Hate Cold Calling! Am I Screwed?

I know you might not love it - but they can only say no. Not sure what your service is - but if it is IM/SEO space why not call and say you offer a free service helping them claim and keep their Google places spot.

Think it is fair to say even businesses appearing in the seven pack have not always claimed their place.

Simple enough to do then you can call them back tell them job done and would they be interested in other ways you could bring them new customer - bit lighter touch than just direct.

Anyway - just an idea.

"To get what you've never had, you must do what you've never done.”
Brian Tracy, author of The Power Of Discipline

Hugh

Establish a web presence. If your company has no policies against establishing a personal website to promote yourself as a salesperson, create one. Make sure it talks about your strengths as a salesperson, and highlights your skills and experience. Emphasize yourself as a resource, with your company representing the solutions that you can bring to bear to solve a prospect's most pressing business needs. Create a blog to communicate with customers and prospects on both personal and professional levels. Include a prominent link to your website on all of your communications.

Cold calling is a drag, time consuming, and cheap.

On the other hand, direct mail is much more effective and easier to do. However, it's not as cheap as cold-calling.

Well, that's not exactly true. See, cold-calling takes a lot of time and time is money.

I don't know how much you value your time, but my time is worth a lot more than the few bucks an hour I could pay somebody to make the calls for me.

If you don't want to go the direct mail route, have you considered outsourcing the cold calling?

Another option is to hire sales reps on a straight commission basis. Simply put an ad on Craig's list and recruit people to make the calls for you.

Be warned though, they're going to want the leads. As long as you provide them, they'll call all day for you.

Give a generous commission since you're not paying them until they make a sale.

I hope that helps!

Generate clients by building a local reputation in a more face to face environment. Much nicer than cold calling, and the relationships you develop normally count for a lot more too.

How to meet business owners? Join your local chamber of commerce, or attend business breakfasts. Leverage your network and build your brand!

^^^Great idea but how do you get the business owner to agree to put your advertisement on their counter?

We don't do any cold-calling, yet we're doing $45k in residual SEO each month. There are plenty of ways to get the job done without picking up the phone, and cheap.

Hell, there are plenty of WSO's out there that teach a myriad of ways to get clients with cold-calling.

Although, the pluses of cold-calling is that you learn objections, which is very important. It also teaches you how to engage your customers/clients. Offline marketing is as much about social interaction, as it is knowing how Google Places optimization works.

I'm pitching a $225k deal on Monday evening, over drinks/dinner. I know every objection and have every answer for this potential client. My point is that you need to know what you're doing to make money - best way to swim is to jump into the pool and flop around until you learn that there is a right way to swim...the way that keeps your head above water.

I think you would be better off sending out direct mail pieces and couple that with email follow up before calling someone. Three hits in three different mediums with the possibility of tripling your cold call results.

Calling Calling can suck BUT I'm generating over $10k/month in new business from cold calling so I KNOW it works

If you don't like doing it you can always outsource it (if you have the money to invest in a telemarketer).

Good luck.

- Ahmad

imagine there is no Internet, (sorry), midasman09 Don got it perfectly. you can blend in many more methods of getting someone to go through your pre-recorded system. what he desribed was what i used offline to make my first 7 figures from zoro in two years. i was also on the phone constantly to more. when i was new, and knew it, i called small businesses answering machine after they were closed to practice before i went live. my mentor told me the quickest way to get rich doing this home biz stuff was to make a quick 10,000 phone calls, and i did. i actually dialed off the numbers off one phone.
i was flying to cancun one time, and ended up chatting with the guy next to me. he was like the 2nd or 3rd largest earner in a old-time mlm. he actually used our system we were using in his company. he set it up with roadside signs. 2-minute message, then prerecorded overview, and invitiation to meet him-you had to sign up, do a few thousand in volume and bring in 3 people before you got to speak to him-brilliant that he held his bar so high.
i am not sure what you product or service is, but not if, WHEN you KNOW (not believe) that you have a golden goose that lays golden eggs under your arm and you are attempting to hand that item to somone, your "posture" is ideal, and you can now use "take away" as well. if you do not have that feeling, you may wish to re examine your venture or bolster yourself inner self up.
one thing is for sure, i'd say about half of america, even the ones who don't like a solitation or cold-call, probably need it if you have something good. when you cold call enough to where you do like? you are set for life. prosperous regards, Dr. Mike

Do joint ventures. Put together a great seminar and then offer that seminar to the clients of accountants, printers, chamber's of commerce, banks, business brokers, and other businesses that are already working with your target market.

