cold calling local businesses ...

what's wrong, is it a stupid post LOL

iAmNameLess ... thanks for the reply

and also thanks for all the cold calling posts you have made, I have read many of yours also and they are very helpful

you are right! "You can recycle through the biz info and call again by the time you reach the end of your list. "

I'm limiting myself locally because I plan to offer 'monthly services' and want to build relationships and be able to meet face to face with my clients. They need to be close by for that to happen.

Why sell only local? I am in the Home Security and Automation Business. I sell a ton locally. But I ALSO sell online and over the phone NATIONWIDE! Why limit yourself to a certain zip code?

Even if you were to do local business only. I am in Plant City,Florida. It is a small to medium sized town and our neighboring towns are Brandon,dover,Lakeland,Zephyrhills,Riverview and Lithia. Even just calling on that area I could call several hundred businesses a day and at the end of the year would not call every one. Then We have Tampa,Orlando,Bradenton,Sarasota,Clearwater and many more. I could never call on all of them in a year. Plus the new businesses that pop up. I wouldn't worry about how many and start calling and closing friggin deals!!!!!!!! You are making excuses and reasons NOT to call! Just pick up the phone and start goin door to door and start making sales!!!!!!!!!!I truly wish you the best!!

WE have ALL been there. I know what you mean about getting that sick feeling in your stomach. Hell, we all do. Just start making the calls whether in person or over the phone(preferably both). Here is a question for ya. Would you rather have the sick feeling of not being able to feed your family and not paying the bills or the sick feeling of talking to people? Once you get out there and do it, you will be SO HAPPY you did! Most times, even the ones not interested are VERY POLITE! You get the random jerk off that is rude but even ones not interested will give you time to talk.

I was in your shoes. I looked FOR EVERY REASON not to get out there and sell.. I'll make over $200k this year now. Once you get over the fear and realize it is about the money, your life will change.

I've always been proud. I'm a retired Marine and Overseas Security Contractor. I thought it was beneath me to make door to door and cold calls. I always thought, "What will my peers think?" Then I started thinking. I am home every day and not getting shot at. AND making more than 98% of my community and ALL of my friends. SO WHO CARES WHAT THEY THINK!!!!!!!!!!

I have 2 saying I live by. The first is "If you always do what you did you will always get what you always got." and "I used to care what people thought about me. Until I tried to pay my bills with their opinions."

If you have any questions, feel free to pm me with any questions.

Most people look for work. Wealthy people build networks!

Just get up in the mornin and start making calls. If you do that, you will make money this month. What is your niche if you don't mind me asking?

ok, and I'll report here tomorrow how it went ... I'm counting on you guys to help keep me on track, I need the support, please and thank you

been studying with some mobile marketing gurus who have taught me some amazing stuff, got me pumped about what I can offer for services, now I just gotta do it LOL

these guys make thousands weekly offering mobile marketing services like they taught me

gonna call to make appointments so I can show them all the benefits of what they are missing out on and what I can do for them, very very excited about what my service(s) can do for them.

but gotta be able to talk and show them ARG, that is the hard part ... very very hard part

Check out Grant Cardone on Youtube. He has a TON of videos. He comes off as arrogant prlly cause he is. But he knows his stuff. He has a TON of free stuff on Youtube you can watch. Which is what I would recommend while you are starting out. If you like him, I would sign up for his university down the road. It's about $1000 but worth it IMHO.If not, his free stuff is awesome. He changed my life. Look for his stop selling,start closing video. it's great and then look up Grant Cardone inspirational video on Youtube. After that, just look at what interests you. IMO, he is one of the VERY few people new salespeople should follow... He can be a jerk and arrogant but he has great info to share. Anyone worth half as BILLION dollars in real estate and over $100 million in net worth that is willing to share info is someone to follow. It's up to you though.

So you start and you talk to a prospect.

They're not interested.

Does that mean they're not interested...forever?

Probably not.

More likely, they're not interested...today.

Why?

Any of a dozen reasons. You didn't show up with the right credentials. You weren't referred by someone they trust. They don't acknowledge a need for what you offer...today.

But 3 to 6 months from now?

You schedule that callback and you make it. Because by then, things just may have changed.


Now...as for prospecting by phone...you need to do this at the start because:

a) no one knows you exist yet

and

b) it's a fast way to get conversations with qualified prospects.

