Live Consulting Challenge - 730 Cold Calls + 100 Emails - The Results????

49 replies
Who am I?

As my forum username suggests, I'm Peter Jones and Internet Marketing Consultant and wait.... A Lorry Driver in the UK. I first started consulting a little over two years ago, around my driving job, my goal with consulting back then was to get out of the $48,000 worth of debt that I was in. Fast forward to right now and I'm debt free.

What did I know when I first started?

Very little with no proven results, I had built a couple of blogs in the past promoting clickbank products. These blogs made around $500 in the first year between them.

So in reality I knew how to buy a domain, install wordpress, optimise it using all in one seo pack, install a free theme, do basic keyword research, write the content and build some links.

This basic knowledge combined with many WSO's purchases over the past couple of years, the free information available on the Warrior Forum and a lot of determination to succeed have brought me to where I am today.

Today I am almost ready to take the leap and become a full time internet marketing consultant, my part time consulting business actually generates more profit each month than I receive in wages from my JOB.

Last week I actually injured my back which has forced me to take a week sick at a minimum. On the back of that I have decided to run myself a very public offline consulting challenge.

What exactly is this challenge?

The challenge is to contact 750 businesses and offer them my services, I will be contacting 130 per day with Cold Calling - something that I have only done very little of before.

I will also be contacting a further 20 businesses who have negative reviews on their Google Places pages, I will be doing this via email and then following up the next day with a telephone call. My normal method of lead generation is classified adverts which do actually work, I'm living proof of that so this is all new to me!

I offer a range of services but as this is cold calling I'm going to try and stand out from the noise by initially offering SMS text marketing services, and the service I'm offering the companies with poor reviews is obviously reputation management and SEO.

I am going to try to do all selling without any face to face meetings, this is how most of my selling has always been done however it is definitely easier to sell face to face.

I decided to do this challenge on the Warrior Forum in order to give back to the community that help me get to where I am today and hopefully to encourage others who are struggling to make money or get out of debt to take action.

I will be posting updates throughout each day, I will email the first 20 businesses with poor reviews this evening and start the cold calling tomorrow through to Saturday.

What's the Goal of this Challenge?

There are two goals one for me and one for everyone on the forum.

My Goal - To create as much income as possible this week, I'm realistically hoping for in excess of £1000 GBP which is approximately $1600 USD in addition to a monthly income stream in the same region which will be a nice addition to my current monthly client income.

My Goal for the forum - To inspire others to take action and make it happen! Only you can do it, no one will do it for you!

I'll keep you posted throughout each day with updates
#100 #730 #calls #challenge #cold #consulting #emails #live #offline #results
  • Profile picture of the author P1
    Awesome, following this thread.
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  • Profile picture of the author deezine
    Wonderful! I am in the midst of challenging my self in this way as well. I am starting my career all over again due to some unforeseen circumstances.

    I wish you much luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author SeanyG
    Your story is very exciting and I am very excited to see your results!
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  • Profile picture of the author Luther Landro
    This sounds amazing. I'm encouraged by your tenacity to accomplish your goal.

    I cold call a lot; its purely a numbers game that will yield fantastic results if you do it correctly.

    One tool that has helped me was a web-based autodialer. Just load in your list and it dials for you. I'd see how your list responds first; it may or may not work for your target. I found that while some industries don't care or recognize a computer is dialing them; others have got very wise to the idea.

    I think the point is that if your pitch is solid enough, they'll care less about the method, and more about the substance. (your pitch)

    A mix, a test, and hats off to your success.
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  • Profile picture of the author NiallR
    Well Peter if anyone can do this in one week it's you :-)

    Best of luck with it mate - I know you'll do it and then some!
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  • Profile picture of the author NiallR
    Well Peter if anyone can do this in one week it's you :-)

    Best of luck with it mate - I know you'll do it and then some!
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  • Profile picture of the author ebizman
    dude good luck ill be popping in on this thread in the future. im still a newb so still learning =)
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  • Profile picture of the author byte
    Best of luck Peter. I will be following your updates everyday. So post as much information as you can.
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  • Profile picture of the author hotlinkz
    Have you calculated the number of successful "decision maker contacts" for those 130 cold calls per day?

