What i learned after cold calling about 600-800 businesses.

Great work!!! Taking action sure beats perfection.

Have you considered using your seo experience to generate warm leads to call, not saying you need to do all warm leads but if you had a pile of warm leads to chew through each day before starting on your cold leads, do you think you might attain your goals quicker?

I cold called for something like 30 years so I guess I qualify...

I don't advocate cold calling...

I do second tryinhere. Rank your own site. It'll give you credibility and a constant source of warm leads.

Here's a little experiment. Do a little research on those who are advising you. See where they live. The houses they live in. The areas.

Is this what you call wealth? a great lifestyle?

If not, then why are you listening to them...?

Do you honestly think business owners are so stupid to be taken in by using some other label...?

Simple. Stop reading scripts. Start having a real human to human conversation. Understand your ideal customer. Research, so as to ensure you're talking to your ideal customer.

If your prospect doesn't see you as a salesman, then you've succeeded...!

Final bit of advice. The fastest way to grow any business is on the back of an existing structure. You borrow the trust and credibility of that existing business... Think along those lines and you might just have a chance at "wealth and a great lifestyle".

I have seen similar comments by those who start cold calling. If the goal is sales (or appointments leading to sales) and you didn't make a sale...how can you say it was 'productive'? You were busy - you were trying hard - you were 'adjusting' your script, etc - but you did not sell.

You are giving advice on how to do something you don't know how to do? Might be better to ask 'what am I doing wrong'?

The most misunderstood concept I see is the idea you can 'control the conversation'. "Engaging" someone is not the same as "controlling" them.

You seem think getting the prospect to 'shut up and listen' is 'control' - and it isn't. When a prospect on the phone is asking you a question....you are in control. You have created at least a small bit of curiosity. At that point, if you cannot TALK to the prospect without reading a script or giving a convoluted answer...you lose them.

I've done cold calling - promoting myself and my skills - the goal was to set an appointments for the next day and then turn the prospect into a customer during the appointment. I never enjoyed it - but I made money doing it.

The 'permission to ask questions' is a bad ploy today (in my opinion) There is so much press about scammers trying to get someone on the phone to say 'yes'....many people (and employees) are trained to say 'no'. It also screams 'I'm reading a script'.

Please stop. It's hurting my soul reading this. When a prospect asks a question, I have a radical suggestion...Answer the damn question.

I get cold called maybe 20 times a day...every day. When I ask "What are you selling" it isn't to control the conversation, it's because I want the answer to my question. I'm busy. If you were carrying on a conversation with a friend, would you refuse to answer their question? Would you stall?

The absolutely fascinating part to me is that newbie salespeople make the same mistakes.


Your problem isn't sounding less robotic. Your problem is that you aren't telling the prospect why you are calling and what you are selling, and why they should talk to you.


Honest. I thought calling 600 people and not making one sale was impossible.

Really...before you make another call, go on Amazon and buy;

Power Phone Scripts: 500 Word-for-Word Questions, Phrases, and Conversations to Open and Close More Sales

The Ultimate Book of Phone Scripts

And mostly Cold Calling Techniques (That Really Work!)

Read them and study them for the next week. Then come back and tell us what you are doing.

I've been cold-calling for 20+ years.

You seem to be mistaking activity for accomplishment, and haven't learned a thing.

If you have not made one sale after 800 calls, you are missing something here - bigtime.

In my experience, a sale is hardly ever made on the first contact when cold calling.

Generally, it takes several followup calls to make a sale.

We average 5-7 call backs, although sometimes it could take 15 or more attempts if voice mail is included.

Here is what I teach my cold calling reps:

Open with an outlandish claim to draw immediate attention
Identify influencers
Identify decision makers
Get contact information for follow up
Determine what is needed
Create interest ("If I could accomplish ½ of what I have stated would you make time to see me?")
Move from cold to warm
Add to your pipeline
Get an appointment (online or offline presentation)
Close the deal (or drip followup calls)
Followup (satisfaction level, set up for repeat sales, obtain referrals)

EliHood...

You just need a straightforward 'value proposition' that describes what you do.

It will need to be crafted so that the value you propose is (or could be) beneficial
to the person you are calling...let them decide after you've said what it is and then begin
a conversation.

This is not a fight you're trying to pick with them.

