Cold Calling - My 100,000+ Experiences With Face To Face Selling

Well, pull up a real comfy chair, a favorite beverage of your choice and follow along as we go into some real world statistics of cold calling.

A long time ago in a galaxy far away I had a JOB that I could not stand but it paid the bills. Every day (rather night) at work the only thing I ever thought about was how to start my own biz and make money without needing a caretaker telling me what to do and what time to do it.

It really burned a hole in my heart dragging myself to work everyday. The petty BS and who's doing what to whom gossip. It would drive me crazy being around others with that mentality. It was like a little part in me was dying everyday. I wanted freedom.

As it turned out it took perhaps 3 years before I stumbled quite by accident into a business that I thought could let me tell the boss astalavista baby.

Actually I was reading the paper one morning on my break and I stumbled across an article that detailed a certain business. That business involved talking with local homeowners. As I was pretty much a shy, introverted guy that just wanted to make money without talking to people I tried to back engineer that business I read about so there would be no need for human contact (for the most part) and the rejection that comes with putting an offer in front of prospects.

Just to give you an idea of where I was at, I could not even get out of my car when I went to a new cold call prospect. My mind would show me images of them saying no and slamming the door in my face. Seriously, I could not even get the mojo to ring the doorbell and just talk to folks.

I wracked my brain for weeks, I knew the biz worked, I had seen the proof but I wanted to make it somewhat or primarily no face to face sales but somehow would still allow me to gather orders from interested parties, complete the work and get paid.

It was uphill all the way. Months went by. I could not figure a way to twist it so I did not have to deal with massive rejection. In a weird twist of fate I ran across someone that gave me the idea to have a small flyer printed with my phone number to call for the service.

I was excited!! I printed up 200 flyers at kinkos and spent the rest of the day passing them out. I could barely sleep!! When I went to work that night I figured my phone would be ringing all day long the next 2 or three days.

I got home at 830am from work ready to take all the calls! It was like I was on some drug! I was wound up and ready to make money!! Alas, not one call came in that day! What was wrong? I knew the business worked but not one person in 200 flyers called!! That's crazy. Then I went into a deep depression, I had dreams of quitting my job. The thought of dealing another 6 months with the morons at my job was driving me crazy.

Every day I thought and thought what could be wrong. My offer was good. My price was fair. Yet not ONE person called from the 200 flyers!!

Then BOOM!! One day an idea just hit me! I would use the same flyer but now I would reword it, add a twist and ask the customer to leave their name and phone number on the flyer if they wanted the service and that I would be around the next day to pick up the flyers and do the work.

So, what do you think? Out of 100 flyers how many would respond and leave a name and number?? Think about it for a moment.

Again, I was so excited that day after I finished posting the flyers. I did not want to get my hopes up too far. By now it was about 6 months later after I first heard about the business. That night at work I could barely work. I was thinking of my going away speech to my slave driver..er, cough, cough, boss.

I got off work that morning round 8am. I headed over to the area I posted the flyers. I still remember I had "Rock The Casbah" by The Clash playing in the car.

So, I start to make the rounds of the 100 flyers, 1st 10 homes nada! 11, 12, 13, 14 homes zip! That voice started in my head, "ANOTHER LOSER IDEA!". I ignored it and continued on. More homes with no results. I was really dreading going into work later that night as a marketing loser.

More homes with zip returns. I was really starting to get sad about it. I bust my ass, offer a good service at a fair price yet no one wants it! Am I some sort of freak? Was that story in the newspaper just made up BS to sell more newspapers? Did a local gypsy curse me when I cut her off years ago??

More homes with zip. But then, what was that I saw?? A blue flyer taped on the front door! My evil twin in my head said "It's only a flyer that someone failed to fill out." But you know what? As I got closer a feeling started jumping inside me! A feeling I had not felt in a long time. I imagine it's sort of like the feeling you might get if you win the lotto. For me it really was like winning the lotto. IT WAS MY FIRST ORDER!!!!

YES!! Yes!! YES!! Someone recognized the value in my service and was willing to part with their hard earned dollars in exchange for my services!!

I can't explain it to you, even today, what it was like the moment I saw the blue flyer with my customer's name and number on it. I came back to my car and I swear I had tears in my eyes! Now I know to a lot of folks an order for a minor amount of money is nothing, even boringly boring. But you know what? That blue flyer order to me symbolized freedom.

I kept on driving and more orders appeared as if by magic! I finished up collecting all the orders out of 100 flyers I placed the day before.