    Best of luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author AppsFromHome
    I'm gearing up to do a big cold calling campaign and it just so happens I will be offering SMS services too...so seeing this thread today is pure gold! Best of luck Peter....you'll do big things I'm sure.
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  • Profile picture of the author stone2010
    Good luck man iam definitely following this thread
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    • Profile picture of the author peter_jones
      Thanks for all your interest in my challenge

      Well, I fired off 21 emails this evening to businesses that have negative reviews on thier Google Places pages. Some of the reviews i read this eveing were terrible and these businesses really need some help.

      Im all geared up to contact 130 businesses via cold calling tomorrow, follow up with the 21 emails i sent this evening and locate another 20 to make initial contact with tomorrow evening via email.

      UncleLou: Thanks for this tip on the automated dialling system, this is definetaly something i will look to implement in my business at a later date.

      Carl Fridsjö: I have read up about cold calling and done a small amount in the past, ill see what happens and adapt my script as required. The script actually came from a wso on this forum.

      hotlinkz: I dont beleive it is possible to calculate the number of decision makers i will reach each day out of the 130 calls, only time will tell and of course adapting the calling script.

      Again thanks to everyone for taking an interest in my personal challenge, hopefully this proves to be an inspirational thread for many.

      Peter Jones
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      • Profile picture of the author greatzen
        Originally Posted by PeterJones View Post

        Thanks for all your interest in my challenge

        Well, I fired off 21 emails this evening to businesses that have negative reviews on thier Google Places pages. Some of the reviews i read this eveing were terrible and these businesses really need some help.

        Im all geared up to contact 130 businesses via cold calling tomorrow, follow up with the 21 emails i sent this evening and locate another 20 to make initial contact with tomorrow evening via email.

        UncleLou: Thanks for this tip on the automated dialling system, this is definetaly something i will look to implement in my business at a later date.

        Carl Fridsjö: I have read up about cold calling and done a small amount in the past, ill see what happens and adapt my script as required. The script actually came from a wso on this forum.

        hotlinkz: I dont beleive it is possible to calculate the number of decision makers i will reach each day out of the 130 calls, only time will tell and of course adapting the calling script.

        Again thanks to everyone for taking an interest in my personal challenge, hopefully this proves to be an inspirational thread for many.

        Peter Jones
        I think I know the script you are talking about Peter and I wish you the best of luck! I am very curious about your results. Will surely be following along the next few weeks.

        Lawrence
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  • Profile picture of the author byte
    Peter, congrats. I think 4 leads on a 60 call list is a big thing. Keep up the good work, mind sharing the scripts you are using for calls and email?

    Also how are you locating people on Google places? Since the new transitions the places in my local area are all missed up. And now it seems that NO ONE has reviews, since all the yelp, etc are gone. So its hard to sell them on a bad review.
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    • Profile picture of the author mtnbiker50
      Congrats Peter, will be watching how it goes for you! Will be interesting how the calling goes. Where did you get the list for calling?
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  • Profile picture of the author Adrian John
    Good luck on your journey.
    I'll follow up all the way cause I want to achieve same thing starting this evening too
    I'll market my mobile design service to different niches.
    I already got my leads from an scraper, and some scripts i will try so everything it's set.
    All i need right now it's a good headset to make clear calls.

    Keep us updated.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark_Austin
    Hi Peter, great thread and I look forward to seeing the results you get, Best of luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author barry500
      Good luck Peter

      this is the third cold calling thread I have seen today. Who says the old ways don't still work ?!!

      If of use Peter, go to www.prospectreach.com - where we put some of our UK data and B2B contacts, very rough and haven't looked at it for a bit but I would guess 90% accurate and saves you buying data.
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  • Profile picture of the author seabro
    Good luck Peter. I will be following as I hope to go full time in October.