And conversations with qualified prospects lead to sales.


Have you done a revenue plan? Figured out how many dials you need to be making daily to hit your money goal?

I've written about this at length, but Freelancer has decided that me linking to my own thread right here on the forum is self-promotion. So I'm afraid I can't refer you there.

But you can work backwards.

Revenue Target$ / Average$ per sale = # sales you need to make this month.

How many qualified leads do you need to talk to so you guarantee yourself a sale?

It'll get better as you go, but for starters let's say 1 in 8. Maybe even 1 in 10; that's conservative, but better safe than sorry.

So imagine you want to make $5000 and a typical sale is $1250. That makes our numbers easy: you need to make a sale a week, or 4 sales total in the month.

4 x 10 = 40 (!) qualified leads you must speak with this month to pretty much guarantee you'll hit your money goal.

And how many unqualified leads ("just people") do you have to talk with to find one good one?

Again, let's say 1 in 10. Could be 1 in 20. I don't know yet; it's your market. Set what you believe are conservative targets, get real data, and adjust based on the feedback.

40 qualified leads x 10 = 400 (!!) unqualified leads you must speak with to hit that money target.

You have 20 working days in a typical month...so 400 / 20 = 20. Twenty actual live conversations with prospects every day.

Or you won't hit that money goal.

Most people don't do this analysis, and vastly underestimate the number of leads they must run through their funnel. They're beaten before they start.

Remembering our average of 1 in 4 dials reaching a DM who can talk to you today... 4 x 20 = 80 dials per day you must make. And 3/4 of the time on average you won't reach someone to talk to.

Still thinking you'll run through prospects quickly?

It's work, this thing you're getting into.

Good news is, after awhile things like referrals and pre-qualified inbound leads and talks you give and such really start to hack down the number of qualified leads you need to generate from phone prospecting...and therefore the # of dials you must make.

Good luck & thanks for the mention.

wow, 'Jason Kanigan' ... supporting me on my thread WOW

that's a lot of GREAT information, I'll get back to you on more of it soon, but for now ...

>Have you done a revenue plan? Figured out how many dials you need to be making daily to hit your money goal?
I will try to call 20 a day and probably get 6 DM out of 20. Of those 6, 4 should be setting appointments with me. Of those 4 I meet with, one or two should buy from me. These are the numbers that I see for myself that should allow me to consistently make a sale every single day.

I'm finishing my 20 list now and this has been very time consuming trying to see what they have for sites / mobile etc so I can cold call 'intelligently' hahahaha, ya right, we'll see

>Good news is, after awhile things like referrals and pre-qualified inbound leads and talks you give and such really start to hack down the number of qualified leads you need to generate from phone prospecting
yes, I look forward to that very much

OK, gotta go finish up my list to call ... thanks you guys ... I"m so excited I'm gonna verp!!

https://youtu.be/pWnmaFnXIJQ

With just you calling prospects in a 40 mile radius you will be dialing for years.

For my largest client we have been in several territories dialing on the same 10k leads for 2 years. Most completely forget the name of the company that calls them within a day. So every week is like a new call.

People's interest changes. A no today is not a no tomorrow and especially not a no 2 months from now or a year from now.

Eventually they become interested. And you mentioned hundreds of calls per month. We make thousands per week to the same 30-50 mile radius territory and have never had a problem with "running out of leads" In a year when you do feel like you've exhausted a list there are a few thousand new businesses to call anyway.

I have been calling on an off for about a year now and I still haven't hit 1,000 unique dials.

I've probably worked 600 unique numbers but I hit those numbers many times so that I just don't "burn" through numbers and then complain I can't make a sale.

ok day 1, was very proud to do 25 calls, some did hang up on me, 3 are so busy now they do not need more business , a couple answering machines, a few said to call back and talk to the 'owner' and they told me when to call back and who to talk to (thanks jason for teaching me the way to pass the gatekeeper)

a note about that, I called and asked to make an appointment to show them my service, they either listened or said, i'm not the one to talk to, you need to talk to so 'n' so and told me who to talk to

I thought that was very cool, different than the 'not sure if you are the person I need to speak to' line, but seemed to work well as no one questioned me and either put me through to the dm or told me who the dm was and when/how to reach them.

anyways, I also had several 'not interested' folks who were nice enough.