Would you like to guess the percentage out of 100 that requested my service?

5? 7? 15? 20? As it turned out later, I had 12 orders in my grubby paws for 100 flyers I placed the day before. And for the next few months that average would stay the same pretty much. anywhere from 7-15 orders for 100 flyers.

Say 10% average.

After a few months of doing things this way and discovering that most folks did not think I was a serial killer or a child molestor I learned to feel a lot more comfortable around customers. I mean it's not so hard when they gush over your work!! I would shoot the you know what with them in the afternoons when I went around collecting my fees. I discovered that 98% of all folks are pretty much alike. There are 2% that are plain nutcases. Once I had spoken to a hundred or so customers I sorta developed my own patter that made things easier. I wasn't scared of strangers anymore. I wasn't afraid of rejection anymore.

I knew that every no only meant I was getting that much closer to a yes.

I was thinking up ways to increase my sales and closing rates.

Then I read a book by Joe Girard. The top salesman in the world. He had a technique in his book that blew me away. I was determined to try it out!

At that time I was still using flyers to drum up biz. I was determined to take this to another level.

Sooo... I started knocking on doors, cold calling.

100% strangers that didn't know me from adam.

Even though I had developed lots of confidence and banter from my past way of doing business I still had my heart in my throat when I rang that doorbell for the first time. I was experienced yet I was still nervous. But I didn't let it show!

Before I rang every doorbell, I would pause for a moment and say mentally to myself "I know I can do it, I know I can do it, I know I can do it, I know I can do it...." up until the very split-second the person would open the door and greet me.

Then I started using the close I learned from Joe Girard and my sales shot up! What would you guess I was closing at??

I'll tell you. Out of over 100,000+ folks I spoke to while cold calling my close rate was 21-22%. I closed 21,500+ out of 100,000 I spoke with. Actually it was even more than 21% when I discovered a new twist that improved my close rate to 33%!!

Yes, no BS here. My overall close rate with the 2nd close twist was 33%! Out of 100 people I spoke with I knew in my heart I could close 33% or 1 out of 3 folks I spoke with I could get a sale. These statistics come from over 100,000+ conversations with potential customers.

Yes, in my life I have actually spoken to over 100,000 folks personally and up front. Face to face and pitched my offer. That's why I say that short of religious and political beliefs, 98% of all folks out there are basically the same. The same fears, the same desires, the same wants. Just different bodies and personalities.

Oh, I hear ya saying what was the twist that I learned to take my close rate from 21% to 33%.

Should I give that away? Hmm... It's your lucky day. All I did was offer the exact services as before but I would only charge $xx instead of $xx, a bargain they could not refuse. They could not even do the service I did that cheap themselves, even if they wanted to!!!

So what did I learn? I learned fear is your worst enemy and your best enemy. Fear will paralyze you with thoughts of failure that most likely will never come true. You see an image in your mind and believe it to be true. That image in your mind is not true but by your fear and by believing the image is true you set yourself up to fail.

You must develop a positive image in your mind and hold on to it. Even when others doubt you must stay strong. Let nothing interfere with your positive image. If another voice or image tries to sneak in you banish it by replacing it with concentration on your positive image and your positive thoughts.

Thoughts can and will break you. It's not for fun that coaches do pep talks before the game and during the game. Your mental attitude affects everything you do and all those around you that you come into contact with.

In life I think the game is 95% mental and 5% techniques. There are a kazillion techniques for sale. But unless your mental ship is afloat on the sea of positive thoughts and images it's all for vain. Your evil twin that lives inside your head will always come up with ways it will not or cannot work. That's his job, to see that things do not work or cannot work. When it turns out that way he has done his job. When you listen to him he has done his job. Ignore him and concentrate on your positive images and positive thoughts.

For those that have never cold called, much less cold called in person, face to face with exactly 5-10 seconds to make or break you, I feel for you. I really do.

I probably was the most introverted, shy person you are ever likely to meet in your life. I could not even open up my car door to get out of my car to cold call. That's how scared I was!! I am not joking you. I belly laugh at that now but back then it was serious. I was so paralyzed with fear. Images in my mind would run by me at 100mph showing me in vivid color detail all the things that will go wrong and all the negative responses I would get from disgruntled/angry potential customers.

That's just BS!!! In all my 100,000+ coldcalls I think I had perhaps 10 or 15 real axx-hxxxs! And those more than likely were just having a bad day and let their pent up emotions out on me. Most folks you are going to be able to tell in 10 seconds if you have a winner (a buyer) or someone that for one reason or another has no interest. You will get GOOD at picking up the body signals and voice intonations. You'll feel it before they say a word. It's weird but that's how it works.

