[AMA] Ask Me Anything About Cold Calling / Getting Clients

[Endri]

As i told you before the services that i plann to resell are ORM services related to bad reviews and the positiv social presence , which is kind of hard to sell , i have some kind of exp in cold calling mostly selling crypto but i am planning to target like bussiness , dentists , all that medical industry , last thing do you think linkedin is a good place to start to get some leads regarding this idea ? Thanks in advance

 

[cozziola]

I am hard of hearing so the phone for me at times can be challenging. This affects my confidence a little when calling strangers.

What is your opinion on hiring cold callers from Upwork?

I did hire 2 from there years ago and tried to sell SEO to businesses in my home city. I spent over 1K and had zero leads.

I hired cheap hourly workers though so maybe this is a problem?

 

[vedeus]

The biggest objection you will probably get is a flat no/not interested or they'll just hang up. Cold calling is tough, it really is a numbers game.

As a better answer though, for any objection you need to think of it from the business's perspective. In my experience, small businesses are CHEAP and don't understand/care anything really about brand presence or exposure or anything that doesn't equal one thing....more MONEY for them. I don't know what service you plan on reselling but whatever it is you have to prove to them over the phone that it will bring them money. If it's SEO, show them a new client from your efforts and the ROI from that. I did cold calling for a lead gen company and would have lead ready to show them for them take me seriously. Literally first thing I said "I have a client wanting your services, who can I talk to?"

Find a way to prove your value and you will get better results. Just gotta be creative



Not a losing battle but a hard one. A lot of businesses don't understand the power of SEO. It's your job to prove it in someway. Whether that's a lead for them off a campaign you've done, results you've given to similar businesses etc etc. SEO is a tough sale because it's a long road for results but you can try and entice them with small things like results and leads.

As for the hairdressers, I think a better attempt would be to draft up a mock site and physically walk into their store, show their site is poop or broken and show them the one you made just for them. Door knocking is still cold calling so something that's visual like website design needs some type of proof of value like a real world example.

Cold calling is a numbers game and not as easy as it was back in the day when everyone trusted everyone. But there are things that take a little more work that can lead to better conversions. You need to make ALOT of calls to see some results. My best advice to you is choose a hyper-specific niche, produce some type of proof of value that can be applied to all and then attack the sale like crazy.



That's currently what I'm doing as well for web design and it is tough I won't lie. But it is a numbers game.

It's okay to be direct in my opinion, realistically you don't want to waste time beating around the bush because realistically as shitty as it sounds they are gonna say no. My best results have been finding specific issues with their sites and bringing it up right away. For example, a restuarant in my hometown had an okay website BUT when it went to mobile it was unusable, so I called them and said "Hi, I was trying to go through your site on my phone and the site is broken are you guys gonna fix this wanted to look at your menu?" Gauge their reaction and say you can fix it and say if you can swing by to chat in person about. Draft a quick prototype and go meet them.

It's easier to solve a real existing problem, then present the 'more lead' argument as small businesses are CHEAP.



If they are a Do Not Call List then you could get in trouble. I have a burner prepaid phone I bought from walmart for all my cold calls lol, have never ran into issues though. I'm from Canada so they don't sue as much, but America might be a different story cuz I hear those guys sue over everything

Thanks for valuable advices

I have one more question. Let's say my client is interested in my service and would like to see my work and pricing.

What I do then? Tell him that he can see my work at www.mywebsite and pricing also?

What's next? How I should secure that i really close him as a sale? To ask him for his e-mail adress and I will send him more information there?

Thank you!

 

[perkperk]

How do i get cold callers/spammers to stop calling me?

 

[cosmo89]

Useful thread! Thanks for doing this man.

 

[BlackGrumps]

As i told you before the services that i plann to resell are ORM services related to bad reviews and the positiv social presence , which is kind of hard to sell , i have some kind of exp in cold calling mostly selling crypto but i am planning to target like bussiness , dentists , all that medical industry , last thing do you think linkedin is a good place to start to get some leads regarding this idea ? Thanks in advance

If you're selling ORM I would go on Yelp or any type of review sites, set the rating to 1-2 stars and below and begin contacting those business. Look in the ORM forum for the 7788 method, will help ya a lot!

I am hard of hearing so the phone for me at times can be challenging. This affects my confidence a little when calling strangers.