    Can you let us know what you offer and how you present your offer to the clients with negative reviews?

    thanks
    seabro
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    • Profile picture of the author mike_lucas
      Good luck and I too will be very interested in watching this thread.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    Bookmarked, very interesting to see how it goes. Even if it turns out to be harder then expected, don't drop your efforts at first light.
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  • Profile picture of the author kmalikis
    Hello Peter,

    Fantastic method to share and give back at the same time. I am following your thread and progress. I'm excited for you and to see you succeed.

    Good on you Mate!

    Kamran

    Originally Posted by PeterJones View Post

    Who am I?

    As my forum username suggests, I'm Peter Jones and Internet Marketing Consultant and wait.... A Lorry Driver in the UK. I first started consulting a little over two years ago, around my driving job, my goal with consulting back then was to get out of the $48,000 worth of debt that I was in. Fast forward to right now and I'm debt free.

    What did I know when I first started?

    Very little with no proven results, I had built a couple of blogs in the past promoting clickbank products. These blogs made around $500 in the first year between them.

    So in reality I knew how to buy a domain, install wordpress, optimise it using all in one seo pack, install a free theme, do basic keyword research, write the content and build some links.

    This basic knowledge combined with many WSO's purchases over the past couple of years, the free information available on the Warrior Forum and a lot of determination to succeed have brought me to where I am today.

    Today I am almost ready to take the leap and become a full time internet marketing consultant, my part time consulting business actually generates more profit each month than I receive in wages from my JOB.

    Last week I actually injured my back which has forced me to take a week sick at a minimum. On the back of that I have decided to run myself a very public offline consulting challenge.

    What exactly is this challenge?

    The challenge is to contact 750 businesses and offer them my services, I will be contacting 130 per day with Cold Calling - something that I have only done very little of before.

    I will also be contacting a further 20 businesses who have negative reviews on their Google Places pages, I will be doing this via email and then following up the next day with a telephone call. My normal method of lead generation is classified adverts which do actually work, I'm living proof of that so this is all new to me!

    I offer a range of services but as this is cold calling I'm going to try and stand out from the noise by initially offering SMS text marketing services, and the service I'm offering the companies with poor reviews is obviously reputation management and SEO.

    I am going to try to do all selling without any face to face meetings, this is how most of my selling has always been done however it is definitely easier to sell face to face.

    I decided to do this challenge on the Warrior Forum in order to give back to the community that help me get to where I am today and hopefully to encourage others who are struggling to make money or get out of debt to take action.

    I will be posting updates throughout each day, I will email the first 20 businesses with poor reviews this evening and start the cold calling tomorrow through to Saturday.

    What's the Goal of this Challenge?

    There are two goals one for me and one for everyone on the forum.

    My Goal - To create as much income as possible this week, I'm realistically hoping for in excess of £1000 GBP which is approximately $1600 USD in addition to a monthly income stream in the same region which will be a nice addition to my current monthly client income.

    My Goal for the forum - To inspire others to take action and make it happen! Only you can do it, no one will do it for you!

    I'll keep you posted throughout each day with updates
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4340790].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author QuickSurf
      Only thing I'm curious about is how your handling the bad reviews on google places... just b/c they have bad reviews doesn't mean they deserve help, i.e. you have the companies that are scamming/not doing work as advertised (you def don't want to get involved with that), or you have those restaurants that no matter what's done will continue making sh!t food lol. Just a heads up
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      • Profile picture of the author peter_jones
        Hi All,

        Well what a day, its been hectic with current clients and cold calling.

        Here are the stats for todays cold calling:

        77 Calls made
        8 to call back tomorrow to speak to the decision maker
        2 appointments booked with business owners

        Here are the stats for the negative reviews emails sent last night:

        21 emails sent
        All followed up with a call this afternoon resulting in 2 requests from them for SEO/Reputation management proposals from me

        If the 2 cold calling ones go ahead which i have a good feeling about that will be £298 in total to set them up with the SMS service along with £198/ month and the two proposals for SEO/Reputation Management will total £900 startup and £600 per month.

