Is cold calling effective for web design

Try to go for at least 70-100 per day to be able to garner at least a few potential leads.

250 calls a week is still a good number, but try to go for a bit more at the end of the week.

In reality, it doesn't matter what you're selling. All you have to do is actually work hard at improving how you speak with these people. ANYONE with the right skills can Sell Website design or any service via phone calling.

Remember: if one person seems even remotely interested, keep them interested for as long as possible until they buy. I've seen so called offline marketers literally give up and stop calling their potential customers even though they were very interested. Keep calling and calling those who out you off or make you wait. It's these people who stay and eventually buy.

I really don't think cold calling would be worth the time. Same with spam emailing.. That doesn't mean you wouldn't get any customers, but you'll probably get allot of heat from some people.

Stick to SEO, SEM, Social Media, or even Buying Leads as opposed to cold calling people!

You can easily do what you want. You just need to practice - a lot.
Then it becomes very easy and predictable over time.

I do suggest NOT calling local until after you have had some practice
with success. If you practice on your local area you take the risk
of running out of potential leads - before you have perfected
your script, system, lead management.

Call a town or two over - this way, it's less pressure per call because
you don't care if they buy or not and it wont hurt if you blow out
the leads.

After your consistently making sales from the out area leads - then
switch to your local area.

I have a controlling interest in a development agency. There are tons of systems to get new clients. I'll give you a couple of really easy, but very effective ones.

1. Local groups. Don't target businesses, offer a monetary reward for people sending you clients.

2. Walk-ins. Walk in to "small" local businesses and chat to the owner if you can. Offer them a nice, low-cost package. When you complete, offer them a reward for sending you clients. This is a lot easier than approaching the big clients you want. The little clients often have connections with big local business. Doing it this way, you get in the door with an easy client, and THEY get you in the door of a big client.

Tom

I have a top notch salesman who will sell for me.... im actually ok at selling myself, but wont bring as much results as my guy. the numbers game is no problem with my guy......

but...... i have no clue where to get decent calling lists...... im thinking to download a YP.com extractor, which will probably do the job just fine im thinkin.

I'm not a fan of cold calling to anything mass like that', I'd rather focus on targeted customers, I find that is where the best value is

I would generate a decent ROI if....

1) You outsource the cold calling to the Philippines

2) AND you pay per result

3) AND you have a HOT list

Check out Income Bully - Join My Journey In Making Money Online about cold calling for webdesign.

Have a look at the Offline section of the forum.

And this thread.

i have a team of 5 people that will do the work for me.

roughly how many calls a day should i focus on to get one sale daily?

i made 200 calls today asking businesses if they need websites. i only had 3 leads......

i don't believe in that script B.S. people just hang up and could care less, i tried it the first 100 calls and people just got irritated. then after i asked directly if they were interested and i got some leads out of it.

i dont think its very effective unless you make up for it in bulk, so I set up an automated auto-dialer and list of 500 targeted businesses to call tomorrow. with 2000-2500 calls a week i should get some pretty nice business

Hello,
I have experience cold calling local businesses for Web Design and Online Marketing. I would recommend hiring someone on Freelancer or UpWork to generate a highly relevant lead list. Be specific on your definition of a qualified lead. You should be able to find someone to produce on going leads cost effectively.

It's tough to predict results on the cold calling metrics. My market is very competitive so it takes about 40-50 calls to get 1 appointment. It usually takes about 4-5 appointments (different businesses) to close one sale. But I am selling a variety of products and not just Web Design. Good luck on growing your business.

You will be making A LOT of calls before you come across any interested buyers. I have done it in the past. The best thing to do is hire somebody else to make the calls for you. Somebody who specializes in cold calling sales tactics. That is what I ended up doing personally.

Also, a little common sense goes a long way. Don't call people around lunch time. Don't call people on Friday afternoons. Just little things like that can completely ruin a potential sale.

And up your prices. $500 is on the low end for offline local work. I would go minimum $2k and see what happens.

We've tried it locally and met with little success. The reality is it's 2015 and "most" businesses already have a web presence. And even if their website looks really outdated (think 2010 and earlier), most are hesitant to update.