What is your opinion on hiring cold callers from Upwork?

I did hire 2 from there years ago and tried to sell SEO to businesses in my home city. I spent over 1K and had zero leads.

I hired cheap hourly workers though so maybe this is a problem?

Definetly feel that bro, I have no experience hiring cold callers from UpWork but from your experience I can see it may not be the best idea haha. You can always hire people lead commission only, I did this with highschool kids to knock on doors to sell my painting services lol.

With anything man, and I get the whole confidence thing, is that just accept that you're going to "fail" sometimes because it's a part of business. But don't frame it as losing, it's just a lesson. You gotta be consistent.

Sales is important part of business and something that's hard to outsource at the beginning, so just gotta pay your dues and take those 100-200 No's just to get that 1 yes to fund some more wiggle room for your project.

If you're product is good and provides an ROI for your client then it is sellable, just gotta go ham on selling and take the rejection like a champ!

 

[BlackGrumps]

Thanks for valuable advices

I have one more question. Let's say my client is interested in my service and would like to see my work and pricing.

What I do then? Tell him that he can see my work at www.mywebsite and pricing also?

What's next? How I should secure that i really close him as a sale? To ask him for his e-mail adress and I will send him more information there?

Thank you!

Yup, you want to be in the control of the conversation so you have to have the next steps planned.

Grab his email, say you'll send him a follow-up with the information and go from there. If they don't respond in a couple days just give him a call and ask if they've looked over the email because you are ready to rock. If not or they are hesitant, try and find some more value to bring them, like another lead, or mock up or whatever you can think of.

Just remember, not everyone who gives you their email automatically will turn into a sale right away but you can begin building a relationship with them for a sale down the road. Their's a good email marketing thread somewhere that does a follow-up chain that shows a great way to do this. I think it's in the money making thread pretty high up.

How do i get cold callers/spammers to stop calling me?

Put your email and phone numbers on Do Not Contact Lists.

And if they contact you still say really mean things about their mum until they hang up.

 

[Ice Cube KK]

Hello there, I'm running in some problems, I want to start a web design agency, I have a good friend, with a portfolio, with clean, good looking sites.
But I'm not fluent with English, and it's hard for me to cold call, cold email is the best option for me, its possible to close the deal with emailing only?
I have a list of +100 businesses with shitty sites, that needs re-design, fresh look. Is anyone have some cold email template for web design? Would be perfect is there are some follow-up emails...cuz I'm starting to give up...
Thanks

 

[vedeus]

Hello there, I'm running in some problems, I want to start a web design agency, I have a good friend, with a portfolio, with clean, good looking sites.
But I'm not fluent with English, and it's hard for me to cold call, cold email is the best option for me, its possible to close the deal with emailing only?
I have a list of +100 businesses with shitty sites, that needs re-design, fresh look. Is anyone have some cold email template for web design? Would be perfect is there are some follow-up emails...cuz I'm starting to give up...
Thanks

Hello mate, it seems we are on the same route.

I'm just starting out with outreaching to the businesses. It's easier to do it in your own country if you want to cold call, however I understand why you want to do it in different market.

I found on the internet great e-mail template so I can send it to you.

 

[Ice Cube KK]

Hello mate, it seems we are on the same route.

I'm just starting out with outreaching to the businesses. It's easier to do it in your own country if you want to cold call, however I understand why you want to do it in different market.

I found on the internet great e-mail template so I can send it to you.

Hello, can you please send me that template? Thanks, you really helped me, had already thoughts about quitting..

 

[vedeus]

I found it on the internet and I think it's great. However you will have to adjust section where are the problems of the website because you want to adjust it to your each prospect's website.

This way it doesn't look like you are sending it to the 100 people. but actually them. Also, you are providing value there on the beginning so I think this could work.

I'm gonna test it also

 

[GenesisOne]

@BlackGrumps haven't you tried adwords campaign?
It works great to land clients for my services and prospects come already interested knowing my fees.

 

[Ice Cube KK]

View attachment 119864
I found it on the internet and I think it's great. However you will have to adjust section where are the problems of the website because you want to adjust it to your each prospect's website.

This way it doesn't look like you are sending it to the 100 people. but actually them. Also, you are providing value there on the beginning so I think this could work.

