Lunchbreak Warrior - My first cold calling results | Warrior Forum - The #1 Digital Marketing Forum & Marketplace

12 years ago

Good stuff. Congrats on taking the plunge. It sounds cliche but action is half the battle. My son in law and I were cleaning up today after we totally destroyed a wall to make two rooms into one big room yesterday and left it in in a big pile of sheet rock, 2x4's, plywood and insulation...

There was dust and trash everywhere so we decided yesterday "Aw this is too much lets just clean up tomorrow". Just the thought of cleaning up that big pile was overwhelming.

But you know what? When we finally picked it all up this morning, it took less than a half hour and I was thinking when we were doing it that its much like ALOT of things in that;

Sometimes the prospect of taking action seems so overwhelming... but then when you actually get into it and actually take the action, its virtually NOTHING and soo rewarding.

Some are really overwhelmed by the idea of jumping in, and the prospect of action is more overwhelming than actually "taking it". Once you do its like "Wow, why didnt I do this sooner...".

Good for you. Thanks for the share, I hope you inspire alot of people with this and I hope you start making tons of sales as you continue in action. Not too many $495 sales could replace most JOBS....

Where's the job security?

In Y-O-U!

Awesome! Trust yourself and Keep rockin!

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theemperor

12 years ago

Thanks John

Thats a great comment coming from a respected forum member like you. My plan would be to outsource this horrible job in the future, but for a business that starts with as a "one man band" I have to do everything.

Having said it's horrible, what I do love about cold calling is you get a lot of insight, it doubles up as market research too. When I sell stuff purely online it doesn't have that level of interaction.

Thanks

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John Durham

12 years ago

I find that cold calling is good for the soul, yeah it burns like weight lifting, but the personal gains are incredible.

Thanks

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theemperor

12 years ago

He he I did compare it to doing a spinning class in my mind!

The method I used by the way is this one:

http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...aking-off.html

Except I did it on the phone instead of walk in. That was because the paper I picked up on a visit to family and they live 20km away so not practical to visit during the week.

Thanks

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Aussieguy

12 years ago

Even better if you can get to the close over the phone! Means you'll be able to disregard geography

Thanks

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P1

12 years ago

Originally Posted by theemperor

I sacrificed a lunchbreak sitting in the sun with colleagues to make some cold calls based on a method I saw right here in this forum.

Time spent: 1 hour
Calls made: 16 approx
Leads (Demo website done for free and follow up call): 3 people

The site price will be $495 and the leads know that.

I now need to create the example sites this weekend and get back in contact

I convert 1 of 3 thats $495 for a total of 1hr calling + 1hr creating sites + 2 hrs finalising the purchased site.

Hope this inspires people to take action. I am a bad cold caller by the way! I get nervous, I feel bad doing it, I um and I err, I get blocked by the gatekeepers but still some people are interested in what you have to offer. I plan to keep at it and improve my technique over time.

Not to be rude or anything but 16 calls in a hour is quite low. Did you not already have the leads in front of you before calling or what was your process for that?

And from my experience getting 3 people that want the demo site out of 16 calls is REALLY good.

Thanks
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theemperor

12 years ago

Originally Posted by P1

Not to be rude or anything but 16 calls in a hour is quite low. Did you not already have the leads in front of you before calling or what was your process for that?

And from my experience getting 3 people that want the demo site out of 16 calls is REALLY good.

Thanks for the feedback.

Perhaps it is too slow.

Some calls took 5 minutes or so due to being a bad line. I had to ask one guy with a foreign accent for his email about 5 times. It was embarrassing but what else could I do? One call did get a bit chatty but alot of it was good stuff, building a relationship etc.

To remedy this I will prepare the numbers in a grid next time and I have purchased a Jabra headset to improve call quality. You see I am doing this in a cafe, but we all have to start somewhere :-)

So my process was reading from the newspaper, but finding the next number took 10 seconds say not a big deal. Thanks for the thumbs up 3 of 16 - I think this technique is excellent for targetting.

Thanks
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P1

12 years ago

Originally Posted by theemperor

Thanks for the feedback.

Perhaps it is too slow.