You are not screwed. Most people dont realize that there is an ENTIRE 50 year old industry designed to help folks like you... who I am assuming would fall into the category of an "internet marketing agent".

You need appointments with customers, or call in leads or live transfers...

So do

Travel Agents
Final expense agents
Life insurance agents
SEO developers
Mobile Marketers
Merchant Service agents
Construction Salesman
Mortgage companies
Loan Officers
Merchant cash advance companies
Real Estate Agents
Investment bankers
Car Insurance agents...

The list goes on... Do you know that a salesman can make $4000 commission, just marketing pre-burial insurance (cemetary plots) to people over 50? And for good reason, it costs an average of over 10k on the "low" end, to bury someone in America these days... People dont want to have to worry about wether their family can afford to bury them...so they buy preburial insurance. And the agents make a ton of money, and so do the telemarketing appointment setters.

Do you know they pay $100 bucks per appointment for a telemarketer plus commission, just to set up an appointment with a person who wants to discuss pre burial insurance?

Do you know EVERY SINGLE CEMETARY IN AMERICA HAS PREBURIAL SALESMAN THAT NEED APPOINTMENTS?

Thats just one of hundreds of niches that like yourself, need live customers to talk to.

Bet you didnt ... Most people, including ones around here talking about being pro appointment setters dont know these niches exist.

Look up BPO companies on google "Business Process Outsourcing".

Trust me the appointment setting, lead generation industry... Is actually WAY huger than the internet marketing industry.... There are a ton of companies who will generate appointments, leads and live transfers for you...

Does it cost?

Yes, its the cost of having someone else do what you dont like to... In other words, YOU dont have to contact customers...but SOMEONE has to...

Thats where BPO companies come in... You hear the term "Appointment setting" used around here in a real basic fashion... Fact is there is a HUGE industry built around this that existed long before the internet.

There are literally 100 industries outside of IM that use telemarketed lead generation services.

So, no you arent screwed if you dont like to cold call, there are a thousand BPO companies that will gladly set your leads for you for a price. It is practically "protocol" in most insurance companies for instance to have 5-6 different BPO's who regularly send them leads for their thousands of agents...

How do I know? Because I use to be one... In fact my call center was an authorized affiliate for the Lead Tree.com... as well as other BPO copmpanies... We called everything from mortgage, to seo, to insurance, to final expense, to merchant advance services...

This industry is bigger than most would imagine and its a gold mine for anyone who can use a phone, even if they dont want to outsource or dont know how to build a website. A person can start a BPO compnay with none of that...

Why? Because of people like yourself who are desperate for leads but hate to cold call.

Again, google BPO companies... and you will get a ton of results of people wanting to send you live transfers, or appointments, or call in leads.

For a price... but all business is for a price. You either pay the price of prospecting, or you pay the price of having someone do it for you.

There are no sales without prospecting one way or the other.

Can anyone even suggest a guide at all that would deal with email scripts or direct mail scripts for offline line consultant that would help me out before I would cold-call?

Are you screwed ? maybe

i would say man up or woman up and give yourself the chance to make some money

I hate cold calling as well but I hate more than cold calling is being broke

It is all in your head . You got to change what you think rejection means to you

i used to do door to door marketing selling charities and people would say no to me . Rarely was anyone ever rude to me ... Although that was all i imagined all day long would if i approached people and most times as you get into the routine you would at least get 1 out of every 100 people to buy

It is a number game . If you are selling your service , you know what would mean if you went ahead and got at least one customer to your SEO service at $500 a pop . In 6 days, you have earned your self $3000

if you still don't want to do it , you must pay for someone who is better than you to prospect for you

You get to avoid prospecting all together but your business crumbles without them

I think most B@B marketers hate cold calling. Getting your foot in the door with as many businesses as you can is key to success and there are many ways to do this. Have you been working with LinkedIN? It's Amazing!