        So the potential income generated from 21 emails last night and 77 cold calls today is £1198 setup fees and £798 per month should they all go ahead

        byte: I just using the reviews that are actually on the Google Places pages, not on third party sites

        mtnbiker50: Im using Yell.com to locate businesses to call then adding them to my spreadsheet to record the result of each call

        seabro: I basically send businesses with negative reviews an email showing them thier problem, copy and paste some of the negative reviews in the email and include a link to the actual Google Places page. I end the email with how my services can be of benefit to them

        QuickSurf: If they have bad reviews it is not always the businesses fault, all i can do is advice them as part of my reputation management service on how to collect good reviews for me to use. If they are crap at keeping customers happy nothing can change that but they are paying me for the advice and service - how they implement that advice is up to them

        This evening i will be creating the two SEO/Reputation management proposals, contacting another 20 businesses with negative reviews and getting my calling list ready for tomorrow morning.

        Tomorrow i am aiming to call 183 businesses to make up for the ones i didnt get to today, following up with the 20 i email this evening and emailing another 20.

        Thanks for all of your kind words of support and encouragement!
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        • Profile picture of the author MoLoSoMar
          Originally Posted by PeterJones View Post


          Tomorrow i am aiming to call 183 businesses to make up for the ones i didnt get to today, following up with the 20 i email this evening and emailing another 20.

          Thanks for all of your kind words of support and encouragement!
          Great work Peter! Thanks for the update. Having made 10's of thousands of cold calls I know what it's like. I will point out though that keeping up with your existing clients as well as following up on ones that want more information will make it harder and harder for you to keep adding the calls you weren't able to make to the next days calls.

          Most people tend to feel overwhelmed at some point and actually make fewer calls. (although I don't think that describes you.) For what it's worth I recommend you keep your daily goal of 120 calls and only adjust it according to how successful you are at getting sales. You will find that it takes more time to make sales than it does to make calls since you have to go through your presentation so on a day that you make 3 or 4 sales don't be surprised if your call count for the day is actually lower. The key is the sales and making the calls every day. Just food for thought.
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        • Profile picture of the author SeanyG
          Keep up the great work!


          Originally Posted by PeterJones View Post

          Hi All,

          Well what a day, its been hectic with current clients and cold calling.

          Here are the stats for todays cold calling:

          77 Calls made
          8 to call back tomorrow to speak to the decision maker
          2 appointments booked with business owners

          Here are the stats for the negative reviews emails sent last night:

          21 emails sent
          All followed up with a call this afternoon resulting in 2 requests from them for SEO/Reputation management proposals from me

          If the 2 cold calling ones go ahead which i have a good feeling about that will be £298 in total to set them up with the SMS service along with £198/ month and the two proposals for SEO/Reputation Management will total £900 startup and £600 per month.

          So the potential income generated from 21 emails last night and 77 cold calls today is £1198 setup fees and £798 per month should they all go ahead

          byte: I just using the reviews that are actually on the Google Places pages, not on third party sites

          mtnbiker50: Im using Yell.com to locate businesses to call then adding them to my spreadsheet to record the result of each call

          seabro: I basically send businesses with negative reviews an email showing them thier problem, copy and paste some of the negative reviews in the email and include a link to the actual Google Places page. I end the email with how my services can be of benefit to them

          QuickSurf: If they have bad reviews it is not always the businesses fault, all i can do is advice them as part of my reputation management service on how to collect good reviews for me to use. If they are crap at keeping customers happy nothing can change that but they are paying me for the advice and service - how they implement that advice is up to them

          This evening i will be creating the two SEO/Reputation management proposals, contacting another 20 businesses with negative reviews and getting my calling list ready for tomorrow morning.

          Tomorrow i am aiming to call 183 businesses to make up for the ones i didnt get to today, following up with the 20 i email this evening and emailing another 20.

          Thanks for all of your kind words of support and encouragement!
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  • Profile picture of the author camilopez
    Good luck with this I will be following your accomplishments!
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  • Profile picture of the author TGArthur
    Good luck buddy!

