My Experience With Cold Calling

I am starting to do cold calling along with walk ins, the plan is to do at least 10 calls a day. I started today with 10, 1 No, 9 other calls the owner was not in or busy. Some of those I call back today and some I call back later in the week. Goal is to get 3 new customers for a re-design/design . I will post up everyday with how it goes and how the conversations go so everyone can learn.

This is very nice!
Will follow definitely as I want to take action in same type of business in summer..

Good luck man

If you have the persistence to keep knocking on doors you are guaranteed to succeed....good luck

Edit: This is the best cold calling thread Ive ever read...has to be some good stuff in their for you.
http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackh...ng/297088-holy-crap-i-stink-cold-calling.html

Some people will say "why only 10?" But I am a cold-caller too, and I still remember that 10 calls in a day is a LOT when you are used to making 0. So congrats, and keep it up!

haha thanks wally, yeah after doing the calls today I realized 10 goes so quick but just getting up the nerve takes awhile. @seventyone I am calling locally, pretty much anyone that has a site that I know I could make better and make them more money. I called back the ones that said to call today, once again the owners where still out but the secretaries seem to love me. I get their names and I stay organized, I have a google doc sheet of each businesses name, owners name, secretaries name, #, comments, last contacted and when to contact next. The one thing I did run into was a girl asking what it was about and I just told her I wanted to chat with him about his website, I re framed it like it was something that I already talked to him about so I think thats good. Gonna get a new list tonight for tomorrow and aim for 20. Thanks guys.

Very cool! I like the Google docs idea, I need to make notes and stay organized too, so I think I'll try that out. I know getting up the nerve is terrible, I struggle with it too, but for me nothing else has worked so it's either call or fail.


It's really not that hard, and for the most part people are super nice even if they say no.


W

jake454 said:

I am starting to do cold calling along with walk ins, the plan is to do at least 10 calls a day. I started today with 10, 1 No, 9 other calls the owner was not in or busy. Some of those I call back today and some I call back later in the week. Goal is to get 3 new customers for a re-design/design . I will post up everyday with how it goes and how the conversations go so everyone can learn.

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Cold Calling can be tough but if you can have a clear benefit and a targeted list it is that much easier. There is a method on this forum where they target yahoo website owners. Search the forum for "Killed it with This. $7500 in 3 Days." Use that strategy and adapt to your local area.

Good luck

AtlasMeh'd said:

Cold Calling can be tough but if you can have a clear benefit and a targeted list it is that much easier. There is a method on this forum where they target yahoo website owners. Search the forum for "Killed it with This. $7500 in 3 Days." Use that strategy and adapt to your local area.

Good luck

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Yeah, I liked that post. However most people in Canada have moved to the yellowpages version of it. Which is a really good idea on their part, its anywhere from 50-300 dollars a month for a basic website that clean and easy to make. People come to them because their trusted and they bank huge off it. I do not even try and target those people because its a fine website. I mainly just go through the yellow pages and look for people with ads that have shitty websites. I am going to start doing walk ins also for people with no website at all.

AtlasMeh'd said:

Cold Calling can be tough but if you can have a clear benefit and a targeted list it is that much easier. There is a method on this forum where they target yahoo website owners. Search the forum for "Killed it with This. $7500 in 3 Days." Use that strategy and adapt to your local area.

Good luck

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a really good thread that one is, lot's of tips in it. Definitely check it out op.

Really are much more veracious cold calls than email offers? I wonder about it these days and I am more open to email offers... anyway, I should it probably re-evaluate.

You sound pretty organised with your methods. How long did 10 calls take then? 5 mins?

Dan

jimbo13 said:

You sound pretty organised with your methods. How long did 10 calls take then? 5 mins?

Dan

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Around 30 mins, with the re-calls. Yeah, I am a naturally unorganized person but I certainly work better when I am organized so I do it right.

So you can do a couple of half hour sessions a day then. Short enough that if you have a bunch of nasty people all in one go which is unlikely you would have finished before it affected your mindset.

Good luck with your venture. Onward and upward as they say - whoever they are. Never worked that out.

Dan

I used to have to do them when I was in the oil industry with the online stuff I have got lazy will be interesting to see how it goes.

Just stick with this, it will get easier and easier the more you call. It's all a numbers game, the more you call the more people will say 'yes' to your service. Good luck and keep up updated

Congrats for starting calls, however, if you want 3 sales anytime soon, you have GOT to make more calls than that. The probability that working for 30 minutes a day is going to net you a sale (or 3) is nil. Here's how I know...we have 7 clients this week, 5 of them are SEO/Web design clients. I have set a TOTAL of 36 appointments for just the 5 SEO clients. This is just the appointment to get the DM on the phone, where he has been qualified and has the time to speak to them. You've got to lay the groundwork, because unfortunately, everyone is not going to be interested in your product, or ready to buy when you get them on the phone.