Just tell them what you can do and then ask if they'd be interested in hearing more.

A 'Value Proposition' could sound like this.

Hi this is John, I have something that I think could help your business, would you be interested
in hearing what it is?

That's It.

I mean.......that's all of it. You don't need to say another word.

Just start a conversation.

If they say 'no I don't want to know what it is, just say ok...bye.

If they say they want to hear more...just cut out any crap and tell them what you can do for them.

Cold calling is getting harder and harder when the telephone number is labeled "Scam Likely" How do you get around that one.

I just got a cold call asking for a donation. The guy started out saying "Hi. You're the first person I've talked to in over 15 minutes...and I'm six foot six..."

And I hung up. I know, it's rude, but I get over 20 calls like that every day. Just saying "I'm not interested" would take up a block of time.

But I immediately understood why he said "I'm six foot six". It was to make me picture him and be intimidated to listen to him.

And I can see it working in a few cases. At least some people wouldn't hang up right away.


By the way, a friend of mine was telling me how he would call people (teleselling) and purposely be rude, and call back after they hung up. He would apologize profusely. But the entire act was to gain engagement. I know it worked often enough for him to see it as a valid approach.

It isn't what I would recommend, but he thrived on it.

I do know that when I was presenting my product, I'd rather have an angry prospect than a disinterested one. You can easily flip anger to being on your side (by being on their side). But apathy? There is no approach that overcomes apathy.

Good work, will definitely try it to get more leads.

I sell SEO, and I did the countless amount of cold calls before. Now I generate leads mostly from the website, from niche events, exhibitions, conferences where I can meet my prospect in person, and avoid cold calling at all. However, I can share my cold calling experience. Your success is in not only in the script. First, do your homework and try to find as much as possible about the business you are calling. If you have a similar business in your portfolio - use it. Try to sell without selling. Don't tell much over the phone, instead try to ask questions about business and issues of the potential customer. When the prospect asks "what you do" - tell something, which is related to business and solves the issue, for example - "we are reducing time spent for marketing/generating leads/generating new business", "we can help you to significantly reduce your spending on ads". Offer to send a report with results of the similar business, especially if it is well known in the industry. All these work well. Don't try to close a deal at first call, have step by step strategy with the goal at each stage. At first call, your goal is to introduce yourself and raise the interest of prospect. In second call you should "sell" meeting. At the meeting, you have a chance to sell service.

I think what this shows is that cold calling is on the way out for several reasons:
(1) people value their time. You're basically stealing their precious time for something they didn't initiate or ask for
(2) there are so many cold callers before; they are probably already inundated with calls prior and have heard so many scripts. They have more experience than you either ignoring the call or taking control of it.

Instead of cold calling, why don't you warm call by only calling people who invite you to call them...setting up a lead capture form and running ads or SEO to the lead then calling those leads who have invited you to call.
Of course to increase the probability of a lead you need to offer something that would give them a incentive for their time.

So instead of feeling entitled to their time, buy their time.

A life insurance agent I know was telling me this week that he cold calls lists of people over 60 years old (selling final expense life insurance), who have inquired about life insurance in the past. These are cheap old leads. But it gets around the Do Not Call List laws.

He strictly sells over the phone.
Here are a few things he told me;

1) It takes as long to sell over the phone as in person. His average phone call is about 90 minutes.
2) His average monthly premium is $70, which gives him a $600 commission.
3) About 30% of the people that buy from him over the phone will cancel their insurance within a year. (the average in that business is about 20% cancellations)
4) He averages two sales a day. This is about what most active agents running in person appointments (for 8 hours a day) will average. So selling over the phone isn't much more efficient, except the agent never has to leave the home/office.
5) His approach isn't transactional. He says it takes about half an hour on the phone to even begin to discuss life insurance. The first half hour is building trust and fact finding.
6) I may be mistaken, but I think I remember him saying that it took about 70 calls to give a presentation...but about half of them bought.
7) This is all one call closing. He found that call backs didn't pay well enough to make them.

He has a crew of three agents that work with him in he same room, so he can help them close sales and keep each other motivated.

