Cold Calling Question

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PandaDomo

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It's kind of a silly question, but I was just wondering this out of curiosity.

I started doing 7878's mailing method with a lot of tips from this thread as well:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...info-covered-all-questions-will-answered.html

The area I'm in has fairly limited businesses in my surrounding area, so I didn't bother to narrow down my mails by the niche. I sent mail to everyone from dentists and lawyers to comic book stores and cleaning services.

Anyway, to get back onto subject, does anyone approach "higher end" clientele like lawyers/dentists differently from smaller businesses?

I sent out 15 pieces so far and I called 3 back, but before I call the rest I'm just wondering if there's some type of way you guys treat niches differently?

I'm just wondering because I'm not used to cold calling, and it's a bit more tense to call lawyers and larger dental firms and whatnot for me than it is for small pizza restaurants.

On a side note, one of the three I called (which was a pizza restaurant) threatened to sue me because apparently I'm the one that wrote all those negative reviews about his business LOL.

Edit: A second question, but does anyone do anything special to "stand out" from the cold call? I usually lead off with "Hi, my name is _____ and I'd like to speak to *insert business owner's name here* personally about a piece of mail I sent last week" or something along those lines.

The issue is, even though I get past the gatekeeper, it's pretty difficult for me to stand out because these people get lots of mail on a weekly basis and I get an a response something along the lines of "Yeah, who were you again? I get like hundreds of letters". I usually repeat my introduction and then go into a bit more detail about what my letter entailed, but I feel this approach is a little weak. Does anyone have a better one?
 
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Hey PandaDomo, in a former life I worked in sales.

There isn't a magic line you can say which always works, and I'd be skeptical of people that said otherwise.

What helped me the most in my sales career was a book called "you cant teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar" by Sandler (now out of print, but you can find a second hand one easily on amazon), and by listening to Tony Robbins' sales stuff - that dude can sell ice to an eskimo.

Good luck.
 
chickensalad said:
Hey PandaDomo, in a former life I worked in sales.

There isn't a magic line you can say which always works, and I'd be skeptical of people that said otherwise.

What helped me the most in my sales career was a book called "you cant teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar" by Sandler (now out of print, but you can find a second hand one easily on amazon), and by listening to Tony Robbins' sales stuff - that dude can sell ice to an eskimo.

Good luck.
Click to expand...

I'm not asking for a magical line or anything, I'm just wondering if there's a better approach than what I do. Also wondering if anyone has a different approach according to niche.

Thanks for the reference though.
 
Bump, anyone? I guess I might as well let my thread die a graceful death :P
 
Unfortunately I think cold calling takes practice, the more you do the better you'll get.

When I first started cold calling or even taking inbound SEO sales calls I was awful. Over time I figured out how to answer questions and refine the pitch. It's probably different with everyone. I know this isn't the answer you were looking for but keep with it and you'll figure it out.
 
Your general approach to 'high' and 'low' end clients doesn't need to be different as long as your approach is good in the first place.

What you'll find is the higher level the person you're speaking to, the more likely a bad 'pitch' will fail.

The best way to improve your pitch is to be observant. Every time you have an unsuccessful call, learn from it and make adjustments. Over time you will find the calls easier, you will be able to think on the fly and as a consequence you'll feel and more importantly, will come across as more confident.

With regards to your second question, about standing out:

Don't try to sell to PAs, secretaries, or any other gatekeepers. Their job is to filter sales people out, so your pitch is pointless at this point. Save it for when you are speaking to the right person.

The only purpose of speaking to gatekeepers is to get through to your target, so work out strategies to do just that.

The best way is to not speak to them at all. Try to find a mobile number or direct line for your target, call out of hours (early morning, lunch time, evening, weekends).

If you do hit a gatekeeper, try the friendly approach, or be very brief and ask for the target by first name only, or try to turn the gatekeeper into an ally - you'll need to figure out what works best for you so try anything you can think of and see what works.

Something I've used successfully in the past is what I call the 'blind them with science' or 'bore them into submission' approach.

When they ask what it's about, I deliberately become over explanatory and start talking at length. At some point, they often say 'I'll just put you through' and it's either because they don't understand what I'm saying or they are just bored. Don't forget they also have more calls coming in and need to answer those too - either way, I get the result I want.

I don't care what they think of me, as long as I get put through to the right person.
 
Trepanated said:
Your general approach to 'high' and 'low' end clients doesn't need to be different as long as your approach is good in the first place.

What you'll find is the higher level the person you're speaking to, the more likely a bad 'pitch' will fail.

The best way to improve your pitch is to be observant. Every time you have an unsuccessful call, learn from it and make adjustments. Over time you will find the calls easier, you will be able to think on the fly and as a consequence you'll feel and more importantly, will come across as more confident.

With regards to your second question, about standing out:

Don't try to sell to PAs, secretaries, or any other gatekeepers. Their job is to filter sales people out, so your pitch is pointless at this point. Save it for when you are speaking to the right person.

The only purpose of speaking to gatekeepers is to get through to your target, so work out strategies to do just that.

The best way is to not speak to them at all. Try to find a mobile number or direct line for your target, call out of hours (early morning, lunch time, evening, weekends).

If you do hit a gatekeeper, try the friendly approach, or be very brief and ask for the target by first name only, or try to turn the gatekeeper into an ally - you'll need to figure out what works best for you so try anything you can think of and see what works.

Something I've used successfully in the past is what I call the 'blind them with science' or 'bore them into submission' approach.

When they ask what it's about, I deliberately become over explanatory and start talking at length. At some point, they often say 'I'll just put you through' and it's either because they don't understand what I'm saying or they are just bored. Don't forget they also have more calls coming in and need to answer those too - either way, I get the result I want.