LifeSafetyExpert was right, "Most times, even the ones not interested are VERY POLITE!"

My FIRST call resulted in an appointment tomorrow!

Thought I was rockin, then it all went downhill from there, but I stuck to my guns and went through my whole list and was proud of myself.

Am off to make another list to call tomorrow after my appointment.

The appointment lady asked for more of what my call was about, I told her mobile marketing and she replied, well we do not give out our cell phone numbers LOL

I replied, its not about giving out your cell numbers, its about all your clients never being without their cell phones.

so we'll see if I can make this prove to be as valuable as I know it is when speaking with her, should be interesting.

She really didn't want to say ok to the meet, but I kept saying, only 5 minutes of your time to show you how you can get more business, I only need 5 minutes and she caved.

Question, what is the best way to track cold calling? I would love to learn my 'numbers' as I go to improve what I do ... how do you keep track of everything?

also what do you use and how do you use it to track?

I am pumped that if I make enough calls, I will make sales... but what is 'enough' to make the sales? right now at the start it's all guesswork, but that needs to change

For a CRM, the best answer is like what exercise is best for you: "The one that you will DO."

So "the one that you will USE."

I've used fancy, simple, proprietary and for the past bunch of years have stuck with what I will use: Google Calendar and a spreadsheet. Track dials, conversations, sales across the top, and leads down the side. Use conditional formatting to highlight callback dates...due today (green), or late (red).

Please review my post above. You set conservative targets. Then you run real data through the system. Then you adjust based on that real data. IMO your # of conversations to # of meetings booked is high and not conservative. But who knows, I could be wrong. I know what my results will be like, but I am not you. Real data will tell.

Sounds like you are on the right track. Maybe be a little more detailed about what you are offering with mobile marketing. A lot of people unfortunately have no idea what it is, so if you give them more details. They might be more interested. You seem to have had a productive day. MAKE SURE you follow up with the ones you didn't get a hold of today. Yo list will keep growing every day. You'll have new numbers and then the ones you couldn't get a hold of today and so on.Once you get your pitch right, your ratio will get better as well. It truly is a numbers game in the long run. Keep it up and watch the money start rolling in.

hi mrsray,

1) Yellow pages is your source of information
2) a) build sites first
b) then sell something else to the same people you sold websites to (eg. Lead generation)
c) then again sell something new - There is no end digital marketing / internet marketing

For cold calling, train yourself first - so every call you make has an impact. The best sales training you can get is from books / people related to the TIME SHARE INDUSTRY - these people are trained to sell 30k USD worth of membership plans to people who they have never met, to people who have never heard about the membership and yet a sale is made day in day out. I think if you google TIME SHARE SALES SCRIPT - you might find something.

Second option is google - Happen to watch the movie boiler room ? Please do, people sell stocks and on phone. And these people have scripts that they cannot alter. They have all anticipated questions and answers. Every possible question they could be asked is there.

SO before you dial that number - equip yourself - make sure every call you make - makes an impact.

todays update:

the appointment went well, but I did not close. I was not nervous and the customer saw the value ... for anyone but her, she does not need this right now LOL

my cold calling giving more details resulted in most responses being 'not interested'

one was TAKE MY NUMBER OFF YOUR LIST, very upset irate crazy person

and one possible appointment, they will be getting back to me (fingers crossed)

a little bummed after todays results even though I know it's way too early to judge

I know if I could share how I can help a business grow with my services, they would be interested, but I can't get anyone to even listen.

Have you thought about doing cold calls door to door? A lot of times, it is easier when you are face to face.. I prefer door to door over cold calling over the phone. I still do both but door to door is my first choice. Luckily, my pipeline is full so I don't have to do either very much any more. Once you get there, you wont have to either. LUCKILY....LOL

any new updates on how the rest the week has gone for you?
I am in the same situation here. I am looking to get started but always end up saying tomorrow I start for sure. and tomorrow comes and I tell myself I am not ready that I will spend the day to get ready, and tomorrow I will for sure kill it. lol.. I know I need to grow up.. I am making myself make a few calls in the next hour. just to get the balls rolling and test the waters.. I want to make at least 50 calls maybe that can get me going.. I know I'm not expecting a sale for that. but maybe from that I can see that is not as bad and scary as it might seem.