After I talked to him about this awhile, I told him that I thought the people he was selling were probably one of two kinds of people;
1) They bought this kind of life insurance before, and let it expire. So they were thinking about it anyway.
2) They have received dozens of direct mail lead postcards, but have never responded. Some people won't respond by direct mail, but will buy over the phone. Just like some people will do the opposite. I suggested that he figure out what else was sold to older people over the phone...and get those buyer lists.

I told him that for the people that cancelled, he should wait six months/a year and call them back with the same offer. Many people who cancel insurance policies (especially older people) simply forget to pay...and sometimes think they still have insurance.

By the way, do you want to know where all the money is made by life insurance companies?

Breakage. Only one in seven life insurance policies are kept long enough to pay a claim. And the company keeps the money.
And.....if you don't notify the insurance company that the insured died, they never know to pay the claim. What happens is that the payments just stop being made, and a month or so later, the policy cancels. Lots of claims are never made...and never paid.

Anyway, I thought you guys might be interested.

HAHAHAHAHAH cold calling on the way out lol.


Here is is my perspective.

@seotprosperity You think cold calling is on the way out because you either are afraid to pick up the phone, and you convinced yourself "its not for you", so let me just wait around until my site is ranked to get warm leads. Thats not an option for me. It's Sell or starve for me, and quite honestly im glad im choosing to Cold Call than to get a part time job. I'm building character, im becoming more independent, im learning what it means to be a husler. I'm facing my fears of social interactions. I'm saying f*** that eviction notice and im taking control of my life by picking up the phone and doing the work that most people wont do and im only 23.



Cold calling used to be my biggest fear.

Now its my b*****, my main focus is to make a sale. Its only in a conversation that my chance of making a sale is very likely.

Also for the people saying that i should have made a sale already etc.

My rebuttal is this.

it depends on your where you getting your numbers from.

I am staying away from manta numbers its giving me wrong numbers and disconnects.

if your list is fairly targeted then yeah i can see where your coming from.

An excellent guide. Thanks for taking the time to share your lessons with us.

Taking action is the hardest part.

There are 2 main things that you need to get good at if you want to start to control the conversation.

1. Lead with insight. Don't just call with a pitch. You need to call with some insight that can teach them something about their business that they don't know and can impact the way that they do business. Read a booked called "the challenger sale" if you want to know more about this method.

2. Get good at objection handling. You are only going to get so many objections so come up with possible pivots to those objections. A good pivot has to be logical. It has to make sense. If the business is asking "what do you do" it means that you haven't shown the value and haven't shown "whats in it for them".

Eli, if I had a dollar for every SEO hustler (your word, not mine) who cold called me, I'd be retired to a private island.

One guy finally got through. Here's the pitch he used...

Him: Hi, are you still running [website]?

Me: Why?

Him: According to our studies, there are 6,253 people every month actively looking for what you offer. And you have absolutely zero chance of reaching them. Would you like to hear more about the studies?

Me: Keep talking...

From there, he quoted me some figures from a study about how many clicks a typical listing got and some research about keywords people in that marketplace searched, then made the connection to come up with the number he used (6,253).

Not once did he give me some song and dance about how he could get me to the first page of Google.

Unfortunately for him, the website was dormant and just waiting for the domain to expire, and the business was closed. Under different circumstances, he might have had a shot, even with me.

Maybe something like that could work for you, especially if you have some kind of introductory tripwire offer, like a site audit or analysis. Then you can submit the report and ask for the work to correct/enhance your findings. Low to no risk on their part, and you get to prove yourself.

Simple. First, when asked a direct question, answer it short and sweet and to the point. And then, to get back on track....

...segue. The human brain can focus on one thing at a time and so if you toss them a question they're prone to now focus on that.

So it may go like this:

"I do _______. Speaking of which, [ask a question]?"

Update

Did another 100 cold call session(probably 130 i think)

one potentially interested in april

and

one potentially a sale.

We had a normal conversation, talked about price, and he gave me his email to send him, what i can do for him.

I think this part is easy, i can build alot of value with this site auditor thing i got.

It just a matter of him emailing back saying lets do it.

Anyone who is reading this, please cold call i don't give a f**** if you don't feel like it or not.

Everyday you get better, before these "almost sales happened" . I thought about giving up, or "taking a long break" until i can afford buying a list instead of digging it up. It amazes me how the universe has your back.

Look into Never Cold Call Again by Frank Rumbaskas. He has a system that gets people to call you instead.