Some calls took 5 minutes or so due to being a bad line. I had to ask one guy with a foreign accent for his email about 5 times. It was embarrassing but what else could I do? One call did get a bit chatty but alot of it was good stuff, building a relationship etc.

To remedy this I will prepare the numbers in a grid next time and I have purchased a Jabra headset to improve call quality. You see I am doing this in a cafe, but we all have to start somewhere :-)

So my process was reading from the newspaper, but finding the next number took 10 seconds say not a big deal. Thanks for the thumbs up 3 of 16 - I think this technique is excellent for targetting.

Yea I understand, in my case (I'm in the US if that matters) it's usually "Hi is OWNERS NAME there"

"No, he'll be in at 4:00" I hang up and call next person so personally for me I can call a lot but hardly do you get the owner on the phone.

Can I ask what type of businesses you are targeting? I target food but I'm not sure that's the best idea from what others here say :confused:

Thanks
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Deidra Renee

12 years ago

Originally Posted by P1

Yea I understand, in my case (I'm in the US if that matters) it's usually "Hi is OWNERS NAME there"

"No, he'll be in at 4:00" I hang up and call next person so personally for me I can call a lot but hardly do you get the owner on the phone.

Can I ask what type of businesses you are targeting? I target food but I'm not sure that's the best idea from what others here say :confused:

Try targeting plumbers, electricians, painters, etc.. Basically the *contractor* niche first, you may speak to more people. The food industry is usually busy which maybe why you don't get through to a lot of business owners. Just try to target different businesses and see what happens.

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1 reply

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John Durham

12 years ago

Originally Posted by Deidra Renee

Try targeting plumbers, electricians, painters, etc.. Basically the *contractor* niche first, you may speak to more people. The food industry is usually busy which maybe why you don't get through to a lot of business owners. Just try to target different businesses and see what happens.

While you are here.... Havent forgot you Diedra.

Now to be relevant, I agree. While not impossible, the food industry is harder than some others. I know you know from experience. For those who dont know, Diedra has a habit of making one sale per day like breakfast! Its good to listen to her. Yes. She creates one offline client per day by cold calling.

Its true.

Thanks

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Jason Kanigan

12 years ago

Doesn't matter how many calls he makes in an hour. What matters is that he doesn't get discouraged or give up. I make very few calls per hour compared to a telemarketer, but my conversion rate is very high.

We all have that ratio of 1 in 4 people we call on average being in and available to talk.

For your gatekeeper troubles, have a look at my "being a little unsure" method in this thread. It has helped many people on the forum.

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P1

12 years ago

Originally Posted by kaniganj

Doesn't matter how many calls he makes in an hour. What matters is that he doesn't get discouraged or give up. I make very few calls per hour compared to a telemarketer, but my conversation rate is very high.

We all have that ratio of 1 in 4 people we call on average being in and available to talk.

For your gatekeeper troubles, have a look at my "being a little unsure" method in this thread. It has helped many people on the forum.

Yea, I only asked because searching leads 1 by 1 calling takes a lot of time so I was wondering what his process was.

Which I'm sure you already know :p

Thanks
1 reply

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theemperor 12 years ago

@Dan

I had a nicely written out long script, but as I make the calls and realised I was dealing with busy people on not the best of phone connections, it kind of eloved into this:

First I made sure I was talking to the business owner. Sometimes the ad helps by giving some information, sometimes I would dig around.

I'd say "I'm a local web designer, I design websites to help local businesses get more customers. I'm doing a special offer today would this interest you?"

If they sounded interested I give more details.

If not I'd try to convince them to be interested (worth a shot!) but if they say a definite no twice I'd politely let them go rather than pester.

One tip I use (just because I remembered it from a book) is to keep silent once I've said my bit and let them talk. That helped in some cases and someone actually changed from a rude attitude to an interested attitude because of that.
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Dan Allard

12 years ago

Great job man, hope you get a couple sales from those and more next week.

If you don't mind, could you share your script?

Everyday last week I told myself I would start cold-calling, and everyday I woke up I told myself "I'll just do it tomorrow". Been too afraid I guess, not sure why I used to do telemarketing 4 years ago, had a few bad experiences but I'm still alive.

Thanks

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Lunchbreak Warrior - My first cold calling results

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