My Experience With Cold Calling

OfflineMaster said:
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.
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No that was super solid, only question I would have with that would be, how much info do I give him, do I ask him questions, do I straight up ask him if he is interested, do I tell him things that he is doing wrong etc?
 
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If you haven't called for a while, stick to the basics. Don't get ahead of yourself. Just pretend you are talking to a friend, if you mess up, or choke up, say "sorry, let me start that over" - just be casual, but professional.

1) On the FIRST call, or first time you talk to him, your goal should either be to get approval to do a mockup and email it to him, or to set up a time that works for him to go over your offerings, but he should be clear on WHAT you are selling (Site design). I would maybe ask one or two questions:

Do you have a website? When was it last updated/created? How many people contact you through it, or say "I found you on the internet"? Basic questions to show him things you will discuss and that will help you determine if he's a quality lead.

2) At your meeting/follow up to the mockup - you have free reign. I would do an assessment of his site, the traffic to it, any flash/pics/link issues, where he needs improvement and then what you can do. Ask him if he's thought of doing anything different, but just didn't want to bother with it...get him involved.

Have you called before?
 
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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Ten cold calls per day? are u kidding?! It should be a minimum of 50 a day for seeing results.
 
I think if you have an "angle", then cold calling is a lot easier. I am considering joining my local chamber of commerce. They have 700 or so members in their directory. So when I call, I can say I am a fellow member of chamber of commerce, that would give me credibility as well as a few more minutes of their time.
 
I never liked the idea of cold calling, I guess I feel like I bother people and I myself dont like to be bothered.... although I dont like it, its something ive got to do.
 
I do big stage sales (seminars for high ticket items) and our sales team has a script they must memorize with a series of leading questions (designed to get a yes) and a list of 25+ objections to drive them to the ultimate objection. Once they figure that out it is nothing more than closing the sale.

For prractice go to the local mall and pitch your product to the sales people at the kisoks. Or make a product up, just get the facetime practice.
 
Congratulations on putting forth the effort of cold calling. Please do not listen to much
criticism since most people choke when they do it.

Cheers
Unclemike
 
Thanks for all the comments! I started up again yesterday and today after a good family holiday.

I called all the driving instructor companies in my area, alot of people would not even listen to me, the ones that did I explained how having a poor website is like going to a place to get your car fixed and you see the building is all broken and dirty looking and you dont go. I also amped them up explaining that I was going through all the driving companies and I will only be selecting one company. I chatted with a few people and one girl seemed interested, I am suppose to call her back in a week to set up a date to meet up. she said if she likes what I have to offer shed be down. There was one guy who was a supper asshole, hes talking about how web design is so easy and how my job is useless and how I shouldnt even be offering this. I basically tried to explain to him the importance of a good website and what it can do for him and asked why he doesnt just have the best website ever? needless to say, I just hung up on him because he just wanted to argue. I get discouraged at times but I am going to keep at it.

I may also start recording my phone calls with a camera to see what I look like and how I am speaking, probably upload the audio for everyone to critique etc.
 
No, that is a waste of time. You just need to keep calling. Your pitch will get better as you talk to more people. My suggestion is that you need to stop with the analogies and tell them what they will GET out of you doing their site.

- more views
- more customers

Offer to send them a mockup and let them see what it looks like rather than trying to create a visual over the phone. Your mockup can be a generic site with their name and phone in it, and you can say "we can change any of this but I wanted to show you a professionally made layout. What do you like about the heading...?" You just start leading them.

So, in short, make more calls, streamline your pitch.
 
OfflineMaster said:
No, that is a waste of time. You just need to keep calling. Your pitch will get better as you talk to more people. My suggestion is that you need to stop with the analogies and tell them what they will GET out of you doing their site.

- more views
- more customers

Offer to send them a mockup and let them see what it looks like rather than trying to create a visual over the phone. Your mockup can be a generic site with their name and phone in it, and you can say "we can change any of this but I wanted to show you a professionally made layout. What do you like about the heading...?" You just start leading them.

So, in short, make more calls, streamline your pitch.
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solid, I guess I was being lazy in hoping I could get off without putting the work into the mockup first :p I need to build a better portfolio anyways. I also have a friend of the family who wants a website done so I guess its some work :P more calls tomorrow, also everytime I ask "can I talk to the owner", it sounds to salesman then they ask "what is it regarding blah blah" and I usually say "I wanted to talk to him/her about some changes to his/her website" any better version of this!
 
Just to update, I am in the middle of two contracts at the moment, they are not from the cold calling but doing that did put me in the head space of running a business and so it really motivated me.(one is $2000+ contract the other will probably be around $1500-3000 by the end) However in a month I am going to be an office manager for a political party in Canada, so my IM stuff will be only maintaining and finishing my current clients needs while I am working on the political side of things.
 
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