What we did find that worked to get started (and we've since moved past that), is to offer to barter on Criagslist. We made many easy to do websites and made some long term clients as a result. Then we were able to upsell some of them to bigger and better sites once the relationship had been established.

Truthfully many small business owners still don't give their website the attention it deserves in 2015. But hey, that's just me, right?

Shivers go down my spine at the thought of cold calling. I had one the other day from some Indian based company that saw a business listed in the local business directory. The result? They didn't get any sale. If you can do cold calling, then by all means go for it. I just don't think it is effective and I don't entirely agree with that approach. But that's just me.

i automate my marketing on craigslist and various other classifieds website. I re-post in 30 cities a day with the click of one button. i also have an automated web design solution so i can develop template websites in one hour but with very complex features and using basic manually configured artificial intelligence for each scenario.. lately i have been making $1000 hourly from customers but i only have 3-5 monthly, although my website conversion rate has improved significantly and now when i launch my email marketing, classifieds marketing, traffic generation, and tele-marketing campaign 100% it WILL deliver results.

but i want to grow my business and am very willing to make 500 calls a day, to get more business. i have an auto dialer that will do the calls for me, i have a bluetooth and a quiet space to talk in so it wont interrupt my other activities running my business.

i am going to try the 500 calls tomorrow and see where it gets me.

i spoke to some real telemarketers that work in various random industries and realistic conversion rates appear to be 1%.....

even if i have to call 300-500 people to get one sale i definitely have the nerve to do that.

what im trying to explain by writing all this is that my entire business runs through automation, which allows me to focus my efforts solely on marketing myself and gaining business and credibility.

I am fine with telemarketing - from local people - biz to biz

I would hang up and block a dialer and /or someone with an accent

Joining networking groups, reaching out to those people....getting biz cards at card exchanges and reach out to them...using Linkedin wisely....getting referrals...makes calls "warm" not cold

Prequalifiying - like looking for those with outdated sites, (on yp,, wix, homestead)....
look at local craigslist ads and see which of the service biz guys don't have a website
and also - go where the money is - look in local coupon books,directories where they paid to be listed or advertised

When you call you are looking for that spark of interest...getting them to admit something (yeah my website sucks) or getting them to engage..."you mean my site won't be seen in results when someone searches from a phone or tablet?"...yeah yeah...that's what I mean <grin>
even sometimes getting them to sort of argue with you....that is interest....turn em around

Once you find the interest don't put on your techy hat ....join in with them,, share the benefits...
reassure them ....and "join" with them right to the close ..."let's get that fixed for you"..."let's bring you into today Mary hahaha....hey it is halfway thru 2015....everyone is on phones and tablets so let's get your site fixed up....tell me what kind of design have you aways dreamed about having?"

"oh that is gonna be so cool...I am really excited for YOU...Yay....now what we like to do , just to get this goin is put half on a card now...which do you want to use?"

(now...notice I don't say pay, charge, etc...I say...do...take care of" yada yada....Yipppee

always glad for them...they made a great decision when they said yes to me


Really some of you should 1) get telemarketing job even if just part time and 2) take on some commission or draw/percent biz to biz sales with a company that trains you

Reading all these sales manuals will never teach you like experience will teach you

A lot of times people new to cold calling don't know what they want or expect from the call....

close the deal right on the phone? or set an appointment to come in and meet?

Hiring others to call for you may work better with appointment setting because there will be many variables in web design prices and what is included.

Just me but I would never come in with "I want to grow my business"....or "I am looking for new clients"....ouch ouch.....hello salesperson. It has to be about them.....THEM NOT YOU
I want to grow their business, get them new clients....

Act like each one is special....