Now here is the best thing. I saved it for last. Once you have cold called enough people to keep you busy then momentum and word of mouth takes off. It's funny and difficult to describe but your old customers will give you all the new business you could handle. And who do you trust more? A blurb on radio or tv or your best friend telling you what a crazy good deal he got last week. I leave that up to you to decide.

Yes, for some coldcalling is very hard. It's scary. It brings back those primal inner fears we all have of rejection. If you are not getting rejected daily you are not making money. Besides, it's not really rejection, it's just at this time that person does not really realize how badly he needs your service. One day he will and he/she will call you.

One thing will happen. You will start to learn a lot more about yourself. By interacting closely with large numbers of positive minded folks you will discover you really are an ok person, not a leper as you might have let your mind imagine.

I suppose it is like public speaking or even skydiving. The mere thought of standing in front of 25,000 people speaking to all of them or jumping out of a perfectly good airplane at 12,000 feet conjures up all kinds of negative images of what might happen. Why not replace them with positive images of what might happen?

I know it's scary as hell for someone that has never done it before. But you have to go through that fear to get over it. Yes, you must get over your fear of coldcalling. And the only way anyone gets over their fear of doing something is by ACTUALLY DOING IT. You cannot get over your fear by thinking about it, you have to get over your fear by DOING THE THING YOU ARE MOST AFRAID OF. That's the only way! Then, like me, you will look back and laugh at your former self.

Mandatory Reading List:
The Magic Story - (google search in quotes, it's the first listing)
Joe Girard - Any and all of his books.

P.S. 66 out of every 100 folks I spoke with flatly turned me down, rejected me. At the end of the day did I ever once contemplate on all the people that rejected me that day? Never, not once. It probably sounds very callous, cold or cruel but once I feel that negative energy ooze or I get that "not interested" thing I thank them for their time then I 100% forget about that experience and start to look for the next most likely customer. A customer that will be so appreciative and happy that I stopped by and so needs my services he doesn't even ask the price, he just says "Do it!" and bill me.

Trust me, you will feel great when all your business comes from client referrals. There's nothing like it in the world.

If you want to get really super positive about the dreaded cold calling figure up your no's to sales ratio. Say for example you are promoting a $500 service. You know you need to speak to 20 folks to get that order for example (your closing rates will vary from mine) then that means every "no" you get puts $25 in your virtual bank account. Is it really that hard to invest one or two minutes of your time to make $25?? The vast majority of folks on this rock would kill to be given that golden opportunity.

Every no I hear just means I just made the easiest $25 in the world and I'm that much closer to that person that will say "I'm so glad you called me today, I can't tell you how long I have been looking for someone like you!".

When cold calling you are also dealing with the law of probabilities. What's that I hear you say? The LOP states that just because you average say 30 sales out of 100 pitches does not mean you will get 3 sales out of ten. In my experience of 100,000+ cold calls I have seen the LOP extend out to 13 times the norm. In other words, instead of needing 3 pitches to make one sale I needed 42 pitches to make one sale. 1 in 42 is something like a 2.5% response which for me was the absolute worst ever I had seen, it's like seeing a cow fly it's so rare but one day it did happen.

Imagine, you are used to seeing 3 people and making one sale. That day started out as normal but it quickly went downhill. Nine out of 10 saying no was not too unusual for me since sometimes it reversed and I went four for four. I think my record was something like nine for nine. It was like shooting fish in a barrel. But that day headed south in a hurry. 10 pitches, no sales. I smelled my underarms to make sure. The next 10 all were no's, do I have something on my teeth? The next 10 again all no's. With my 1 in 3 record this is very abnormal!! To make a long story short, I make it a personal point each day to never go home on a no. I will work until I get a yes, then I go home. On that day I gritted my teeth and forced myself to keep going. The 42nd person said yes, I smiled, did my work, then went home and relaxed on a final yes.

That day was my personal worst ever. I had to make my pitch 42 times! I had to accept 41 no's in a row! I really thought I was doing something wrong or maybe I stepped in some dog poop or something. But no, it was only the LOP raising her ugly head.

In essence, even if you close 1 in 10 or 1 in 20 there will come a day where you will have to go through 130+ no's or 260+ no's depending on your closing rate.

If I had hit that 1 in 42 rate my first day out I probably would have quit right then and given up for good. Fortunately that incident did not happen until a couple years down the line when I had more experience under my belt.