Cold Calling: What to use when you dont know the business owners name?

Thanks a lot for the reply mate, i dont really want to buy a list from someone as of yet not knowing wether or not ive got the ability to sell my services.

As you said i may just have to go with calling up and seeing if i could speak with the person that deals with what i am selling.

Im going to try calling for 3 days, if it dosnt work, ill try walking in and see if it's any easier to speak with the business owner that way. Either way ill document the success rate.

PV is right in his point of view from my prospective.

Lists are great but I don't spend any more than necessary if I can get good info quickly on my own.

Several things to consider are, that many times the owner, even in small businesses is not the decision maker you are looking for. No matter what you are selling one of the basic rules is determine who the decision maker is.

So just because you have made it to the owner they may turn into a gate keeper shielding a decision maker they have deligated. You are asking questions in your thread and that is good. Now you must make sure you are asking the "Right" questions.

Working the phone for getting appointments is usually what the desire of the caller (you) is. This could be a book or two in of itself and for that matter books are written on these sales steps. So never stop looking for help.

To answer "A" way of what to do in your question is to, right from the start possibly consider making the whole process a two step operation. It may be one, two, three or more calls. You decide on your time investment.

I simply, or have someone for me, call the business and hope a "lower" level person answers. If I get a choice from an auto operator I ask to talk to technical, the shop, kitchen or what ever. When someone answers tell them you are not sure if you hit the right button but identify your self to them and act authoritative. Say I am a service rep and need to talk with who ever does the advertising ( or what ever) at ABC company. They will tell you if they know if not thank them and say who would know?

Note: Always get names if at all possible don't let them transfer you blindly. Also ask for their name and they will probably give truthful info. They don't want to get into trouble, etc. They can be identified. Life is always a mind game isn't it?

Consider this process as research if you take that mindset it will keep any butterflies you may have lined up. After a while it will just become business as usual for you.

You may, using this process, get to the DM in one call, being transferred here and there. That's ok just be ready for business if so.

I like to make it at least a two step process. The research part as I mentioned may be done by someone else for you.

Armed with the best info as to who the DM may be place the call.

Now leverage the "research" to give your self some credibility.

"Hi, DM I was talking with_____ in your shipping department and they said I should be talking to you." Use a name of non DM you talked to for credibility.

This is just a technique to get you the name and to a DM. Think about the process, not what I necessarily scripted above for an example.

The technique is aim low on purpose to get a bearing on the real target!

Hope this makes some sense and helps!

Old Dog

Great reply mate, thats exactly what im currently working on, it's 10 pm here and i need this done before 9 am so i can get it going, so your reply was extremely helpful.

I'm soley going to focus on setting an appointment or grabbing there email at the very least, if i dont get the appointment and get the email, i will be creating a short video for them and sending it off, then making a follow up call or visit the next day.

I feel a push for the close over the phone is a bit much on first contact, especially when i dont even know there name.

..and after working so hard to find the business owner's name, that might not even be the owner anymore, so all that time spent tracking them down for nothing. If you can get the owner's name..great, if not it's not that big of a deal.

If I don't have the name, I just pitch the person that answers the phone. They'll usually send you to the person that handles marketing or whatever you're offering, or simply say they're not interested. Depending on which niche you're targeting, the owner may answer the phone, so just make a quick pitch or use of the *unsure* methods above, just make the calls and don't worry too much about having a name.

I remember buying a list of 1000 contacts for £170 approx a year ago from a broker. I found the list a waste of money, as I went through it, many contact names no longer worked there,wrong telephone numbers etc. I now use http://www.marketingmanagersinfo.co.uk/

Hope this helps,

If at all possible do not give product or service away free! Give them a rediculously low price like $20. Because they are more likely to pay you for business later. You become a very trusted advisor to them that they will have to pay!

I can vouch for the "unsure" method. I had to wrestle with my sales manager over this technique. He was convinced it was unprofessional. (I help book appointments for a service that costs a minimum of $10,000) I proved to him I didn't need to spend time researching "who" to talk to.

Over 90% of the gatekeepers I asked to help, sent me directly to the person I needed. The other 10% would probably not help no matter what I said. :-) Bottom line, I was barely making 20-30 calls a day before using Jason's ideas. Now I'm easily cranking out about 60.

Maybe, Bayo, you don't know how to SOUND DIFFERENT.

When you sound different, behave differently, you get treated differently.

Yes, if you are like the majority who have no skill and do calling badly, then you'll get lumped in with everyone else.

Now I dislike these "Why do it at all" type posts. Why not take it out of the thread and start your own? There's nothing wrong with marketing methods, but these cold call-bashing threads are really annoying. As for "get better results"? Depends on who you're talking to.

Obviously I use calling as a marketing method and I am NOT perceived like anyone else.

I would be happy to see your advice in another thread.

You could say that for *any marketing method.

That's not what this thread is about. Someone asked how to handle a call when you don't have a contact name.

Isn't that essentially what Jason said?

Would you mind pointing me to that post? I would like to learn more.