I'm gonna test it also

Thanks.
Yup going to test this template including some of my twist, do you use follow-up emails? Also, I think you shouldn't talk about how much service going to cost, it would scare some of the potential clients away, just giving out some knowledge and info that they need improvement on their site

 

[vedeus]

Thanks.
Yup going to test this template including some of my twist, do you use follow-up emails? Also, I think you shouldn't talk about how much service going to cost, it would scare some of the potential clients away, just giving out some knowledge and info that they need improvement on their site

Yeah, this is a screenshot from the website. I adjusted it a bit and remove the price because I think the same thing you do.
Check your pm I'd like to ask you some questions.

 

[BlackGrumps]

@BlackGrumps haven't you tried adwords campaign?
It works great to land clients for my services and prospects come already interested knowing my fees.

Oh yeah adwords is definitely a huge part of my sales campaigns.

However this thread is more geared towards those who might not have the income to invest into adwords just yet, as cold calling costs is just based on your time

 

[slickbrick]

What's up my friends and family at BHW

I thought I would do a less technical type of post this week and do something more sales related. Let's chat about cold calling and getting clients.

In terms of my own experience I've been an entrepreneur for quite a while now, have ran businesses stemming from property maintenance, web design, android tv stick reselling, instagram growth agencies, graphic designs... a whole bunch of different areas. Sales has always been my favourite part about business because it is indeed the most challenging but also the most fun aspect of business in my opinion.

Now I'm not claiming to be an expert or anything, just have learned some things along the way that I bet could help some of you during your journey within IG and other ventures. I'll try and answer as many questions as I can today, as it's lighter day of work for me and have been wanting to make a post like this for a while.

So Let's Talk Some Sales​

Cool thing you're doing here.

I never cold call. I rely on an Ebook and a Webinar Funnel but just recently I started to target big accounts with direct outreach.

I use humor to get their attention via email but I have a problem.. And I think you could help me a little.

If you want to target big accounts and your targets are either CEOs, Managers or CMOs, where would you search these bigger companies?

Do you know any directory? I used Linked Helper and Sales Navigator but I can't seem to get it right.

 

[Huncho]

What u think about Jordan Belfort and straight line system?

 

[kindablack]

Do you think it's possible to sell mid-ticket ($250-$500) digital service over the phone from another country to US-based SMBs?

 

[BlackGrumps]

Cool thing you're doing here.

I never cold call. I rely on an Ebook and a Webinar Funnel but just recently I started to target big accounts with direct outreach.

I use humor to get their attention via email but I have a problem.. And I think you could help me a little.

If you want to target big accounts and your targets are either CEOs, Managers or CMOs, where would you search these bigger companies?

Do you know any directory? I used Linked Helper and Sales Navigator but I can't seem to get it right.

LinkedIn is definitely a primary tool for this.

Other than one website I use is called AngelList, which helps you find jobs for startups BUT if you scroll down to the footer there's a section that says companies and literally gives you a directory of all the startups on the site (1000s AngelList is huge). That would be a good place to start looking for more larger accounts as these companies tend to be smaller, yet funded more

What u think about Jordan Belfort and straight line system?

I've never researched too much into the straight line system. Though I've watched Jordan Belfort's live sales calls/meetings and he is undoubtedly a great salesperson.

I'm not really into systems too much as many situations are very, very different and it's hard to apply rigid concepts or frameworks to every sales situation that you are in. How I see it is if you can undertstand the clients needs and prove your value to the prospect than you are off to a great start.

Reading as much as you can is a great idea though because you can take bits and pieces from different concepts and apply them to whatever scenario you want

Do you think it's possible to sell mid-ticket ($250-$500) digital service over the phone from another country to US-based SMBs?

Yes possible. But would definitely be a challenge. You'd have to come up with a really great, unique pitch.

Try tailoring it to that specific client. Making it personal and adding value so they see you're not just like every telemarketer out there.

 

[Ice Cube KK]

Hello there, enjoying your post, lots of knowledge, thanks.
Is it possible to hire someone ( like highschool student etc) who could handle sales calls? and paying out would be commission when they close the deal ? because OP here said that he wasted lots of money on salesperson.and if yes where could I find one? btw, I'm not from states and cold calling would be a massive struggle for me.