I HATE COLD CALLING

I have heard all of the arguments for and against cold calling but I hate it. But do you know what I hate even more NOT HAVING ANY CLIENTS.

Cold calling for me was always a tedious chore. Not because I wasn't confident in my skills or services just the idea of it. Calling a business owner and getting rejected wasn't my idea of a good time.

But what I did know was that it was the best way to generate interest and new clients. But for the longest time I was getting nothing but gatekeepers. Once out of every 30 calls I would get a business owner that would blow me off without a second thought. So like most I quit.....

Fortunately that is not the end of the story.

But first since I haven't participated in the forum for such a long time, I think it is important for me to re-introduce myself.

My name is Cameron and I make a full time living from internet marketing. I work with both offline clients and create my own affiliate websites. I was a consultant for a fortune 500 company. I was a part of a team that was in charge of the company's online marketing.

I have been very fortune to wake up every day and enjoy the work I do. The power of the internet is truly awe-inspiring. With massive consistent action, a computer and internet connection amazing things are possible.

Now back to why I hate cold calling....

After my time with the fortune 500 company I wanted to venture off for myself. Now when I worked with this company we had an entire sales team so I never had to do a cold call or go "close" a lead. But I thought "if they could do it then I could too."

Sighhhh

I had many of the same problems that everyone else has when contacting business owners

• What if they don't answer
• What if the person is rude
• What if the sectary doesn't let me talk to the owner
• What if they blow me off
• What if it's a big waste of time

Plus any number of other excuses that paralyzes the new comer to offline internet marketing. Luckily I didn't have to suffer for long.
I was able to get a family friend to let me do SEO for their business. Shortly thereafter I was approached by another friend to update the website of his trash hauling business. Now neither one of these deals generated very much income but there was a break through!

After doing the website redesign (all I did was load and customize a premium WP theme) my friend actually got me a couple of leads. He came to and said "Cameron a couple people from the weekly networking event I attend would like to talk to you about website redesign."

So of course I followed up with these leads and one of them actually became a client. But the important thing is HOW I contacted these leads. It was via phone of course.

But it was so easyyyyyy. I just picked up the phone after doing some research and made the calls. In fact it didn't even seem like marketing, cold calling, selling or any of the other dirty word associated our business. It was just me making a phone call.

This was my breakthrough. The only difference between a "cold call" and any other phone call is the emphasis I was putting on it. With this mindset I went back and thought about all of the things I think about before making a "cold call" - which is basically everything that could wrong.

From that point on I decided that I had to get the right mindset before making cold calls. I had to make it as much as a regular phone call. So here is how I got over my hatred of cold calling:

1. Nothing Bad Is Going To Happen - So just do it
2. Have something prepared for the client (This was not a sales pitch but something of value for the business I was calling)
3. Nothing Bad Is Going To Happen
4. Make sure the business can actually use whatever I'm offering
5. Don't make a sale just set up a meeting

Finally I stopped trying to make a certain number of calls per day. Instead I aimed for a certain number of leads. No matter if it took 2 calls or 72 calls, each day I had goal in mind that I was going to achieve.

This system of mine definitely worked, I was able to get the results that I wanted. Most nights consisted of doing research to get the right businesses to call. Then the next morning I simply made phone calls. Most days I would offer a report to present to the business owner.

Now with all of that being said I still much prefer other methods of lead generation of cold calling. But cold calling played a role in the growth of my business.

Hope you enjoy reading about my hatred of cold calling, let me know what you think.

Thanks, Cameron