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What are some good services to sell via cold calls?

by 1Bryan
24 replies
Wondering if anyone can help me out?

Been putting my son through a marketing bootcamp of sorts. He's loving it. But he wants to learn cold calling. My only experience with cold calling is for copywriting. And it's the do a ton of research kind. Where you already know the prospect because of that research. So the conversion rates are super high.

But the point of him cold calling isn't to get skyhigh conversion rates. It's to inoculate against the trepidation of talking to biz owners he doesn't know.

Any suggestions as to what service to sell via cold calling so he picks up some "numbers" so he gets that inoculation? He can build simple wordpress sites, write basic ads and landers that get phone calls for the biz and some basic video editing.

The problem with my way of copywriting is I usually only need a list of 10-20 biz to get a client. So you don't really get the benefit of calling 50-100 numbers and getting past the fear.

Thanks in advance,
Bryan
#calls #cold #good #sell #services
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  • Profile picture of the author wirriam
    Hey 1Bryan!


    During my first years of Internet Marketing/Sales, I had similar expertise, or even less so. I would definitely suggest utilizing the Wordpress Basics, and try to cold call businesses that need updated websites, or have no websites at all! A lot of mom and pop shops could probably use one, especially with the pandemic.

    The easiest suggestion I have is targeting small business Restaurants, say, local Chinese restaurants. He could even offer hosting/maintenance for a monthly fee, and offer to support any issues or even create the menu for UberEats, SkipTheDishes, etc.

    I personally did this. I targeted local Chinese Restaurants, charged them a fee to create the website, and offered maintenance for a monthly fee. I since sold the business, but I know the new owner(s) are incorporating the handling of UberEats and the likes for another monthly fee.


    Let me know if this helps!
    William
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    • Profile picture of the author 1Bryan
      Originally Posted by wirriam View Post

      Hey 1Bryan!


      During my first years of Internet Marketing/Sales, I had similar expertise, or even less so. I would definitely suggest utilizing the Wordpress Basics, and try to cold call businesses that need updated websites, or have no websites at all! A lot of mom and pop shops could probably use one, especially with the pandemic.

      The easiest suggestion I have is targeting small business Restaurants, say, local Chinese restaurants. He could even offer hosting/maintenance for a monthly fee, and offer to support any issues or even create the menu for UberEats, SkipTheDishes, etc.

      I personally did this. I targeted local Chinese Restaurants, charged them a fee to create the website, and offered maintenance for a monthly fee. I since sold the business, but I know the new owner(s) are incorporating the handling of UberEats and the likes for another monthly fee.


      Let me know if this helps!
      William
      Cool, yeah I was leaning towards something like that. And it does help! Thanks William. ;-)
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  • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
    I like the idea of selling printed products that are
    already being used by the businesses you call on.

    This way he is checking in if they want to re-order
    and if they do, get the details and get back to them with
    a price.

    For those that are not interested it could be that the timing
    is wrong because they have enough stock.

    In which case ask permission to follow up at the appropriate time.

    Some products are receipt books, quote books, note pads, business cards,
    appointment cards, brochures, menus, rack cards, envelopes.

    Squidcircle.com charges slightly above cost price
    and a low monthly fee for a large selection of printed products.

    Find out what a local printer would charge and
    charge about the same and pocket the difference.

    He can build up a regular repeat business instead
    of all the time hunting for the next dollar.

    New businesses can be a good group to go after as well.

    Best,
    Ewen
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    • Profile picture of the author 1Bryan
      Originally Posted by ewenmack View Post

      I like the idea of selling printed products that are
      already being used by the businesses you call on.

      This way he is checking in if they want to re-order
      and if they do, get the details and get back to them with
      a price.

      For those that are not interested it could be that the timing
      is wrong because they have enough stock.

      In which case ask permission to follow up at the appropriate time.

      Some products are receipt books, quote books, note pads, business cards,
      appointment cards, brochures, menus, rack cards, envelopes.

      Squidcircle.com charges slightly above cost price
      and a low monthly fee for a large selection of printed products.

      Find out what a local printer would charge and
      charge about the same and pocket the difference.

      He can build up a regular repeat business instead
      of all the time hunting for the next dollar.

      New businesses can be a good group to go after as well.