Honestly some here need to put down the freaking wso's and get a j-o-b that affords sales training

this stuff can't be learned from a forum or a "wso"...it is learned from sitting making thousands of calls, having people listen in and coach you, closing sales, getting to see what works....learning objections, hw to raise/lower your voice...how to "smile" while you dial, how to mirror them, how to change to be what the customer wants, how to turn them around, how to "take it away"... how to listen and respond...you need to know feel felt found....you need to learn the use of "we"...never say money, price, cost, pay, yadayada

Oh I didn't even touch on how to get past gatekeepers...LOL

in person...walk in....and get the owner....it is a skill in iteself

how to get from "I" and "You" to "us"...to involve them where you are now a team....one member of the team however holds the checkbook or credit card but "let's do this" yay....and so we do

fear of closing? why? If you are happy for "us". excited for "us", CERTAIN this is the very best move for "us".....hey "let's" do it....let's get started...all we need is to "take care of this..visa or mc? and we will get this (flyer, ad, brochure,website) started !!

All the negative thoughts and downers would not stop me....if you go in thinking negative you will get negative results

if an area has been hard hit you might find going in and surprising them would work...turn the negatives around

I am surprised at people saying cold calling isn't effective.

Granted I myself dont cold call much, still though the theme of this board has always been cold call or die.

If you have zero clients, cold call or cold email is your best bet. Get 3-6 clients get some cash flow coming in then you can start building a more sophisticated marketing program

I made 150 calls today and obtained 2 leads.

I am new and will get better.

I did find the "perfect" list halfway actually.

Whst about cold emails? I current have 10 million valid business emails in english countries... ill be running a blast on those end of the week.

What value are you bringing to the client? How will these packages enhance the client's business?

Business people basically want three things, More profit, less expense, more time. How does your offering fit in with that?

Businessman A goes to a networking meeting and announces I just hired consultant A who's built me a website for $500 and is charging me $50/month for hosting.

Businessman B goes to the same networking meeting and announces I just hired consultant B who's just increased my sales by 25% in the last 30 days and reduced my advertising costs by 50%.

Which consultant do you think most people will be clamouring for their contact details? Which consultant do you think will be spending less time on marketing. Which consultant do you think will not need to be cold calling?

How hard is it to bring huge value to a small business? Not very, because most of them suck at marketing. You can learn the basic principles of direct response marketing in a week or less. Then it's just practice...

Turn your website design business into an online marketing business and you'll stand out in the marketplace. Become the small business owner's marketing partner. Make the business owner glad he spent money with you. Then you won't have to be a good salesman...

Please why is this JV crap on this forum? I thought this was for offline business

I do get plenty of referrals and I network locally

Why do we allow people pushing an agenda to take over this forum and threads? I don't get it

This thread is about cold calling...

Here are my stats today:

Start = 10.05am
Finish = 11.26am
Call time = 1hr 25
Dials = 47 Dials
Call time = 1hr 20mins
Result = Tons of information on the numbers where I couldn't reach the DM
Result = 1 Lead

1 hot lead who asked for a meeting. Forgot to qualify him for money so will do that on Monday.

Cold calling is an extreme sort in sales.

Look, I'd rather not cold call, if I could get referral leads all day or for my website to generate the leads, I'd calm down the cold calling but needs must so you gotta do what you gotta do.

Start cold calling as its character building! The fact you can make something happen with just a phone and you're speaking ability is a skill worth building for the future.

Thanks IamNameless...

JV to me means local networking...with people I can see and meet and have some accountability on both our parts

I am not interested in skype or wso's or crazy stuff

besides...since I can "cold call" (expertly LOL)
I can sell in person
I feel I would bring far more to the table

I really have no respect or interest in half the stuff I see people pushing round here
(really more than half)

a great example is the "wso" to teach people to rank a site in 4 hours and sell it for $15000
with an "endorsement" by a naked Eastern European fiverr gal

what would be in it for me? nothing that I can see but maybe it works for others

However...for someone to come to the offline forum and put down cold calling?