Hi Elihood,
Thank you for this great post. I agree with some of the forum members here who told you that it is more the execution than the perfection which counts. I see you have made extremely good experiences in iterating what worked and what didn't.
One direct impulse that I have on the easy part of it is: Stand up during your calls and remember smiling from time to time, especially at the beginning.

A question that I have is: What was your biggest challenge during the calls, what did you lack?

Looking forward to your answer and further exchange with you

i would have thought your number one lesson was

"There are much better ways!"

great work.
Thanks for all the informations you shared.
Really helpful

What i don't get is this. IF you are a p.p.c. expert, or seo, or whatever you are trying to sell...how do you actually do any of that if you have to sit on the phone 10+ hours a day?

Does anyone actually enjoy doing it? Why not simply do a pay per call or buy qualified leads? Expensive....not as many..but if you get 1 customer a week/month is it worth it? If not, maybe you need to re-evaluate?

The secret to sales is to always be in control of the situation. Let him have some control but NOT all of it. If he ask what you do, you answer it but then take back control with a question ie a qualifying a question.

Selling is so easy if you know the structure of the sales process.

I havent cold call for about 5-6 months and I'm planning to get back into it. Cold call more and know how to hunt strategically.

If you cant control the call, move on and find an easier prospect. There are some people in the world that you will never be able to control, you dont want them as clients. Call more.

Elihood are you still kicking around? Would be interested to hear about your progress, or if you've given up. In my experience what disheartens newbies is the effort-reward ratio... it will take just as much effort, skill and rejection to close someone on the phone for hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars. And usually people starting out don't have the confidence to ask a premium price

If you want, I can explain in laymans language seeing as you don't understand? Don't waste my time with silly short replies. Expand on them, make your point why finding easy sales is a bad, compared to your method.

Rubbish. Someone chime in and tell Mike he's wrong.

When cold calling, it's easier to look for buyers to get a deal than to try your needs and desire approach to everyone. You're still leading with needs and desire anyway. Most business owners want more sales but most won't deal with cold calls. A tiny percentage will. Those deals I chase.

Tell us your call stats from cold calling?

How many deals do you find from a list of 100 numbers?

By your logic you should be getting 100 deals right? Seeing as most businesses want more sales and leads...

Btw I used to sell SEO and service my SEO clients, so I'm very aware of consultative selling. But yeah whatever. Good day.

Glad to see you haven't starved to death...! :-)

I'm not sure I agree with some about using a script. Having a script in front of you just makes it more professional and is a reference or structure for your call. I do agree that is should be used as a reference when the conversation takes on a natural state, but that would be after the person on the phone is interested in an actual discussion.

I do not think this was mentioned, but my small piece of advice would be to pre-qualify the business or consumer your calling as soon as possible. I.E. If you are selling SEO try to set hooks from the get go by saying something like:

"I am calling you specifically because your website has been flagged as having a low score/ranking for _____, we improve this score and we guarantee that you will get ____ more business, our service will pay for itself if you can get _____ amount of leads generated. Is this something you would be interested in?"

This way you have already set up trust and professionalism as well as specificity with the potential client. BTW - I actually do call those that are pre-qualified, I do not just call every business or consumer on the map. Another thing that you will do through this is lean on their pain point being "flagged for the low score for _____". Call it what you will but it will last in the consumer/business mind that "I am loosing so much opportunity because of my low SEO, ranking, keywords, etc".

P.S. There has been some great advice here, especially about multiple phone calls to actually close a deal. I use a spreadsheet to track, highlighting phone numbers where they ask for a call back, ask for more info (in which case I send them an info pack), or say they need to speak to partners. You put a note in for what they have said and follow up in a few days. BTW I call B2B so I go through gatekeepers, and am usually talking to the owners, CEOs, CFOs or directors of the company. These people are extremely busy, so calling them a few times will show that you want to help them with their "pain points" and will build trust.