I don't care what they think of me, as long as I get put through to the right person.
Click to expand...

Great information, thanks!

For those who just simply aren't interested, do you just move on and accept that or do you attempt to change their minds?

My pitch is probably mediocre at best to be honest, but it's a lot better when I deal with people who are potentially interested.

My issue is dealing with people who AREN'T interested at all, because I don't really know what to do past that point.
 
PandaDomo said:
It's kind of a silly question, but I was just wondering this out of curiosity.

I started doing 7878's mailing method with a lot of tips from this thread as well:

http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...info-covered-all-questions-will-answered.html

The area I'm in has fairly limited businesses in my surrounding area, so I didn't bother to narrow down my mails by the niche. I sent mail to everyone from dentists and lawyers to comic book stores and cleaning services.

Anyway, to get back onto subject, does anyone approach "higher end" clientele like lawyers/dentists differently from smaller businesses?

I sent out 15 pieces so far and I called 3 back, but before I call the rest I'm just wondering if there's some type of way you guys treat niches differently?

I'm just wondering because I'm not used to cold calling, and it's a bit more tense to call lawyers and larger dental firms and whatnot for me than it is for small pizza restaurants.

On a side note, one of the three I called (which was a pizza restaurant) threatened to sue me because apparently I'm the one that wrote all those negative reviews about his business LOL.

Edit: A second question, but does anyone do anything special to "stand out" from the cold call? I usually lead off with "Hi, my name is _____ and I'd like to speak to *insert business owner's name here* personally about a piece of mail I sent last week" or something along those lines.

The issue is, even though I get past the gatekeeper, it's pretty difficult for me to stand out because these people get lots of mail on a weekly basis and I get an a response something along the lines of "Yeah, who were you again? I get like hundreds of letters". I usually repeat my introduction and then go into a bit more detail about what my letter entailed, but I feel this approach is a little weak. Does anyone have a better one?
Click to expand...

Cold calling is like cold traffic, unless you are Walmart or Amazon you are very unlikely going to get a sale. You'll need to master psychology on a social and sales aspect for a general audience (ultra advanced and hard compared to targeted niches where you can research emotional buying triggers, words to use, images, etc). Anyone who tells you cold calling is not down to a science is ignorant of the fact it actually is a controlled science.

Door to Door sales people can control emotions and read emotions through body language, though the really good sales men are long dead in this industry, and people who hold sales seminars aren't really able to read body language so clearly on their audiences as there are a lot of people. Their approach is more from the authority / herd mentality. So basically if you can profile people based on emotions and personal interests within a few seconds, while being able to sell them something regardless of their wallet / credit cards limit you're golden.

So can it be done? Yes, will it be effective to make money in the first few months / years? Yes, but you won't get into any serious figures just mastering words from a book, timing and execution (acting (body language), singing (voice control), Psychology (Emotions, Profiling, Reading People, Understanding People, etc) are the ones that are going to help you make a sale.

This is no magic formula, simply the BASE LINE to start to get money. For some they let articles be their sales person, and for others they let their workers be their sales person (bad choice most of the time), but it is the same concept for writing as it is for selling in person, just with more visuals queues for a person.
 
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Update: I got 1 call back for removing negative reviews, but I failed that call horribly :/

I kind of get a feel of what I do wrong, I think I feel like I'm too rushed and get things mixed up so I end up stammering and repeating myself.

I think I need to spend more time to actually think it through on what to say, instead of rushing through it.

Caught me a bit off guard though, since they were only interested in negative removal ONLY and I didn't really know how to respond to that.

Oh well, I suppose this is a tip to improve my future calling abilities. Speaking on the phone isn't my strong suit, curse my generation for texting only :P

Edit: I've decided it's probably best if I ask if I can call back later in the day since it's not a good time, and ask for a contact number + what information they're looking for when this type of thing happens. This will probably give me the time to prepare a response, as well as hopefully not having them lose interest since I'll be responding back in the same day.
 
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PandaDomo said:
Edit: A second question, but does anyone do anything special to "stand out" from the cold call? I usually lead off with "Hi, my name is _____ and I'd like to speak to *insert business owner's name here* personally about a piece of mail I sent last week" or something along those lines.

The issue is, even though I get past the gatekeeper, it's pretty difficult for me to stand out because these people get lots of mail on a weekly basis and I get an a response something along the lines of "Yeah, who were you again? I get like hundreds of letters". I usually repeat my introduction and then go into a bit more detail about what my letter entailed, but I feel this approach is a little weak. Does anyone have a better one?
Click to expand...

It is not what you say. It is how you say it. At least at the beginning when you want to grab the attention. You have just a few seconds until your prospect decides if you are worth talking to or not. This decision is not made upon your words but more tonality. You must sound strong but friendly though not invasive. If you have this "Hi I want to sell you something" in your voice you are done. If you are nervous and trembling you are done.
 
aussiejack said:
It is not what you say. It is how you say it. At least at the beginning when you want to grab the attention. You have just a few seconds until your prospect decides if you are worth talking to or not. This decision is not made upon your words but more tonality. You must sound strong but friendly though not invasive. If you have this "Hi I want to sell you something" in your voice you are done. If you are nervous and trembling you are done.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'm usually fine, but I suppose it depends on my mood when I do this. Normally when I'm calm I sound fairly confident like I know what I'm talking about, but when I'm caught off guard I'm totally screwed.
 
PandaDomo said:
Yeah, I'm usually fine, but I suppose it depends on my mood when I do this. Normally when I'm calm I sound fairly confident like I know what I'm talking about, but when I'm caught off guard I'm totally screwed.
Click to expand...

That is fine. Always call indepedent of your current mood. That makes you even more confident because you know inside that you dont depend on some happy feeling to talk to prospects.
 
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