Probably doesn't have the skills to do it

I know I do sometimes pick up the phone when I want to get business....I have no fear, no nerves, no problem...I don't even think of it as cold calling

I dont' have to make many calls either

I also know that IF I had to or needed to I could make about 3 calls to (carefully selected) phone jobs on craigslist

I would not even go in for an interview...if I liked what they were offering in pay and product I would tell them that I will "come in and give it a try, put me on the phone cause that is the best interview" (and pay me for it haha) They will say "how fast can you get here you just sold me"

Now...I don't need to do that but I can and I have and i could do it again

drop me off in any medium sized english speaking city and I will be working that day
no problem, no fear, no doubt, no nervous
where's the coffee, where do they get the donuts, Krispy Kreme or Dunkin?

The people who put down "telemarketing" are the ones who would sit there looking at the phone, reading and rereading and trying to rework the script, making lists, preparing to call

meanwhile I would ring the bell, pop the balloon and grab the spiffs haha

what I really find annoying is that most of the people who come in here and put down the idea of prospecting on the phone are the ones who are pushing some lame deal
like the guy who pops in to push his sms service yawn or those who want to hire out sweat shop callers in the Phillipines

I don't want to outsource calls, or work in a phone room...but honestly I have put a lot of true and valuable info on techniques here....I am insulted when some never seen person breezes by to tell us it does not work

Hi! I'm a web developer and from Canada too. I'm not sure where you are located but I'm in Ontario and the government has a program called the BEAM program which gives local business up $5000 dollars to build a website and get online. I don't do cold calling but I do participate in that program and have made good sales walking into local business showing my portfolio and letting them know about the grants.

The little bit of cold calling that we did do was to smaller communities that do not have a large developer community. But we also restricted those call to people that were offering a service that could be marketed online.

To get myself really well known locally I had to make myself known by attending local events like chamber of commerce events and other things like that. I also worked with the local Big Brother Big Sister and put on training classes where people paid by donation to attend. They had a list of 10,000 people that they sent out a newsletter too and this helped build leads and community rapport.

Not all about cold calling but I thought it might help.

Uh.....UK is not the US.....we do not have do not call here for business numbers

I do work locally with many other people...real people in person

This was a thread about cold calling

You came here with your arrogant self to tell us all it does not work

IMO the problem with getting into these "complex" schemes with web design is that fact that there is 1000's of amateurs who are advertising themselves everywhere online and offering $200 sites. unless you have a crazy amount of talent, or are willing to deal with annoying picky customers, I think offline is a FAR better marketing method, in the Web Dev business.

SUCCESSFUL people are a different story, they have been in business for 10 years and get everything off referrals,

but the thing with telemarketing, there is 1000's of people selling bullsh*t services every day on the phone just because the odd duck out of the 100-500 people called. i have only gotten 2 customers from the entire time I've been in business from offline marketing, but that was within my first month doing this.

i think telemarketing is honestly the best way to make money with this, and im looking to get all my new business from telemarketing in the very near future, but for now, i am still getting it from Craigslist.

Edit: so far with each 100 calls i have gotten 2-3 leads so its looking successful...... as soon as i get on my feet im cutting off craigslist.

what would you value my web design package at?:

Unlimited Pages
Mobile friendly website
Gallery
Image Slider
Google Maps
“Get a Quote” form
Client/Employee Database
Pricing Tables Display
Client Login with File Sharing between employees, customers, and managers for invoices, bill payments, and business files
Live phone call button
Mobile app to chat with visitors(customer service), manage website, and add/edit website pages with microsoft word software
Visitor statistics
Contact form
Tablet friendly website
Social Media Integration
FAQ Section
Website management application
Company Name Google Listing
Online meeting booking
Newsletter System
Video integration
Testimonial system
Facebook/Twitter News Feed
Blog
Payment/E-Commerce Option

I would highly recommend looking into alternate lead generation techniques instead of cold calling. I have done it all and find cold calling a time consuming and low performing activity.

I for one have great success in this field using things like purl postcards and trade publication magazines. They produce all the clients I can handle in an extremely cost effective way. And these clients almost always turn out to be less of a headache than those I derive from online.

You want to leverage your time and in my opinion, cold calling does not perform well in this respect.

PM me if you need any further clarification...

Bill

I do... but maybe i should take more.

Unlike some people, I have no issue with people disagreeing with me, so long as they're rational about it...

