Cold calling for website design?

Hello Everyone, I have been calling businesses who either don't have a website or have an outdated one. I already have called 20 people and they all said no. 2 said they have people already working for them. Should I continue? Does anyone have any tips, I mean I just lose my breath when I start calling and the feeling of rejection is very hard to cope with it. Just to be clear I am not a native english speaker but I have good enough english skills and I believe that I can do it. I am targeting the Uk by using a skype subscription to call them.

I am even thinking about giving away a few websites for free and to then ask my clients for a few referrals. What do you guys think?

Any tips would be highly appreciated.

cold calling will need a higher number to yield results plus its not an easy technique... wish there was a guidebook about it... most of the times you will get locked out by the reception and wont reach the decision maker.. I once hired a cold caller for 2-3 weeks to call non stop 8 hours a day and she managed to get 1 appointment given it was a very niche product.
Giving free websites might be a good idea but what about doing it in a funnel approach like sign up to our mailing list and stand a chance to get a free website? That way you get more emails then the websites you churn out cos a proper design takes time.
Im starting a seo company and im in confusion just like you Im thinking of doing afew free ad campaigns for clients to get the ball rolling..
maybe we could team up lol

Yes, well I am offering to do the websites for a low price so I am concentrating more on freelancers this way I don't need to deal with reception. The reception is the decision maker. Called another 10 people today and I am dealing with the fear of colding calling quite well didn't feel anything when they said no. So I got one part of the cold call down. I am trying to perfect my pitch by analysing my calls and getting it down to a science. Going to start experimenting in the coming week with the delivery and different ways to hook them in order to just talk to them enough so I could get them to think about it and not just give an automatic "Oh... no thank you" when they understand I am not a customer. This is like a game to me and I believe that once I have everything down concerning the niche of what professionals I am going to target and my pitch to them then I could definitely get atleast 5 people from a hundred so this way I would have enough work and would get the ball rolling and finally hit it big.

Thank you for the idea but I don't think that it would work because the people who care about their presence and website would buy one for the pricepoint which I am offering and the one's that don't care won't bother with the emails. At least that is my thinking of course you can give it a shot and tell me how it goes.

At this point I am not looking for a team and I am just developing skills which will definitely be beneficial later on in life even if I don't make any money. That is why I am not doing the other methods. It's a win win for me either way.

Good luck with your SEO company!

Listen to Jordan Belfort.
Dial at least 100 phone calls before you judge .

Smile and dial I worked at a telemarketing place. Sometimes it would take days to get a sale.

Thank you for the encouragment guys, Yes I know that I need to call more people, just going at it step by step since I am usually calling outside because I live in a dormitory and it is -5 degrees celsius so I call 4 days per week could probably call 50 people on the days that I am outside until it gets cold and 100 on the day that the roomate isn't inside (sadly he is always inside, never goes out )

I think cold calling is tough. People who get the calls hate it because so many people seem to do it and so there could be an underlying frustration with receiving these calls. The best approach would be:
1) ensure if you can pre-qualify your calls or pre-filter your calls as much to people who most likely will benefit from your service
2) when on the call, talk to them about their business and their marketing from their point of view and through a real conversation, pitch in your service

I don't think you should waste your time offering free designs either like you're thinking about.

theproblemo said:

I think cold calling is tough. People who get the calls hate it because so many people seem to do it and so there could be an underlying frustration with receiving these calls. The best approach would be:
1) ensure if you can pre-qualify your calls or pre-filter your calls as much to people who most likely will benefit from your service
2) when on the call, talk to them about their business and their marketing from their point of view and through a real conversation, pitch in your service

I don't think you should waste your time offering free designs either like you're thinking about.

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In regards to your second point, could you provide an example of how I could do that? To start the conversation about their marketing and business? I thank you for your feedback.

I used to run a construction lead call center for many years. I can tell you, 100 people is really not enough to gauge your sales approach. Give your sales pitch a whirl with at least 300 or so phone calls, if that doesn't work out to any sales, then your approach/sales pitch needs refining.

Of course I dont know what products you are selling seo wise, but you also need to factor in the time you are spending to get a sale, along with how many actual sales you are getting. It often boils down to this if it is worth it for you or not. From personal experience in this field, I can tell you there is a lot of money to be had, and I know other SEO call centers that rake in bank with this method.