    I hope to hear your results soon.
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    great thread, but youre doing ALL the repetitive hard work yourself, why not outsource a great deal of it, up your prices to cover the cost, concentrate on only doing what you do best .
    After all 1 sales a day from 100 outsourced calls plus outsourced emails and you then having time to over deliver on each client is better than 2 sales a day from 160 of your own calls plus all the emails and totally knackering yourself in the process so you struggle to then deliver anywhere near your potential.
    The lifetime value of your hopefully ever expanding client base is whats gonna make your bank account healthier rather than the initial couple of months fees and then they leave as youre too tied up prospecting every day.

    I dont doubt you deliver but theres only one you and only 24 hours in each day and even you need time out, I mean youre already what 40 calls behind schedule.......

    Work smart , not hard ;-)
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    Mike

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  • Profile picture of the author StevieJK
    Wow - nice work!

    £600 per month for SEO - nice!

    Can I ask whether these are large businesses or small local businesses?
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    • Profile picture of the author KabirC
      Originally Posted by StevieJK View Post

      Wow - nice work!

      £600 per month for SEO - nice!

      Can I ask whether these are large businesses or small local businesses?
      That is NOTHING! He should be charging more like $2250, if he is working with anyone bigger than a small mom and pop store, he is getting ripped off.
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  • Profile picture of the author SeanyG
    Update? Excited to hear your progress!
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  • Profile picture of the author tmoby
    Great thread! I am looking forward to an update!
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  • Profile picture of the author tuscan
    Go get 'em, Peter. I'm eager to read about your success!
    Tuscan
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  • Profile picture of the author martyJames
    Hi Peter

    What a great thread- will follow with interest-thanks. I dont agree with comment above re outsourcing , yet , anyway. By making many ,many calls (i know ive been in sales for 20 years) you eventually discover 'patterns' that work- meaning certain phrases , humour , facts ..whatever. Mke a note of these' patterns' that work and build them into your spiel..not robot like, just be aware of them.
    Also , i guess its a numbers game if you are getting 2-5 % interest from your calls/emails thats fantastic.

    Cheers

    Marty
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris Cho
    Good luck bro. I'm sure there's no way to fail with your approach. Action = $$$

    Aint nothing really to it but to do it.

    If there's one thing... I wish you update this everyday like you said because that's the only reason i read down the thread. Kinda feel like I wasted my time because I really wanted to see how things went.

    Other than than that... wish you the best of luck! =)
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  • Profile picture of the author MoLoSoMar
    Peter we miss you. Any updates?
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  • Profile picture of the author pbdollars
    do I miss something? Your case study is great. Out of the sample marketing you did how much revenue did you generate? Can your marketing model can be implemented in other parts of the world?
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    • Profile picture of the author jimbo13
      ^ What Marketing model are you seeing here?

      Some phone calls and a couple of e-mails?

      Dan
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  • Profile picture of the author bankcardguru
    good luck. I will follow your progress!
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    i fear hes burned out trying to do too much as per my warning post earlier :-(

    hopefully Im wrong
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    Mike

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    • Profile picture of the author jimbo13
      ^ Possibly.

      Problem with the thread now is that it reads 850 businesses contacted and zero sales if Peter did actually manage to contact 850.

      Dan
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  • Profile picture of the author sloanjim
    ok...so what happened here?
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  • Profile picture of the author sparro
    Good Job Peter. Push for consistency even if its only 30 calls but do it every day till you reach your goal. You can do it!!
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  • Profile picture of the author MoLoSoMar
    come on Peter. Come back and give us an update. No matter what it is.
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    • Profile picture of the author P1
      Originally Posted by MoLoSoMar View Post

      come on Peter. Come back and give us an update. No matter what it is.
      +1 I would also like to know the progress this was months ago! very interesting to know how everything went in that timeframe.
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  • Profile picture of the author D37
    Would like to see your progress... how did it go?
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    Thank you to everyone on WF for all the great information, help, support, and kindness you have all shared!

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