I'm somewhere in the middle on my opinions/approach between the rest of you. Did telemarketing back in the day and assume anyone that isn't clearly not the person I'm asking for (55 year old guy, person on the phone sounds like a 19 year old girl, or somewhere that definitely has a gatekeeper) that it's the person I'm looking for on the phone. The best is "Who's calling?" Me, calling you.

Loan officer - I agree that sounds suspect. I don't think many in the business lending space use that terminology anymore - even when I worked at the bank I'd use business banker or something that people could clearly grasp onto conceptually. I know some places still use "loan officer" but I think most have transitioned over to stupidly ambiguous titles like "Vice President, Regional Commercial Relationship Client Success Representative Manager, Utah Mormon Region." In banking anyway.

Bulldozing people by not acknowledging who you are/where you're from/why you're calling - did that telemarketing when it was a pure battle. For those of you who do this, do you have success? Not really my vibe. Seems like a recipe to not get any follow through from the client when it comes down to applying. Only way I could see this working in this space is if your pitch so outstanding that bulldozing straight to the irresistible point may work, like if you were PSFing some 2% government loan program.

Open ended questions all the way, agreed.

My spot is in that short space in between first few lines, their first response, and rebuttal/"keep the conversation going" response.

Probing questions beyond that, not so big of a deal. For me, anyway.