Is anybody cold-calling for Reputation Management?

[wally666]

Hey,

I recently tried a small mailing campaign based on 7878's awesome post (sorry, can't link yet) but I didn't get any response yet. So I think I'll start calling people up tomorrow,but wanted to see if anybody was having success cold calling people for reputation management.


I am trying to avoid being salesy at all, so I was thinking of calling as a potential customer, but let's be honest...I am trying to be sneaky. I want to basically call up businesses with bad reviews and say something like "I was looking for a (Niche in City) and saw you guys had some bad online reviews...can you explain those" or something along those lines.




I haven't had much luck with cold calling so I'm fully expecting people to explain away their bad reviews in 2 seconds then ask me what I needed with them. And I don't want to then be like "uhhh, I was just kidding".

Hope that makes sense.


Just curious to see if anybody else is calling local businesses up for ORM and how it's going.


Thanks!






Edit: I'm not looking for any scripts or anything like that...just a general sense of what other people are up to.

 

[dkdanielkli]

No serious people give a sh!t about mail & emails. You've got to call them or go face-to-face.
I'm telling you this from my own experience.

 

[Pb.com]

No serious people give a sh!t about mail & emails. You've got to call them or go face-to-face.
I'm telling you this from my own experience.

The truth is no serious people with serious money give a shit about you unless you have a trustworthy friend backing you up.

 

[yayman]

well there's a method posted on this board from a guy that had great success with ORM. He got business through sending physical letters, but put a little twist to it. He gives it step by step so you should try it. I would link to it, but i'm at work right now so just use the search box. It's the most popular one on ORM.

 

[wally666]

well there's a method posted on this board from a guy that had great success with ORM. He got business through sending physical letters, but put a little twist to it. He gives it step by step so you should try it. I would link to it, but i'm at work right now so just use the search box. It's the most popular one on ORM.

Yea....that's the one I've already tried from 7878. I sent 20 letters, and spent like $50 by the time I got the shipping fiasco sorted out. The only call I got was form one idiot telling me I owe her $1.05 because I screwed up the postage and the post office actually charged her...and for some reason the dummy paid, then bitched at me.

So I know 20 letters is a small sample, but considering the cost I won't be sending any more with a 0/20 success rate...


So I need to make cold-calls.

 

[jablz]

I agree with the calling or face-to-face. Don't try to be sneaky, just be honest with them. You will have people rejecting you, but every "no" will get you closer to a "yes". It is never as easy as it seems. If it was, then everyone would be doing it. I call and talk to people every day, and I prefer talking to them in person. It is easier for them to hang up on you than to kick you out of their establishment. If they are really that rude, then you definitely know that they do not care what anyone thinks about their business. You also have to realize that they probably have people bugging them everyday, trying to sell them something. You just have to stand out from the rest.

 

[thewizardofcroz]

Hey,

I recently tried a small mailing campaign based on 7878's awesome post (sorry, can't link yet) but I didn't get any response yet. So I think I'll start calling people up tomorrow,but wanted to see if anybody was having success cold calling people for reputation management.


I am trying to avoid being salesy at all, so I was thinking of calling as a potential customer, but let's be honest...I am trying to be sneaky. I want to basically call up businesses with bad reviews and say something like "I was looking for a (Niche in City) and saw you guys had some bad online reviews...can you explain those" or something along those lines.




I haven't had much luck with cold calling so I'm fully expecting people to explain away their bad reviews in 2 seconds then ask me what I needed with them. And I don't want to then be like "uhhh, I was just kidding".

Hope that makes sense.


Just curious to see if anybody else is calling local businesses up for ORM and how it's going.


Thanks!






Edit: I'm not looking for any scripts or anything like that...just a general sense of what other people are up to.

You'll see a lot of advice from people saying that you should cold call. Biggest waste of time. I've tried this myself with very limited success. Think of it this way. If you're on the street and some random stranger comes up to you, selling his stuff, would you buy it?

