for an average rep and 13.3 for a top rep, that is roughly 926 or 376 dials per opener.
What does success rate mean in Gong's cold call opener data?
Gong's July 2024 post doesn't define it. A 30 Minutes to President's Club guide to the same Gong data, published in April 2026, describes the percentages as the share of calls where the rep got past the opener into a real conversation. Neither page says when the calls were made, so use the rates to compare openers, not as a target.
Sources
- Gong: The best and worst cold call openers (backed by data from 300M calls) (published 24 Jul 2024, last modified 27 May 2026)
- 30MPC: Two Effective Ways To Open Your Cold Calls (Armand Farrokh) (published 26 Jan 2024)
- 30MPC: The Ultimate 30MPC Cold Calling Framework (Armand Farrokh) (published 19 Jul 2024)
- 30MPC: How to Master Cold Calls, data from 300M+ calls (published 15 Apr 2026)
- 30MPC: Cold Calling Sucks (And That's Why It Works), book page (checked 20 Oct 2026)