learning about cold-calling?

Anyone have any suggestions on successfully closing on the phone or in person? Will be dealing with SEO services, but I imagine the concept is still the same no matter what your selling. Open to suggestions for ebook, films, etc. Saw one film mentioned in another thread - Boiler Room?
I've read a bit into Conversation Hypnosis, but I feel there is too much emphasis on language patterns and stuff, that it cannot be applied until you have your own decent, sales technique.

Ari Galper comes to mind. His website is unlockthegame[dot]com.

I also love to peruse the marketing/sales section of brick and mortar bookstores. I have seen a lot of books by a Stephen Schiffman. I've looked at them, but can't an opinion about them as I've never really read them.

Let them know you right off the bat what you are doing. The thing that makes me so angry about people who cold call me is when they lead me one way and then hit me with an offer out of the blue. I hang up immediately. If someone is upfront with me I may listen.

call with energy. Be interesting.
Be prepared to hear "No" and getting hung up on 98% of the time.

Research more and call less. Know who you need to speak to and ask for them by name.

You can also use the "confused employee" technique and do this:
Call Mr. Prospect and when you get him on the phone say "Hi mr. Prospect. I hope you can help me with something, and I apologize for my lack of organization here, but before my boss went on vacation yesterday he put your name and number on my desk and asked me to call you. That is all I know. I assume it is about our invitation-only SEO service that is showing other clients tremendous results. Our team sets up client websites to bring in more sales and profits. Are you the right person for this? Because if you are we can go ahead and schedule our free webinar for next tuesday at 1pm.
(close the appointment, and on tuesday...close the sale)

schwagoo said:

You can also use the "confused employee" technique

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Is there not a risk that you may seem disorganised and unprofessional, since you don't seem sure of what you're meant to be doing? No offense meant, I appreciate the advice.

I usually do 2-3 phone calls for my SEO pitch. If you are trying to close someone for $1k or more a month with a 12 month contract, it's not really going to be an impulse buy when they are going to be spending $12 to over 20k for your services.

The first call I go over (and not in this order) how SEO works, I build rapport, name their competition and tell them they are doing SEO to get to the #1 spot, I build more rapport, and one of the most important things that I ask is what they are currently doing for marketing and what their current marketing budget is. These two questions are essential because when they tell me they are not doing any internet marketing then I explain the importance of IM and drop some statistics. When they tell me their marketing budget is nothing or $100 a month then I know I am waisting my time because they are broke or I did not explain the importance of being found on google. This is why you've gotta ask what their market budget is because when you think you have a $1k a month client and they tell you their budget is 10k then you know you can get more out of them and they will have more to spend with you after you show them results.

Next I let them know that I will do a free internet presence evaluation and website audit which usually cost $300. I also tell them I am going to send over a proposal for them to look over and I throw in the contract without telling them unless I feel they will close sooner( the reason I do this is because I don't want to seem to pushy, you've got to ease into the close). I then set up another time to call them and go over the documents. The next time I call we have already spoken and they are warmed up and comfortable with me. This is when I go in for the close. Any reason for me calling a third time is to just make sure the contract gets signed. I recommend getting an e- signature contract it is a lot more convenient for the potential client.

I sell SEO with on-call closes but for theses deals they are usually what I like to call my No Risk SEO, a lot of people may have been burned in the past by SEO companies or may just feel like it is a lot of money to put out. So I offer SEO packages that will not be billed until we show them 1st page results for one of their targeted keywords. I have been closing a lot of deals like this lately just because they are so much faster and easier to close. I recommend you do the same if you are just starting out and don't have references to give and show examples of results, because your potential clients will always ask to see results.

I didn't go into details about my pitch you'll have to figure what works for you on your own. But I'm sure this will help out a lot!

P.S I forgot to put in there somewhere ASSUME THE SALE!!!
Happy Hunting oh and Happy Holidays too!

Cold calling stinks. Have you ever considered phone broadcasting to get warm leads that are actually interested in hearing what you have to say?

Yea cold calling does suck sometimes but my company has been targeting a specific niche' and it usually goes pretty well when you do your research on the potential client before hand. I think they feel more obligated to speak with you and at least hear you out when you invested the time into them. It is more personal. I haven't really looked into voice broadcasting I always assumed it was too expensive and something that would come further on down the road. I have a small sales team so I don't know if there is a plan that would be small enough to fit my needs. I appreciate the advise and I am definitely going to look into it. Have you tried voice broadcasting before? Is it effective? Do you record the message or do you pay someone to?

These days, I think it's a lot less expensive than most think. You can record the outbound msg yourself or have someone do it (a pro runs about $30....you can google it).

Sent you a pm with some additional info.

Best advice is to keep it short and expect to have to make a follow-up call or two before anyone sends you money. Lets face it, would you send money to someone that just called you up out of the blue? They will require you to give some information about you and your company.

I find the best way is to put them through a 3 stage sales process.

1. A VERY short cold call that gets to the point quickly. I give them the easy way to say yes by letting them know that the next step is to get info about us via email.

2. I send them the email about how wonderful we are, a few referrals, examples/case studies and then 24 hours later...

3. A followup call where we close.

In my opinion, you MUST have a sales process... its just too hard to close on a first call in this business.

MagicMike said:

Best advice is to keep it short and expect to have to make a follow-up call or two before anyone sends you money. Lets face it, would you send money to someone that just called you up out of the blue? They will require you to give some information about you and your company.

I find the best way is to put them through a 3 stage sales process.

1. A VERY short cold call that gets to the point quickly. I give them the easy way to say yes by letting them know that the next step is to get info about us via email.

2. I send them the email about how wonderful we are, a few referrals, examples/case studies and then 24 hours later...

3. A followup call where we close.

In my opinion, you MUST have a sales process... its just too hard to close on a first call in this business.

Click to expand...

So true, must be a process. Let's look at cold calling for what it really is....lead generation! You're not closing the sale on the initial call, you're closing the appointment or the next step in the sales process.

I totally agree there. When someone is making a $6k-$24k + contract binding marketing investment it is not going to be an impulse buy sale like you will see with one call sales for services that are month to month and cost $100 or less. Just wanted to add that my team sell the sh*t out of a service that is $100-$300/month with one call closes.

I use a three call process as well when working with SEO deals. You can't do it with one call, it's not worth the push because you risk losing a sale that would of closed with 2-3 calls. There are documents that need to be looked over like the proposal and contract. Like flexpaydude says "Let's look at cold calling for what it really is....lead generation!"

freddy7 said:

Anyone have any suggestions on successfully closing on the phone or in person? Will be dealing with SEO services, but I imagine the concept is still the same no matter what your selling. Open to suggestions for ebook, films, etc. Saw one film mentioned in another thread - Boiler Room?
I've read a bit into Conversation Hypnosis, but I feel there is too much emphasis on language patterns and stuff, that it cannot be applied until you have your own decent, sales technique.

Click to expand...

You should listen to John Durham's "Offline On Crack": http://multiupload.com/A6FIGX8NE0

It is 4 hours long and walks you through every step of the cold calling process it helped me a lot.