LOL, Cold calling AMAZES me. How grown adults are afraid to talk to strangers. It's one of the easiest way to make money but we all have a fear of it. I'm by NO means an expert, but I have pretty much gotten over most of the fear I used to have..I still have those days sometimes where fear creeps in.

When I start feeling the fear, I think about my fiance, bills to pay,hunting leases I have to pay for,Montana place,the 63-66 Shelby Cobra w 427 I want and retiring in the next 10 years. After that, fear just goes away and I make the call or knock on the door. We really do have it made if you think about it. Most others trade time for money, we write our own checks!!

It's because there's a rational side to the fear of phone prospecting...and an irrational side.

The rational side is dealt with by understanding the numbers. Most people think they'll dial and prospects will pick up and talk to them. Then they dial, and find that almost nobody is available. That discourages them, they take it personally, and quit.

The reality is that on average 1 in 4 prospects will be available to take your call. When you learn this, that no matter who you are or how awesome your skill level is, you realize that 25% is the best you're going to get on average.

Yes, you can increase these odds with some smart questions and calendaring of callbacks. But at the beginning, this is what you start with.

The irrational side is as if you have a pocket calculator (your brain) with the 7 key held down. You don't know that it's held down, so when you type in 2+2 and get 9 as a result, you accept it as truth. The key here is clearing up what's creating that 7 key getting held down, so that you can begin receiving correct results ie. 2+2 = 4.

On the 1st anniversary of my business, a promotional company sent me a pen with my company name and phone on it.

4 days later, they called to ask me if I got the pen and how's my business growing and would some promo materials help.

I said, no.

On the 2nd anniversary, the same.

On the 3rd, the same.

On the 4th, the same.

On the 5th, the same.

On the 6th, the same.

On the 7th, the same.

On the 8th, their part was the same. Mine changed: I had started to get this marketing thing and I thought a few dohickeys with my message on them might be just what the doctor ordered.

Point is, if you start walking east, and keep going on and on, you don't fall off the face of the earth. If you call all of the businesses in your area once, you have not run out of businesses to call, for, by the time you get done with them, #1 is a different business (new management, new owner, or the manager/owner has learned/unlearned something).

The trick is to keep calling and make notes of the ideas you get as you go along. Or, the trick is, they don't bite... Well, only 1 in like 300 does and you don't like him, anyway, so what does it matter?

I know others have already answered, I just thought I'd send you extra encouragement. Just in case you start getting the heebe-jeebies.

Haha no, you won't run out of numbers to dial, there are millions of businesses to call. You could have a team calling with you and you still would never run out of businesses to call.

I made 33 phone calls.. I was targeting businesses without a website. I have a software to scrape leads. but the software gets the leads from Google, the leads that I got that apparently didn't have a website they actually did. so my leads were not any good.

I wonder if there is a way to actually find businesses who don't have a website? I wouldn't mind buying them if they are not too expensive.. I know I would be able to sell to them so I would be making my money back.. if anyone has an idea of how to find those businesses it would be really great if you could share with me.

There is no limit that you would run out of numbers if you do it just yourself. If you limit yourself for whatever reason to a small city and have there 1000 companies, you just follow up on previous calls/start over again. Make a record of the companies, the contact person. Very often the staff in these companies are changing all the time, which can be annoying for some businesses but in your case might be a good thing. Restaurants and Hotels have a change of staff like some people are changing their underwear.

When you said "most of the prospects say they aren't interested even before I've told them about it".

You're just not getting their attention.

Lets brainstorm some ways to get it.

Excite them, get their brain spinning, scare them, anger them. Anything that helps you convey your story and bring them under your helpful wing.

No, prospects dont want to be told about cell phones and how awesome their open rates are. They want you to show them the future. Where you'll take them. Not how. But when and what it will look like.

"Hey Mr biz owner, if you had to contact the last 100 customers, how would you do it?"

"If you got a txt message right now from your spouse, would you read it right away? Of course you would. Now imagine if you could send a txt to your customers and have them react in the same way."

"I noticed that organic reach has dropped on facebook to like 4%. I mean your posts are getting seen by NO ONE on facebook. Boost it? ...Or we can build a concrete foundation rather than using facebooks quicksand."

Stuff like that. Inject your personality as much as possible.

Great thread btw I'm in the exact same boat!