You have to tweak your script constantly. When you start hitting 100 calls per day is when you'll really start to gauge whether or not it's for you. I wrote a loose description of sales/cold calling here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/bhw-guide-to-sales-techniques-tips-and-cold-calling.832833/

Alright man have you been doing any warm calls too? Get creative! Make some posts on Craigslist. Get some poster board and make signs around your town. How's your sales pitch? Maybe you would of gotten a few more people but you said something wrong over the phone. Take a look at Dan Kennedy and watch a few of his videos on cold calling and then try. I bet watching his videos you'll be like damn I am doing that wrong! Talk about how they will make more money with this new website and why it helps them/ in the best interest. Maybe it's your speed or tone over the phone. If you record a call and post it up here people will be able to help you much more because it's hard to get an idea on what exactly you're doing wrong.

Skyebug77 said:

I used to run a construction lead call center for many years. I can tell you, 100 people is really not enough to gauge your sales approach. Give your sales pitch a whirl with at least 300 or so phone calls, if that doesn't work out to any sales, then your approach/sales pitch needs refining.

Of course I dont know what products you are selling seo wise, but you also need to factor in the time you are spending to get a sale, along with how many actual sales you are getting. It often boils down to this if it is worth it for you or not. From personal experience in this field, I can tell you there is a lot of money to be had, and I know other SEO call centers that rake in bank with this method.

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Actually I am the one selling website design, of course I could try SEO as well, but actually I would love to earn some money with making websites and then move on to making very well done blogs, get some traffic to them and then sell them to offline business owners using my learned cold calling skills. I need to ramp up my calling then. Thinking about making 25 calls tomorrow and going with 50 wednesday when I can work inside the dormitory.

Thank you for your feedback!

PHPInjected said:

You have to tweak your script constantly. When you start hitting 100 calls per day is when you'll really start to gauge whether or not it's for you. I wrote a loose description of sales/cold calling here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/bhw-guide-to-sales-techniques-tips-and-cold-calling.832833/

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Thanks, I will check it out and update everyone on how it goes.

No more to say: Yes. Continue.

a hungry bear said:

Alright man have you been doing any warm calls too? Get creative! Make some posts on Craigslist. Get some poster board and make signs around your town. How's your sales pitch? Maybe you would of gotten a few more people but you said something wrong over the phone. Take a look at Dan Kennedy and watch a few of his videos on cold calling and then try. I bet watching his videos you'll be like damn I am doing that wrong! Talk about how they will make more money with this new website and why it helps them/ in the best interest. Maybe it's your speed or tone over the phone. If you record a call and post it up here people will be able to help you much more because it's hard to get an idea on what exactly you're doing wrong.

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I will take a look at the guy you mentioned. I believe that doing the banners thing could definitely pay off. Thank you for the idea of recording the call, I will do that and most likely post a few calls tomorrow for you guys to review.

Cheers, Bekti.

bekti said:

Actually I am the one selling website design, of course I could try SEO as well, but actually I would love to earn some money with making websites and then move on to making very well done blogs, get some traffic to them and then sell them to offline business owners using my learned cold calling skills. I need to ramp up my calling then. Thinking about making 25 calls tomorrow and going with 50 wednesday when I can work inside the dormitory.

Thank you for your feedback!

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I know you are doing this part time, but just so you know the numbers, at the call center I was running no automated calling (using dial phones) we expected reps to make 150 calls a day. Over a six week period, they were expected to have a bare sales minimum off 1 sale a day with those numbers. Of course you could always scale up and use automated dialers.... That can cost some money doing it that way though. But well worth thee time you spending listening to ringing or VM

Skyebug77 said:

I know you are doing this part time, but just so you know the numbers, at the call center I was running no automated calling (using dial phones) we expected reps to make 150 calls a day. Over a six week period, they were expected to have a bare sales minimum off 1 sale a day with those numbers. Of course you could always scale up and use automated dialers.... That can cost some money doing it that way though. But well worth thee time you spending listening to ringing or VM

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Thanks for the heads up, I was probably looking at it with a little bit of rose tinted glasses. Considering that I am a foreigner and that english isn't my first language the numbers probably go up to something like 1 in 200 for me. It's still worth it to me but of course the pay off isn't as great considering I would also need to do the web design, too. I will probably record some calls tomorrow and post it on BHW so your expert opinion would be highly appreciated.

Maybe get one of Grant Cardone's many cold calling courses, or watch him on youtube, his free cold calling vids are enough to get you inspired

alexa_s said:

Maybe get one of Grant Cardone's many cold calling courses, or watch him on youtube, his free cold calling vids are enough to get you inspired

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I will definitely check him out. thank you!

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