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Cold Calling advice needed

by Garble
10 replies
I'm selling websites (trying to) by cold calling. I've been focusing on the construction trade in my rural area and I find that a lot of these businesses are run out of homes with residential phone lines. Typically the phone never gets answered during the day, unless they have kids that get out of school in the afternoon.

So I'm left with the option of calling them in the evening and disrupting their dinner. I'm not accustomed to calling residential and I can't help but have a lot of anxiety about making sales calls at that time without getting prior permission.

What to do? Is it acceptable to make sales calls at night? Should I leave messages on machines instead? Call them on Saturday? Or should I sell to the kids when they get out of school (ha!)
#advice #calling #cold #needed
  • Profile picture of the author Ron20
    Yea try selling to the kids! Lol

    I would say, do not try calling in the evening or night time or many people might get irritated. Where are you calling? Are you based in the US or UK? I too call tradesmen in my area. I scrape my lists from the yellow pages. Most of the businesses seem to have a mobile number listed since they are mostly one man bands. So this way it is easy to talk to the Decision Maker straight away without having to get past a secretary.

    If you are looking for a list building software, i highly suggest Mobile Renegade which is awesome.

    If you still have problems with this niche, why not ring other niches?
    Hope this helps

    Ron
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  • Profile picture of the author RyanGillam
    They expect to be called at that time of the evening. it is business hours for them. If they did not expect business to be done over their residential line they would not have listed that number.
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  • Profile picture of the author Peter Lessard
    I have had great success selling to contractors. Things like direct response web sites. Essentially locally focused squeeze page with video/voice over and contact form.

    Always communicated by email sending them to a private YouTube video that detailed my offer and directed them to a sales page where they could buy or contact me.

    Two great places I found to email them. One was local directory ads where they were placing their ads. This allowed me to find the ones without web sites.

    The other was Manta.

    When I hit a niche and message that converted well I had my VA's do the finding and emailing from a template.

    Once you have samples or a proven track record in a specific niche its not hard to get 15+ sales from a decent run.

    The nice thing about developing this type of process is you can automate and outsource. I have no fear of cold calling but I found this was better use of my time.

    Good luck.
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    • Profile picture of the author Underground
      Originally Posted by plessard View Post

      I have had great success selling to contractors. Things like direct response web sites. Essentially locally focused squeeze page with video/voice over and contact form.

      Always communicated by email sending them to a private YouTube video that detailed my offer and directed them to a sales page where they could buy or contact me.

      Two great places I found to email them. One was local directory ads where they were placing their ads. This allowed me to find the ones without web sites.

      The other was Manta.

      When I hit a niche and message that converted well I had my VA's do the finding and emailing from a template.

      Once you have samples or a proven track record in a specific niche its not hard to get 15+ sales from a decent run.

      The nice thing about developing this type of process is you can automate and outsource. I have no fear of cold calling but I found this was better use of my time.

      Good luck.
      Great advice. The tools you mentioned allow things to be automated. Plus, it sounds like you are getting comparable response rates from emailing compared with phonecalls. What is your response rates to emails, if you don't mind disclosing?
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  • Profile picture of the author mckennabrowny
    I've had success calling between 5-6 pm there time. They either have just gotten home and have not eaten dinner yet.

    As far as the anxiety, relax, there is nothing to worry about. If this is the number they have listed then they should expect calls. If by chance it is dinner, just apologize and be sincere. Just say it was not your intention to bother them and DO NOT try to keep selling them. They will appreciate your sincerity.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rearden
    Pick a different niche with better hours if you're having problems getting a hold of them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Joe Stewart
    Originally Posted by Garble View Post

    I'm selling websites (trying to) by cold calling. I've been focusing on the construction trade in my rural area and I find that a lot of these businesses are run out of homes with residential phone lines. Typically the phone never gets answered during the day, unless they have kids that get out of school in the afternoon.

    So I'm left with the option of calling them in the evening and disrupting their dinner. I'm not accustomed to calling residential and I can't help but have a lot of anxiety about making sales calls at that time without getting prior permission.

    What to do? Is it acceptable to make sales calls at night? Should I leave messages on machines instead? Call them on Saturday? Or should I sell to the kids when they get out of school (ha!)

    I'm in a similar market (not exact) and I always call early. I know that some people will get upset, but that's just part of the game. Actually, it's very rare. If they're a jerk I don't care to deal with them anyway. If I can't catch them early I usually can't catch them at all, so I have no choice. If they have a problem I'll simply remove them from my list.
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  • Profile picture of the author infinitesuccess168
    This can be very difficult. I know fiverr has VA's that offer this type of service for 1 hour, you can pay for 1 hour and see if they have a better result as they may be accustomed to handling objections. It may be a solution for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Garble
    When emailing, don't messages quickly get caught in spam filters. My understanding was that you need to keep refreshing you message, keeping them unique and spinning your subject lines. Even then, your domain can get blacklisted.

    I've thought about using directory listings/classified to contact potential customers, but again, they too have systems in place to prevent you contacting people en masse. Would love some tips. The though of emailing rather than cold calling is very appealing.
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  • Profile picture of the author Greedy
    When emailing, don't messages quickly get caught in spam filters. My understanding was that you need to keep refreshing you message, keeping them unique and spinning your subject lines. Even then, your domain can get blacklisted.
    This really depends on the amount of e-mails you are sending at 1 time or should I say per hour.

    How many e-mail are you trying to send per hour?
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