Anyone have any luck approaching business owners via fax? I'm getting started with offline clients and am thinking about using this to supplement my mailing since I'm just starting and very low on funds.

If so, does anyone have any recommendations on fax services? I won't use faxzero again, I used them for over a year in the past and they were absolutely horrible in the end when I needed to close my account.

Thanks!

I've had people fax me and my previous employer many times. It just gets thrown out, pick up a phone give them a call - or try apply [7878]'s letter method.

fax is dead

If you want a fax to work make it look as if it was sent to the wrong person
and you are in the middle of an exclusive too hard to resist business relationship.
Anyone with the slightest curiosity would want to know more.

I think cold faxing is not a great idea. Better go for cold calling then faxing.

I appreciate the feedback guys

You can't fax in the US unless you have permission. You can get into trouble with the FCC

Code:

http://www.uschamber.com/issues/technology/fcc-proposed-commercial-fax-rules

Thanks, that's good to know. I'm not mass faxing or anything-- I do a lot of research to find clients and my faxes are very custom and personal to their business so I'd think they'd be interested and not look at it as a run of the mill advertisement, per se, but it's still good to know.

I totally respect Ox's answer- that is outside of the box-----so do this if you are going to.......

that said,

As a business owner of a small business, I have to say it ticks me off and you would not get the time of day from me.....

cold call = picking up the phone..

You are all wrong. Fax is alive. You just have to be selling the right product. aaaaaaaaand that's all I'm going to say about that.

how is everyone wrong???? Ox gave a good tip

and I shared a honest opinion...

The problem with cold faxing is that unless they're digital, it costs the owner paper and ink every time. And that P's people off. You'll get a LOT of complaints.

It can work but if done on a mass scale (thousands and thousands), cheapest I found is aroud 0.10 $ a page which is a bunch.

I'm doing something with fax right now, but I have barely covered my costs. Unless I can find a much cheaper alternative, I don't think I will continue doing this.

Then again,I don't take the time to really research each of the company so YMMV.

Anyone who has done cold faxing, what's the response rate for an advertisement type fax or "accidental" fax?

I've prepared a 1 page letter and included the following features:
Professional look
Simple NLP
Call to action
Bluntly hinted at a benefit (screenshot)
Written to look as a follow up to an existing client

Did I miss anything, without making it look like an advertisement?

I'll follow up with my results and possibly a method thread if it goes well.

I had this "company" faxing my office repeatedly trying to sell me something and my response was to return a 5 page fax of black paper to them! Soooo long toner!

The guy from the company called the very next day asking WTF and I said I have been having some issues with my darn fax machine...sorry! Never received any more faxes from them after that.

even better next time that happens tape the end of the black paper so it runs in circles ha ha for sure it will kill the towner
also does anyone even use faxes in the US
Regards
Suave

So...
Sent out 200
~15 were not actual fax numbers
~20 did not go through
~150 actually delivered

Results:
1 Person called telling me I got the wrong fax number - he was not pleased
2 Faxed back with a message saying wrong place

Did the accidental faxing method.

By which method did you send them out bro? I assume by the low numbers it was by hand?

Originally Posted by Nick1

By which method did you send them out bro? I assume by the low numbers it was by hand?

That's all I could scrape from my city that had potential.

Thanks Imperial, gave rep. I faxed about ten really personal, targeted intros to businesses 3 days ago with no result yet.

Unfortunately, this does not look like a very viable method—given that our tests are way under conducted. Direct advertising is pretty much illegal, even though I doubt 1 fax/business will get you in trouble. On the other side, I'm not sure where to look to create an "accidental fax" which is disguised as a sales letter...although, you could address the letter to someone else and act as if they requested it, but the owner would think we're idiots and cant type in the correct fax number. This is definitely something to revisit when more funds are available; unless someone want's to do a study.

The only reason I really tried this was because of the 99% of things you read online is BS, and just thought why not test it myself. Not really that, but partial information. Most of the time methods are revealed with the basics and/or some parts missing. I'm not bashing anyone, on the contrary props on the Public Relations without saturating your own method. Whatever, moving on... /rant

I think cold calling is the best method at this point. You have direct insight into how the customer acts when you give them a piece of information. Like a thread on here mentioned, being scared shitless is the feeling I get when trying to sell someone something using myself as the medium of information. But, like sex, it's just awful at first. Let's face it though, all of the other methods are the same, but with less feedback. So that's my whole sales newbie philosophy.

Just pick up the phone. If you are not ready to pitch, then just use it to get fax permission. I am sure you can throw together a short script that "verifies" their fax number for "the principal" to pitch to gate keepers that gets you the FTC compliance you need to send them via the digits. If you play your cards right, you can build a large list this way and then send them out in mass at a later time. Then just send out invoices, cover sheet, and benefits listing with contact information.


You may not get many invoices sent back, but then you can follow up "on your invoice" by phone. Easier to get to the principal and pitch at that point.

Probably not what you wanted to hear, but you might be better of with email if you wish no direct contact, as the response rate will be about the same if not worse (as email doesn't use up their toner and cost them money to receive [we wont get into server resources here])

We just throw the faxes away at my job. I don't think its worth it.

where did I park the DeLorean?
oops wrong year, sorry.

naah just kidding. We used to send out faxes long ago but gave up due to environmental, legal, cost per acquisition and other concerns.

Fax spam has gone down and fax is still used by real actual businesses. You should be creative and make it sound nothing like a sales pitch. Make it look accidental and use terms your target audience will understand.
good luck

Originally Posted by Design Superstars

I wonder if you could setup autofaxing with twilio or another voip infrastructure provider

They call it T.38 protocol. I have yet to play with it, but if you do, please do share.

UPDATE: Good news: I just got a callback from a pretty bigass company owner as a result of a fax, and boy does he sound shook up, lol. I was busy as fuck yesterday and couldn't get back to him so had to call him this morning, he's not in atm, left msg with receptionist.

Bad news: I sent him a packet yesterday too, lol. I guess if he says no, then the packet will remind him of how bad his company is looking online haha.

End point: I'm at 1:10 on fax. Not too bad.

What approach did you use? Direct sales letter?

7878 method, pretty much faxed a picture of their reviews, circled the bad stuff in red with ms paint, wrote this is what your potential customers are seeing, put my contact info

O_O Brilliant. Great twist.

I'm going to steal it (and modify it) and so are 100 other people on this forum lol

Now wrap it up in a WS0 and sell it for 17$

HAHAH, yeah but it's all good, I can't fax the world and it's good to share a little bit of what works sometimes anyway, that's kinda the spirit of 7878's thing. I used a free fax service too. Just an idea that may work (albeit a little risky) for those out there broke as me. I also didn't have any hosting when I started and did fiverr gigs to get money for hosting so I started with seriously $0. If I can make a sale I'll make a journey thread I'm in ongoing talks with 3 leads from this method now...

Double update: He called back, I've got a meeting with the owner next week, get this, he said he couldn't get Groupon to accept him for a while due to the amount of negative reviews his biz had online, he's DESPERATE for a solution and knows he needs one. He actually said "if only there was a way to get the good reviews out there", man I can't wait...

Originally Posted by imperial109

O_O Brilliant. Great twist.

I'm going to steal it (and modify it) and so are 100 other people on this forum lol

Now wrap it up in a WS0 and sell it for 17$

+1 for me lol, fair play to you singingsleep.

Just sealed the deal today with this client for $799 setup and $499 monthly

Meeting went exactly as expected, due to what I've read from Winchester and some other threads.

Happy as hell...