The DNC list was never advertised, yet more than half of UK business have signed up. Doesn't that speak volumes...? The mere fact that it exists indicates there's a demand. Politicians don't make laws without a significant amount of pressure.

Are people really that different in the States that they want constant interruptions? Not in my experience. I don't know of any of my clients who will take cold calls - and I have clients across the pond... And in Australasia. No difference between them at all.
10% was just an example. I've seen much higher responses. Depends on how well you hit the hot buttons in your copy (as I'm sure you're aware).

Compare this with the example in this post. Let me see, 400 calls per day, 3 days per week, 4 weeks per month, for 3 months. That's 14,400 calls to get 11 clients, or 0.08% response. So 99.92% of people weren't interested in the cold calls...? vs 10% for a JV?

And you say cold calling is the best way, the only way...? If that was a direct mail campaign, they'd can it immediately.

Yet 70 people thanked for "this useful post"...

The fact is, most people don't want cold calls... whatever country you're in...
Would anyone actually try it? I'm dubious. I think this forum is very cliquey with certain people propping up each others egos. However, for the benefit of offering an alternative view I'll consider doing a post.

might have gotten my first sale today with only 25 calls today,

he said he is paying tommorow.

I also bought a cell auto dialer and bluetooth so I am going to be making 200 calls daily now "on-the-go"

If you are a salesman you can sell on the phone. Most would set up a meeting.
But, honestly, unless you are able to lie to your potential customers and use unethical scarcity tactics AND you are good as salesman, you won't sell on the phone.

But you won't be a web designer, you'll be a simple, common telemarketer.

Hey I don't know if what you say is true or not.
What I know, if that every telemarketer who has called me trying to sell SEO or Marketing stuff is a lier.

And many of you, ( telemarketers AKA cold-callers, I don't talk about you specifically) are trying to entice newbies into the 'cold call' to sell their services when it's clear that not everybody and his grandmom are able to do cold calling.
But they still try to persuade newbies into this as it was as easy as turning your computer and open a web page only to sell their 'techniques'... and that stinks.

got my first sale Monday, for $650.

I made 275 calls yesterday to landscape and electrician businesses.

most answered dials were electricians with secretaries, so no success

now I'm calling landscapers since the person answering is ALMOST ALWAYS the owner/decision maker.

planning to make 800 calls tomorrow throughout different timezones and work 12 hours, with my autodialer.

I seriously think this 2% average you see everywhere is BS. regardless if you can make up for the numbers in BULK, and are patient, its WORTH IT.....

Hi everyone, I really like this forum and I have been reading a lot here and there, full of interesting people and interesting stuff.

I would like to have your opinions on this situation of mine.

I opened a company one year ago, realised a number of good looking and responsive websites together with my partner (she does all of the design now) and since two weeks we are working full time on this business. Now I came from a B2B background (export sales of industrial instrumentation), I am an Italian living in the UK and I have never done "telesales", most of my previous work was selling in a consultant style environment.

My first idea was: "Well, let's call a list of customers in Italy who have small or medium size companies and whose website is bad".


It took me 3 full days to create a list of companies with dreadful websites


It took me 4 days to call 300 of them and get either a:

• name of the director
• email
• find out that they had closed down

It took me 2 days to "deliver the script", a short strong message aimed at finding out WHO is really interested and in the market and who is not.


I started on the 18th and now it's the 28th . I have got 3 people that are "potentially interested" and want to talk back with me, a bunch of people who I still have to qualify and some companies where I cannot get to speak with the director, nor get their name.


Now the question is: "Are my expectations too high?". I thought that by now I should have intercepted a full YES, instead I am still floating in a sea of "maybes".


I am trying to understand if the problem is:

• with the market (Italy or the specific sectors I am cold calling : fish factories, honey factories, cookies factories, water companies, construction companies"
• with my approach: 1st call get the name of the decision make, send an email, follow up call a few days later trying to fix a phone/skype meeting
• with what I say
• with the numbers (should I be calling 1000 companies?)
• with the fact that I am a guy cold calling from UK to Italy and they feel I am far away

What do you think?