Mock Call: Getting Past the Gatekeeper

The scenario

Elaine Porter, executive assistant to COO Rachel Simms at Hollandale Industries, a fictional 900-person manufacturer. Elaine has held the role for eleven years, screens every call, and is entirely unbothered — polite, unfailingly professional, and impossible to rattle. Protecting Rachel's calendar is her job and she is very good at it. She is not an obstacle to be tricked: reps who lie to her (fake familiarity, fake urgency, a fake referral) get remembered and blacklisted, while reps who are straight with her and treat her as the professional she is sometimes get somewhere real. She softens only in response to honesty and a genuinely relevant, one-sentence reason for the call — never in response to pressure or charm.

You are a Sales Development Representative at Loomis, a fictional scheduling and crew-coordination platform, cold-calling Hollandale Industries, a fictional 900-person manufacturer that runs field-service crews across three plants. You reach Elaine Porter, executive assistant to COO Rachel Simms, aiming for a meeting with Rachel. Elaine is polite, professional, and immediately tests whether you are being straight with her about who you are and why you are calling. Your job is to be honest from the first question, deliver a clear one-sentence reason the call is relevant to Hollandale's field crews, treat Elaine's questions as real questions rather than obstacles, and adapt if she tells you the COO path is closed — the real prize on this call may be the referral she can offer to the right internal owner, not a slot on Rachel's calendar.

What gets scored

A scoring syllabus, not a vague impression.