      Best,
      Ewen
      Thanks Ewen. That's something I would never ever think of. I'll have to see if that interests him.
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  • Profile picture of the author AmericanMuscleTA
    Since he's already got the skills for basic Wordpress sites and writing ads, why not start there? Heck, you could just have him pick up a Yellow Pages and start cranking out calls.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rockrooster
    Wordpress is a good idea, Many Chinese Restraurant owners don't know how to build a website and have rare knowledge of online advertisement.
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  • Profile picture of the author animal44
    Call blockers.
    "Hey, is this call annoying you? I have the perfect solution..."
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  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    Originally Posted by 1Bryan View Post

    But the point of him cold calling isn't to get skyhigh conversion rates. It's to inoculate against the trepidation of talking to biz owners he doesn't know.
    Im going to go a bit off the beaten path here.. look for a non-profit that he can go work their call center - he needs the experience and they need the help. Once he has been inoculated.. THEN maybe cold call for a website type service, because as much as calling is the same... there is a difference when you are calling for free or getting paid to call vs calling to put food on your table.

    Hope that Helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author 1Bryan
    Thanks everyone. We're gonna go with 1 hr selling Wordpress sites and 1 hr selling Squidcircle. Both per day. So he sees what he likes and gets results from.

    Lol, I felt weird because one thing I don't understand. Who the buyers for websites are lol. If I don't understand the buyers, I can't sell for sh*t. So I can't show him like do this.
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  • Profile picture of the author max5ty
    First, let me say I'm anti-cold calling...but that's me. I know there are those that swear by it and make money doing it. It's not my thing and I hate it and hang up on anyone calling.

    Second, I think we're past the whole "you need a website" thing.

    We went through the era of everybody needs a website. Now they have one and it's not doing a thing to bring in new business (speaking about most small businesses).

    My opinion, and I believe the data is there to back it up...

    it's worthless to send anyone to your website. Send them to a landing page to grab their info and offer them something that is valuable to them. I'm not talking about building an email list...because I also believe those are outdated. Use texting, Messenger, etc.

    The whole landing page is by no means anything new, but it still seems to elude small business owners. I really think there's an opportunity there to show them what is possible.

    So, what I'm saying, is, I think most businesses have painfully realized their website...even though it looks awesome, is of little use in bringing in new customers...

    it's time to teach them how to do it right.

    On a side note, I also wish Wordpress would go away. It's a prime example of confusing effort with results. Most small businesses don't need it...it's hard for them to maintain and there are better platforms.

    Just teaching business owners how to use Google My Business would get them better results than a website.

    Anyways, I'm the type that likes one on one selling...then build up a reputation and have others coming to you. If you know what you're doing, there's no reason to appear desperate.

    Just my jumbled thoughts.
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    • Profile picture of the author savidge4
      Originally Posted by max5ty View Post

      it's worthless to send anyone to your website. Send them to a landing page to grab their info and offer them something that is valuable to them.
      I absolutely understand what you are saying... BUT, you cant have a landing page without a website.

      The reality is a business should not have a Landing page... but rather a multitude of landing pages.

      Im trying to think of the most basic of business... uh a guy that sells rain gutters. a single lander of Hey we install continuous rain gutters vs hey we install residential gutters. then hey we install shop gutters. Hey we install commercial gutters. Hey we install debris blockers. Hey we install copper gutters Hey miss home owner do your gutters overflow? Hey mister homeowner do you have water issues in your basement?

      A website as I see it and build them, is simply a series of landing pages. Specific answers to specific problems pointed at general to specific people.

      Im an SEO kind of guy... I believe and practice the principles of creating micro focused content - that in turn is searched with micro focused search quarries. Understanding a fraction of the capability of Google to match user and user intent to the content it provides is game changing. Google KNOWS an end users demographics. they KNOW a woman is searching about over flowing gutters... and it becomes our jobs as marketers to provide content that matches not only the problem and answers.. but specifically to whom is searching for said problems and answers.

      A website is NOT a homepage that is trying to get a conversion... a website SHOULD BE 10's if not 100's of specifically targeted landing pages to create conversions.

      The question Paraphrasing Jason Kanigan, "Who is your ideal customer?" should be the direction of a sales pitch to build a website. A homepage should be the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a business, and the pages there after should be direct communication with ideal customers.
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      • Profile picture of the author max5ty
        Originally Posted by savidge4 View Post

        I absolutely understand what you are saying... BUT, you cant have a landing page without a website.