Just replied on another thread and I mentioned the following:

We've done this for almost a decade and while I applaud that you started somewhere (everyone has to), if you are expecting to see miracles and not be homeless, you have GOT to dial more than 20 numbers in an hour/day/week. We dial anywhere from 200-600 numbers PER Client, PER day, and our appointment setting rate varies significantly based on the quality of the list, the niche, the pitch and the follow up/confirmation. If you don't have the ability or desire (to dial as much as necessary), or you are unable to handle the "no's" without being discouraged, then hire someone to do it for you.

OfflineMaster said:

Congrats for starting calls, however, if you want 3 sales anytime soon, you have GOT to make more calls than that. The probability that working for 30 minutes a day is going to net you a sale (or 3) is nil. Here's how I know...we have 7 clients this week, 5 of them are SEO/Web design clients. I have set a TOTAL of 36 appointments for just the 5 SEO clients. This is just the appointment to get the DM on the phone, where he has been qualified and has the time to speak to them. You've got to lay the groundwork, because unfortunately, everyone is not going to be interested in your product, or ready to buy when you get them on the phone.

Just replied on another thread and I mentioned the following:

We've done this for almost a decade and while I applaud that you started somewhere (everyone has to), if you are expecting to see miracles and not be homeless, you have GOT to dial more than 20 numbers in an hour/day/week. We dial anywhere from 200-600 numbers PER Client, PER day, and our appointment setting rate varies significantly based on the quality of the list, the niche, the pitch and the follow up/confirmation. If you don't have the ability or desire (to dial as much as necessary), or you are unable to handle the "no's" without being discouraged, then hire someone to do it for you.

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yeah, solid advice. I have no problem with the no's, I do pickup for fun and super ego girls in the club are much worse than a business owner on the phone. Regardless I still get nervous so I will work my way up. 20 today is what I am aiming for and 30 tomorrow but I will stop after that because its so close to Christmas. Wont be starting up again till after the new year, I am assuming it would be easier to sell then. anyways, could you pm what your conversations usually go like?

We are off now through Christmas day...starting up Wednesday. It would be even EASIER to sell after the new year if you call next week and get your DM's name, set up the appointment or catch them when they are in because they have given other people the week of.

Tell me what you're selling, what your pitch is now...for instance, are you selling websites and going for a phone sale in one call or are you going for an email mockup and then an appointment. I'll answer with some basic convo's.

OfflineMaster said:

We are off now through Christmas day...starting up Wednesday. It would be even EASIER to sell after the new year if you call next week and get your DM's name, set up the appointment or catch them when they are in because they have given other people the week of.

Tell me what you're selling, what your pitch is now...for instance, are you selling websites and going for a phone sale in one call or are you going for an email mockup and then an appointment. I'll answer with some basic convo's.

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I am selling a website re-design or design, (later on I up sell logos etc.), I am looking to go from phone to meetup, I am calling only business's in my area.

Start with your list, and then once you are large enough, or run out of numbers locally, you can always do phone appointments...they convert just as well as in person.

Your goal:
Make the call
Get to the DM
Gauge interest so you aren't wasting your time
Get the appointment for a time when they can speak with you
GO and sell yourself (or call and sell yourself)!

Those are your only goals...do them, in that order.

The gatekeeper is there to keep you from that goal, and no, she doesn't want you to friend her, flirt with her, be nice to her, patronize her or anything else, she wants you to state your business or get off her phone. How do I know? I was one for 7 years before I did this. We don't want to be your friend, stop with that.

Here is how to answer/deal:
- You say "is Jack in/may I speak with the owner/etc" - If the GK asks who you are or what your business is that is code for "he's not talking to you or he is unavailable" so you say "if he's not available now, can you tell me when I could catch him today?" See, we're changing the subject...and we keep doing that until she either answers or you just say "that's ok, I'll try him back later." This is why we don't say who we are until we talk to the DM...so you can keep calling back to do this as needed.

Now, IF she offers to put you straight to VM, you accept...why? Because you can leave this message - and this is the ONLY MESSAGE you ever leave:
"Hi Jack, this is Mary, I was trying to catch you in the office, please call me back at _______" and hang up.
Is he going to call you back...there's a 99% chance he won't. Why do we do this then? Because you can hit 0 and go back to the GK and say "I left Jack a message and wanted to know when you expect him in so I know when he'll get it?" Most of the time she's got her guard down, and she will say "tomorrow morning" and you say "thanks, what was your name again?" - Guess when you're calling back?

TO SAY: Hi Casey, I spoke with you yesterday and left Jack a message, does he happen to be in?" She will say no, and you say ok and hang up, or she will say yes, and put you through.

YOU SAY (this is also what you say if you get the DM the first call): Jack, this is Mary, I called and LVM for you yesterday and I wanted to see if you got a chance to listen to it (most of the time it will be a "no" and they will apologize for being so rude as to not call you back)

YOU SAY: Oh, that's fine, let me take a minute to tell you what I said - and you're in...make your appointment after giving a minimal amount of info to gauge his interest.

My advice is always to have a "thing" whether it's a mockup that you offer to send over via email and then say "great, I'm going to send over that email, will you be in on Thursday morning? Then find the day/time that works and set up the follow up call/appointment.

Let me know if I missed anything you were looking for.