Where would be the best place to outsource cold calling if that is possible at all, has or does anyone currently do this?

Cold calling is as real as it gets. It's easy to ignore an email or brush aside an ad. But if you can build up the skills it takes to TALK to someone and CLOSE A DEAL, you've just set yourself up for life.

Plus I think a lot of what you "hate" about it is all in your head. If you're strapped for cash it's definitely the way to get started.

When you got the money, start hiring telemarketers. I wouldn't recommend OUTSOURCING it. You need to manage them and train them.

Cold calling sucks, we all hate it

Send emails, do advertising, hire someone else to cold call for you, work referrals with your market markets.... look at what you have now (circle of influence) and call them up and say hey I need your help... who do you know that looks like this: insert your target market.

example: small business, ugly or no website, and is doing some kind of marketing now.... get the referral centers going!

go talk to some business owners, just walk in and say hey, real quick... i want to help some local businesses with their online marketing results... no charge... just tell me what you're doing now and I'll see how i can help you... then give em some killer advice and ask for referrals.

Chris

I used to despise cold calling as well but then I realized a few things about it. First off, the worst that they can say is No. Are you that afraid of rejection that you can't stand someone that you do not known telling you no thank you?

Also, business owners get called every day by people trying to market some sort of product or service to them. Who are you to them? Just another person trying to get their money. There is a way to get around that though. You have to be creative and do something to stand out that the others aren't doing.

Usually it's an awesome & creative script or if you can get them to listen long enough, make them an irresistible offer. What also works great is doing a little research before you call them. Don't spend a lot of time on that though. Just Google a niche and start on page 4-5 of the SERPs and start calling people. I recommend doing a whois search on the domain name and trying to get a contacts name if possible. That makes it easier to get past the gatekeeper.

For phone scripts I like to recommend The Telemarketing Forum, Its awesome! THey have a good section on Offline marketing.

Once you call like 10 businesses you will get over your fear. The people are usually nice that answer.

A scripted line is not a good idea at all....trust me! the minute you script everything the conversation will go in another direction and your screwed. This is something most people hate to do.....you should consider doing one or two cold calls a day and at some point you will be looking back and realizing you are doing what you thought you had trouble doing. One or two GOOD calls is better than 50 bad ones.

You NEED passion....passion is the biggest element one needs when finding a salesman.....I once hired a salesman (that said what your saying) but he wouldnt leave my office because he became passionate about my product...I hired him and he became my main stream of income.

I personally only hire passionate people anymore. Getting past the gate keeper is the biggest challenge one would run into.....but he did.

He did a mailout at one point that did well because it was personal....not a printed mailout....It was in a form of a personal letter to the person who is at the top....not the girl screening calls.

I wouldnt waiste time putting cards etc in local facilities....I dont like them and NEVER use them....Use that energy to do what Im mentioning....I would seek specific sites that I personally know a little about so I can talk the talk with them....people love when you know a little about the same industry.

Back when I needed a writer I found a retired contractor who worked 38years in the industry I needed some writing about....imagine how good that went...then triple it.

Target some sites that you have common ground with....email them and maybe ask for the person at the top....dont give the info about you until they give you what your asking for.....just mention its website related. people get so curious that they weaken to find out what is knocking at the door. If its not working out...leave a call back number for the owner to contact you when he can...1 in 10 may call.

You would pique my interest if you mailed me a letter or somehow emailed and said......Hey Darren.....Im very familiar with your industry and I do SEO work and would love to show you what I can do to make us both some money! end your sales pitch right then.....if it were me I would start asking questions and Im sure you could answer....now you dont need to do the cold call so to speak!...Im asking you questions!!!

Be polite...listen for opportunity....that means listen! when they talk you get info and info is critical for selling them. Your calls will become the same or very similar after you do enough to realize they are all saying the same thing.....this gives you good prepared answers for future calls.