        The reality is a business should not have a Landing page... but rather a multitude of landing pages.
        Absolutely. I agree with everything you said.

        I have websites that have dozens of landing pages. Not only one for each ad but also one for each site a person is coming from to visit... the time of day...geographic location...

        The point I was making is that the vast majority of small businesses have no idea how to use landing pages. They are hounded with the idea of needing a website...so they get one and then discover it's doing nothing to bring in customers...

        since businesses need customers, it's a great idea to tell them how to use landing pages...squeeze pages...lift pages, etc.

        There are over a billion websites (last I looked), and over 80% of them are sitting there with no visits and doing nothing to make moolah.

        So we have every high school kid knowing how to make websites now...we've all discovered it's not that complicated to make them...but knowing how to make them work is the secret...

        Business owners have discovered their website is a very lonely place. More marketers wanting to make some side money should show business owners how to properly use tools that actually bring in customers.

        Google My Business is by far more useful than most of the websites out there (and it's free). If you just show a business how to properly use GMB they would see benefits.

        Thanks for your feedback.
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  • Profile picture of the author LilyMunday
    Hi Bryan, I did a lot of cold calling when I was young and nothing has really changed. If you are going to get your son to go around local businesses then work him through a script that will help him to converse with the business owners in a non-sell format.

    I'm sure you will know how to do this as you've had so much experience. Your son needs to feel that he can help them with his skills and focus on building a relationship when he speaks to them.

    If you show him how to make his presentation all about them then this will work well for him. You didn't say how old he is?

    I would suggest that you get him to promote his Landing Page skills to business owners (he can do this on the phone) as it is a skill that a lot of people don't have and don't understand for creating business.

    You never know he might just surprise you.

    lily
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    • Profile picture of the author 1Bryan
      Originally Posted by LilyMunday View Post

      If you show him how to make his presentation all about them then this will work well for him. You didn't say how old he is?

      I would suggest that you get him to promote his Landing Page skills to business owners (he can do this on the phone) as it is a skill that a lot of people don't have and don't understand for creating business.

      You never know he might just surprise you.

      lily
      He turns 18 in a couple days. Lol, I'm hoping he surprises me. Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author 1Bryan
    Thanks all. I pointed my son to this thread to read. And of course put some of my own influence on it lol. Got his wheels spinning.
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  • Profile picture of the author savidge4
    Dear 1Bryan's Son,

    Give this a read: https://www.warriorforum.com/offline...-seo-work.html

    I'm not such a fan of "Cold Calling" I would rather be in front of someone. Even given current situations I still do this... maybe not going after 10 or 20 a day but getting in there and making a visit. Doing this is the "Trout" thing to do. ( you will understand that after you read the thread )

    Hope that Helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author 1Bryan
    So he's got a bit of a cushion. He can fail. Kinda convinced him to do landing pages. I showed him the basics, the rest is on him. Problem is, I kinda cut my teeth in just a couple niches and stayed in those niches and they have zero interest to him.

    I'm not really 100% sure who best buyers for a landing page service would be. Any biz that needs qualified calls. But who actually buys?

    Gonna go on a walk. It's probably obvious. But since it's my son it's too "close" to have clarity if that makes sense.
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    • Profile picture of the author ewenmack
      [QUOTE=1Bryan;11645527].

      I'm not really 100% sure who best buyers for a landing page service would be. Any biz that needs qualified calls. But who actually buys?

      [QUOTE]

      And there lies the problem, especially for
      one starting out.

      Even if you get a few biz owners paying to build out landers
      you still are leaving them in the lurch because you got to drive traffic to them.

      It very quickly gets complicated due to the many different directions one could go.

      A complicated business eats away at profitability in a massive way.

      Now take a product that is physical already used by business owners.

      They don't have the variables like digital marketing does.

      In a business I owned that supplied paper receipt rolls to POS machines,
      if an order came in for a carton or a truck and trailer load,
      the amount of time to service that order only amounted to a few more key strokes .

      In comparison if you had to build out 1 lander or 1,000
      the amount of time to fulfill
      the order also multiplies by 1,000 times.

      If an order comes in for 250 or 25,000 brochures
      it only takes a couple more key strokes to fulfil the order.
      Less time for me to type this out.

      It's hard to understand the until
      you have experienced the difference between
      a service and product based business model.

      Ok, I feel better after my rant...lol.