Without going word-for-word with what exactly was successful for me in the past -- what's more important is the concept of presenting efficiently. Know in your heart that most business owners are extremely busy, or love giving the impression that their time is precious (which it usually is). In my teen years, I cleaned windows. After several weeks of trial and error, this pitch to business owners worked best... I'd walk in cold and simply ask in one blurred sentence, "I'm (name), are you the owner?" And whatever the answer, "I clean windows and I'd like to offer to clean your windows, front and back, for $29, and I'll start now and come back automatically every 2 weeks. Does that sound ok?" That was it. The answer was always either yes, no, or I'll get the owner. I'd either start the job or move onto the next.
I used this concept on the phone for several years for another endeavor and it was just as effective and efficient.
There are thousands of businesses out there. Move like the wind. It's probably not necessary to brain-beat every single pitch and conversation and waste time with one individual at any given time. Just keep moving if it fits your particular situation.

Sounds like your script is probably horrible. Asking permission to ask questions? Don't do that. Post the script let's see it.

I have done cold calling. (And still do) My experience has been, it works better when you start your conversation with a question rather than a statement. Like once I introduced myself and then opened my conversation with "Do you feel safe here?" (I was selling a IP camera system). Asking this question started a conversation and the prospect described the situation in detail. Then I started telling him about options available with me. It worked and I got the order.

Funny how this thread is all about controlling people. It's like an amateur casting of Pulp Fiction, the gimp scene.

If you know the service you're selling you don't have to control anything.

...and cold calling is sad.

I love your opinions, however, about five hundred cold-calls that you just simply attempt and close to the very first telephone.
Have a nice time.

Cold calling, door to door, etc... are NOT dead. They do work. 99% of people just can't sell. Period. Even with warm leads.

Having sold successfully in door to door (from 7pm to 9pm - in the dark to boot) and on the phone I have a few major tips for you:

1) Those who prospect the best, sell the best. When I cold email / call people, I'm only working with targets (or 'suspects' in sales terms) who actually make sense to talk to. I've created methods for identifying who has a need for my product - regardless of them being aware they need it (this is important - most markets for a given product are not actively looking for it). Cold calling *can* be a way to prospect, but it's better termed 'information discovery' and 99% of the time you're not actually trying to get in touch with your internal target, you're usually hitting up the operator / gatekeeper and asking some general questions, including possibly the name of the target you seek, email, etc.. Ideally you should seek answers to most of your qualifying questions BEFORE you get to the target. This is CRUCIAL. The sooner you can disqualify, the better. I also recommend you use these calls to try and flesh out an existing problems you can solve, objections to your solution, etc.. You want your call with the target to be on point and efficient - you really only have one shot, so it needs to count.

2) I strongly suggest you learn question based selling techniques. There are several names, systems, etc. I suggest starting with the SPIN Selling method (I strongly suggest you buy the field book and do all the exercises). After SPIN, hit Question Based Selling by Thomas Freese. It's the exact same method, but PHD level in it's additional insights. After that, read Asking Questions the Sandler Way by Antonio Garrido. This book is great in that it teaches a LOT of techniques to reverse questions back to the target and get them to elaborate more.

3) Understand what your trying to close on. Unless your selling small transactional products on the phone, you're not closing the sale. You're closing the appointment, or some other form of action taken by the target. To the close the appointment / action by target, you sell the target on their problem - this is why you gotta learn question based selling techniques.

4) Many sales trainers stress 'building value' - but fail horribly to teach how it's done. You build value not by rattling off things you think the target will find beneficial, you build value by highlighting their problem, throwing gasoline all over it, and lighting it with a match. Then you ask if a solution might make sense. Again - see question based selling techniques for how this is done.

5) There are two schools of thought in sales: low hanging fruit and high hanging fruit. If you need money fast, low hanging fruit tactics can do the trick, but you leave behind many more sales when you use them. Question based selling tactics are the path to high hanging fruit sales.

6) Referrals are great, but not everyone has a good referral that will buy. You should never have a 100% referral based business. One day the wells will run dry and you'll be scrambling, I've seen this happen - 80% of referrals coming from 20% of customers... and boom. That 20% drops your services / product, moves away, goes out of business, etc... It can be a real disaster.

7) Have. A. Script. Period. Just make sure you use it like a set of guidelines though, once you start literally reading it, you're toast. This is really important when you get into the questions because the ones that matter need to have just the right wording. Write them down and don't leave them to chance.

That's it for now. I'd recommend you get a gig selling door to door for a while. It's the hardest selling situation around and you'll learn how to read people.