Some of this advice may be in above peplies .....sorry but I didnt read them all.

I prefer 'warm' calling to cold calling. This is basically a simple follow up call to check something... For example google your prospects, have a look at their website. Then give them a call and simply ask for the name and email of the person in charge (and check their title). That's easy and non-threatening enough. If they ask why, just say you were looking at their website and noticed some issues with it and you were going to drop someone a line as they may be missing customers at present.

Then drop that person an email introducing yourself, say you called the other day as you spotted some points on their website that meant they may be losing customers. Give some examples... it could be a lack of linked in, Facebook, no way to capture emails etc.

Don't go into detail- you deliberately want to tweak their interest.

Give your details and say you'll give them a call for a quick 'chat' in a couple of days.

Then simply call to check they got your email, explain your a local expert who specialises in X and take it from there.

Always do lots of prep work in one go, say all your research, then your calls etc, then your emails - this makes it time efficient. When you speak use an assumptive to get an appointment 'I'm in the area seeing a customer up the road next week, what days best to pop in X or Y?'

I always recommend a mini health check for the site is a quick thing to do - most local sites miss social media, basic seo and even Google Analytics.

Remember to smile when you dial and each no means you're nearer a yes.
Good Luck!

I called my old buddy who I talked about and asked him about cold calling for you....He said the biggest tip he could give is to be extremely sincer when asking and answering questions...if you ask how they are doing....have a reply that shows you really care. dont just say...Oh! thats good or thats to bad....say thats interesting...how does that work or whatever it takes to get him to talk. If you care enough in his small talk you must really take on some business when you work for him.

You are getting very good tips here....I just dont see a scripted program working unless its after you are getting typical questions.....ask anyone who has been selling the same product over and over....they dont really get good at different calls....they get good at the same questions and they roll off the tongue so easy they get confident!....confidence and passion can sell anything in the world!

Good luck...you can do it and end up liking it.

Referals are good too if they are local....get one or two under your belt to use.

Cold calling sucks but you if you put fourth the effort you might just land a sale or two.

Another tip is to call...once you get an answer ask what protocol is used to get a call in with the owner or Manager .....they appreciate your honesty some times and tell you or pass the call through....selling the service should be easy....the task is getting through.

You can try to pass the gatekeeper 50 times.....she knows the game well! or you can ask how to pass with a respectful offer and honesty (point blank ask for an appointment with the boss)....this will help her to keep from getting a butt chewing from her boss for letting a hard salesman through to bug the boss.

Make a goal of 10 or 12 calls a week....quality not quantity. 35 to 40 a month will generate.

Write a personal letter....keep it basically the same for all mailouts....address them formally. Then tell them what your offer is....keep it short as possible....I dont have time to read a book.....hit on his emotions...$$$ helping his sorry site thats NOT generating money like he wants. Give him an easy in....cheap.....then give him the bennies.keep us posted...I would like to hear how you proceed and deal with issues. We can help too.

I hate the word cold calling. Especially since it never gets cold out here

Cold-calling can work but it can really suck. It takes skill and persistence and the right attitude. Too many people don't handle the rejection very well.

Direct mail can work but it also takes skill (copy, layout, niche selection, message, etc.) and a quality list.

Telemarketers can work but it can be a lot of babysitting and cost a fortune. I've set up and managed telemarketing departments and found you can burn through a lot of people before you get a good one. The script they us is also critical so you only get good leads and appointments.

I continue to use multiple strategies but nothing holds a candle to my referral system. It continues to be where I get the best clients who stick with me the longest and pay me the most. I believe I have a unique twist that dramatically increases my success rate with them.

Looking for a few people to review my new Referral Flood System I'm releasing this week. PM me if interested.

You're not screwed at all. I've NEVER cold called any single one of my clients, and obviously I have never met them face to face. I live thousands of miles away.

We are Internet Marketers. I use just that.

You are not even close to being screwed, you just need to rethink your selling strategies.

Focus on what you are good at, prioritize your time because it's your most valuable asset.