      Best,
      Ewen
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      • Profile picture of the author 1Bryan
        [quote=ewenmack;11645531][QUOTE=1Bryan;11645527].

        I'm not really 100% sure who best buyers for a landing page service would be. Any biz that needs qualified calls. But who actually buys?


        And there lies the problem, especially for
        one starting out.

        Even if you get a few biz owners paying to build out landers
        you still are leaving them in the lurch because you got to drive traffic to them.

        It very quickly gets complicated due to the many different directions one could go.

        A complicated business eats away at profitability in a massive way.

        Now take a product that is physical already used by business owners.

        They don't have the variables like digital marketing does.

        In a business I owned that supplied paper receipt rolls to POS machines,
        if an order came in for a carton or a truck and trailer load,
        the amount of time to service that order only amounted to a few more key strokes .

        In comparison if you had to build out 1 lander or 1,000
        the amount of time to fulfill
        the order also multiplies by 1,000 times.

        If an order comes in for 250 or 25,000 brochures
        it only take a couple more key strokes to fulfil the order.
        Less time for me to type this out.

        It's hard to understand the difference until
        you have experienced the difference between
        a service and product based business model.

        Ok, I feel better after my rant...lol.

        Best,
        Ewen
        We're still going with that too. It's just he kinda taught himself the basics of building sites/landers and I showed him the basics of writing them to get calls and he kinda wants to do that as well.

        Lol it also comes down to this -- I have always sucked at niche selection. But walks are good, something just jiggled loose that was in front of me the whole time lol.
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        • Profile picture of the author savidge4
          Originally Posted by 1Bryan View Post

          Lol it also comes down to this -- I have always sucked at niche selection. But walks are good, something just jiggled loose that was in front of me the whole time lol.
          I'm going to throw what was a game changer ( for me ) of a statement into this... Small to medium business' is your niche.

          It doesn't matter if its a plumber, a shoe store, or a dentists office... a lander with a call to action is universally the same, its only the words within the page that are different.

          By niching specifically to a specific single type of business drops your potential client list right down to short of nothing... Any and Every business VS the 13 orthodontist in your community.

          Hope that Helps!
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  • Profile picture of the author aduttonater
    Marketing services for various categories or asking for donations.
    Wholesaling contracts
    Bill collecting department
    Etc
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    http://newinnovativeenterprises.weebly.com
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  • Profile picture of the author WF- Enzo
    Administrator
    Have you tried downloading a database of industries with their contact details? That's a good start.


    Originally Posted by 1Bryan View Post

    Any suggestions as to what service to sell via cold calling so he picks up some "numbers" so he gets that inoculation? He can build simple wordpress sites, write basic ads and landers that get phone calls for the biz and some basic video editing.


    Thanks in advance,
    Bryan
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    • Profile picture of the author LilyMunday
      What a terrific idea. I think I will do that for finding companies in my niche to backlink with in the future.

      Very clever.

      Lily
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  • Profile picture of the author Claude Whitacre
    Originally Posted by 1Bryan View Post

    But the point of him cold calling isn't to get skyhigh conversion rates. It's to inoculate against the trepidation of talking to biz owners he doesn't know.

    Any suggestions as to what service to sell via cold calling so he picks up some "numbers" so he gets that inoculation?
    Believe me. If the goal is to inoculate him against the agony of constant rejection, selling any service by cold calling will do it for you.

    Anyone new to cold calling, if they have to do the selling of their own service, starts knowing nothing about how to sell over the phone. So they are terrible at it......And it's exhausting.

    So I'm going to advise a different approach.

    There are companies that have highly effective and proven scripts that actually generate sales.

    For example, calling to sell memberships to the Better Business Bureau...or the Chamber of Commerce. They have scripts that make sales, and they are known to the prospects.

    This way, he'll get rejections, but he'll also make sales. And more importantly, he'll learn how to sell over the phone. a skill that will come in handy in any future business venture.

    At the store here, we get a dozen cold calls a day (plus the robocalls). The calls from the police charity guys (no idea what they are actually called) are effective. They know how to sell. And that means they have a killer script.

    Life insurance companies have phone sales agencies that are very well trained, and well compensated. The Medicare Supplement and guaranteed issue policy guys are highly trained.

    He may as well actually learn something and make money while he's cold calling.

    And as you probably already know. Once you can make money cold calling, no matter what you sell...everything feels easier than that. Because it is.
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