 

[wally666]

I guess everyone has different results. For me, I've never had any success with trying any type of passive ways to get clients for anything. Cold calling sucks, but at least you can find out right away if people are interested or not, and you can do it for free. (Free = The money you are already paying to have the phone, not adding fees like for postage and that kind of thing)


I tried 7878's mailing thing and while I think it's a good idea, I had zero success with it. The only call I got was from some lady bitching at me. I'm not the biggest fan of cold-calling, but clearly it does work, because the biggest companies in the world still do it every day.

 

[Jobless]

My advice:

Lay out a basic sales funnel/pitch conversation wise. It doesn't have to be complete, just an outline. Do not follow a script. When you read from a scipt, no matter how good you are, it sounds like bullshit. And there's no possible way to prepare for every answer/question.

Search for "niche zip code" and pull up the google map on the side.

Those hundreds of red dots all have numbers. Start calling. You'll be awful at first. You'll studder, and sound like an aspie retard. But there's still hundreds and hundreds of dots to try, in just that one niche. After a day or two you'll start to get a silver tongue.

 

[7878]

No serious people give a sh!t about mail & emails. You've got to call them or go face-to-face.
I'm telling you this from my own experience.

I guess fortune 500 companies spending millions on direct mail every month are just doing it for fun.

@OP - It's not a cold call when you've made an initial contact. Approach it like a fact finding or follow up call. That diffuses pressure and gives you a nice opening to go after the meeting. The letters are a way to open the door, not a one-hit close. Follow up, you might surprised at the results.

 

[dkdanielkli]

This is complete bullshit, clearly your experience or brain size (or both) are limited. Nobody cares about mail right? I guess fortune 500 companies spending millions on direct mail every month are just doing it for fun.

@OP - It's not a cold call when you've made an initial contact. Approach it like a fact finding or follow up call. That diffuses pressure and gives you a nice opening to go after the meeting. The letters are a way to open the door, not a one-hit close. Follow up, you might surprised at the results.

7878. I love your method.
I said what you quoted before the Thread Opener edited his post. IDK why he did that but that makes me look like a total noob !

 

[blackieman]

7878, I read elsewhere about another approach. Your thoughts?

Prospecting: Call people and tell them info is coming about their site, ORM, etc. whatever. If they are receptive, THEN send them a customized package, and follow up later.

This would eliminate a lot of work and cost preparing and sending those packs.

 

[wally666]

7878. I love your method.
I said what you quoted before the Thread Opener edited his post. IDK why he did that but that makes me look like a total noob !

Huh? What did I edit?


The only edit I did was 10 seconds after I posted the original thread, I added that bit about not wanting people to give me their scripts....haven't edited anything since...

 

[HighRiskJohn]

@OP - It's not a cold call when you've made an initial contact. Approach it like a fact finding or follow up call. That diffuses pressure and gives you a nice opening to go after the meeting. The letters are a way to open the door, not a one-hit close. Follow up, you might surprised at the results.

7878, WELL SAID!:israel: Very rarely are you going to get a potential client to call you and sign up right away. I would send an email, then a follow up post card then maybe the report then a follow up call. People need to see your name at least 4+ times before it starts to stick. By the time you do the follow up phone call you're either going to hear that they were just going to call you or that they don't care about their reputation or they call you a (fill in the blank) for pointing this out to them. (Their probably embarrassed, wouldn't you be if your "baby" had a bad reputation?)

 

[plessard]

There are very few methods that don't work lol, its just a numbers game and generally there is a little twist. I have hired and worked with some guys that could cold call and get the person on the other end of the phone to do anything they wanted ;-)
Emailing works too with a twist or hook. It's not the medium but the method.

As an example if I sent out an email that was short and sweet and said "watch this youtube video on how I removed this restaurants negative reviews..." to a restaurant owner with negative reviews I would do well.

What is funny is the little bits and pieces that make all the difference.
For example I have sent out emails to go watch a video but the video link was a site I owned.
People are afraid to click links they do not trust.
I sent out same email with link to a youtube video and voila clickthrough skyrocketed.
Next imagine 3 or 4 comments on the video saying "this guy rocks, helped our restaurant..."
bang, conversion goes up again.
Its all about execution and that little edge.
Its a pain to find the solution but once you do you can scale like crazy.