Some will wonder.... so here's the stats. In my last door to door gig I set appointments. My close rate was around 10-25%. In cold outreach, that's crazy high. I did that with good prospecting and asking good questions. Not every door was knocked... because I knew which ones were a waste of time. I would carefully review my area before knocking it, in fact I had whole cities to work with, so I had a lot of control over where to knock. I have also been forced (by management) to knock in lousy areas they choose - my rates dropped like a rock - bad prospecting does it to you every time. If you work in a call center, this is the worst situation to be in. You won't have much control over the prospecting, because there is in fact none done in advance. You're doing that combo call technique of calling in, qualifying, then closing. It's crazy inefficient, but until your selling in big territories and have real control over who you approach, you'll be stuck doing it.

Well, Duh!

If you want to dig a hole, you can:
1. Sit there and just think... (not to be recommended!)
2. Use your bare hands. (Marginally better)
3. Use a shovel. (Starting to use your grey matter)
4. Use a JCB. (Now we're cooking)

Who do you think will have the greater success the fastest, and with the least effort...?

Of course, the cold callers, using their bare hands, will claim success because they've managed to create a small indentation...

There are plenty of free ways to advertise and even some that give a positive ROI. And most of those don't even look like advertising...

Calls cost both money and the most precious commodity of all, time...

I learned over the last 30 years......

1. Taking inbound warmed/hot leads is very easy and takes a relatively low level of skill
but definitely doesn't pay well.

2. Outbound calling to warmed/hot leads is fairly easy, takes a little more skill than handling inbound
calls and pays a little more.

3. Doing totally cold calls [face to face or on the phone] is really difficult, takes high levels of skill and tenacity.........but pays more than almost any other profession on earth.

4. For any given activity, lead generation, advertising, marketing, cold calling........the level of reward is in direct proportion to the amount of skill needed.

If you can find a way to generate warm/hot inbound enquiries that's great and I'd advise you to do it.

If you're not so good at that then learn how to be great at cold calling.

Hi EliHood, first let me congratulate you on taking action by doing all of those cold calls. Second, it's great that you've chosen to look at that fact that you didn't get a client or prospect "Yet" as a learning experience instead of a waste of time or a failure.
I take my hat off to you Sir, because after going door to door cold calling is probably the next most difficult way to go about getting sales there is. Cold calling can be very demoralizing when you're not getting results.
Doing the cold calling has given you some confidence that you use to keep going and apply to other areas of your life when it's time to do something that's difficult but necessary. This is an important lesson you've learned from this experience. That you can do something that's not easy, something many people fear, and learn from it.
As for controlling the conversation try developing and a 30-second elevator pitch you can use whenever someone ask you, what do you do. Start the pitch with a question like, You know how business owners want more "blank" or you know how businesses struggle with getting more "blank", well that's what I do.

I hope this helps and great job on taking action. Done is better than perfect!!!

And thanks for sharing the title of the book you're reading. I'm going to take a look at it.


Good Luck!

I am about to start doing cold calling myself so I really appreciate your feedback and the information in this post. I am hesitant to start but I need to get more sales. Thanks!

Great description. Thank you for the learning part, I do see myself in the situations quite often, will try to use some of the stuff you have learned on your trial.

Why not send out postcards and simply answer the phone of people who call you? To me this would be much more efficient than cold calling. Perhaps, you could use a two-step selling process like Dan Kennedy teaches. Give away a free report or free consultation to people who respond and let that do the selling for you. Just my two cents.

Nice post -

The what do you do answer is simple...

One of the most important parts of that script is this...

Your elevator pitch!

This is where you explain what it is you do and the benefits as to why you're that person.

So you sell SEO services...

You can simply say something like, "I'm glad you asked. I provide small to medium sized business with strategies to help maximize their views on top Internet web searches such as Google. As you know, if your business is not falling within the top 5 listed on Google's first page, that can have a serious impact on your business and leads for more sales."

"If you can give me 10 minutes of your time, I can show you a simple tweak that can help you immediately."

Something along that line can go a long way.

What the recipient is doing is challenging your confidence and expertise. They want to see what BENEFIT you have to offer and if it's really worth their time to even listen to you.

Cold calling is very quick and straight to the point.

If you have any fluff in what you say, you lost the attention and the call is over period.

Hope this helps.