Using Cold Calling to get sales

I'll answer this as a guy who started cold calling as my only means to get sales. That was a couple years ago. You want to know if it works? Yeah I got quite a few sales out of a couple hundred dials. Anyone else on here will tell you that it works. You can make sales. Duh.

Your fundamental problem is wanting to know how many dials it will take you to get a sale. That number could be 20 or 100 or 1,000. It could be vastly different for someone else. In practical terms, it doesn't matter. You might as well be asking, "How much work will I have to put into this to get money back?"

Pick up the phone and dial. Talk to someone. Hang up and dial again. Repeat.

Of course, it helps to know what you're doing. What doesn't help is wondering if it will work/how long it takes to work, because that's all up to you.

Is that what you're trying to sell?

Have a look here

http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...tacre-etc.html

and

http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...ling-tips.html

If you're doing cold calling you have to have more patience.

It's not that easy but it's really worth it.

Do as many calls you can. Compromise with everyone.

When starting out, play the volume game first and then refine to get better. Make a sh1t load of calls and even if your pitch is bad, you'll get a sale somewhere. Cold calling is a discipline, if you're flaky, can't concentrate, can't keep consistent, can't bang out the 200 calls a day (especially when starting) then you WILL lose. Might as well not start.

Give me a targeted list of 500 numbers and I'll probably end up with 5 sales down the line. Calling 500 numbers over 2 days is not hard. If you cant one call close then the follow up is where you'll make all your money.

the most difficult here is to dial the number and then it's all right, if you have a really good refined list of contacts you can get at least one sale per 30-40 calls, and also stick to the people timezone in order not to catch them asleep or having lunch

Have you tried direct mail? I have had very good success using dollar bill letters. This produces inbound warm leads who are much easier to sell as opposed to cold calling.

The difference between fresh, warm leads and complete cold calls is enormous. Something to keep in mind.

And you can start with a small mailing to keep costs down. Then after the first sale you can ramp things up to desired level.

Making more calls is unlikely to help. Every rejection will just reinforce this anxiety.

Your options

1. Deal with it. Easier said than done. We're not born with social anxiety, it's learned, usually at an early age, courtesy of our friends and family. Often a lot of positive self talk immediately before making calls will ease it temporarily, however, you'll need to go deeper to sort it on a longer term basis

2. Avoid it. Get someone else to make the calls. Easier said than done. Getting the best or even the "better than mediocre" is tough. You could avoid cold calls altogether. Despite what is claimed on here, cold calling is possibly the worst way to get clients. Well, I can't think of a worse way... Take a look at this post. Nine incoming calls and three customers and he didn't have to spend all day chasing people who don't want to talk to you...

3. Minimise it. Focus your efforts on those who can help build your business so you minimise the cold calls. Example, if you cold called the head of CofC, got him/her as a client, then got an endorsed offer to the whole CofC. Do you think you'd get plenty of business out of that?

Do you have existing B2B clients with a customer list? Would they endorse you to their list? Could you offer them something that they'd consider valuable enough to distribute to their list, with your branding and even an offer included? e.g. "Ten things you must ask your web developer before hiring them" or "Do you make these mistakes when buying a website?"

Want a quick client. Look to your own network. Friends, family, people you already do business with. Contact them. Tell them what you do. Ask if they know anyone who might be interested... Best be specific about the ideal client you want.

Find websites that suck. Write to the owner and tell them the how and why it sucks, and what impact it's having on their business.

If your social anxiety extends to talking to people (not just cold calling), then you really must find a way of dealing with it...

The cold, hard fact is that when cold calling, you're going to get people that tell you to **** off, that's inevitable so you should make sure you are comfortable with that before you start, if you're not, you might be better off paying someone to make the calls for you. Customers are like wild animals, they can tell when you're scared lol!

Do plenty of testing before you start to find out the best times of day to reach your target market, this will limit the number of no answers/answer-phones and hangups you get.

To answer your question, you can get a lead in one call or it can take you a hundred - the key is to treat each call as though it will be your next yes, and if it's not, move on in the same fashion.

There is no fun way to carry out cold calling, but a positive mental attitude will get a 'yes' much sooner than you will by worrying, stressing and being anxious.

Good luck!!