How I got my first client without cold calling and For Free
That is why I decided to share part of my story with you and help some newbies to start making some dollars selling their services better, I must say that I deeply respect all the marketers in this forum and that I am not bashing anybody, I am just trying to give my 2 cents to the community and show other side of the coin, I have always cheers the good content and positive post of many Cold Calling Masters in this forum, but that does not mean I like their way to market, once I said that here I go....
I migrate to Canada some years ago by myself, I did not know anybody I was not married, I had a nice life but I was looking for adventure... I always try to have a company and never really succeed on that field .... cold calling was never working for me, I did not close good deals, etc....... but I had a "good job" as a Technology consultant.... but I was always wondering if there where more things to see.....that is how I simply quit my job and came to this wonderful country....
I was able to communicate in both official languages (english and french) that allow me to work again as "Technology consultant", but very fast I realize that in this country I was going to be able to do more.... here the people are very business oriented an that there is a lot of wealth to be made.... as long as I did not have friends, family or anybody to distract me, everyday after my 9 to 5 I start studying IM.... fortunately enough one of the first ebooks I bought talked about copywriting and sent me to Gary Halberts site:
The Gary Halbert Letter
Oh boy I devour everything that he wrote!!!!!, I read every post, every resource he gave, EVERYTHING, so I started offering some info product online applying this guys techniques to write better copy.... and that blew my mind, because they worked!!!!
So long story short I hated my job, I hated my boss, I was making some money online... and is when the thought came to me... Why I don't offer this same services to the brick and mortar clients? that can be the start of my business!!!!, I was by myself, so the time was right.... but the question was:
How Am I going to get clients?..... What If I cold call them and they hear my accent and laugh at me? ....What if they don't understand me?....all those were stupid doubts, but to me were so real....so this is what I did:
1) I set up a very simple 2 page website, the first page capture people
name, email and phone number, the second page was a report I created.
2) The report was about how to get a work permit in Canada, I did it about that, because it was a topic I knew and I have found many immigrants that did not have their papers in order.
3) I went to craigslist and I put a post like this:
"Secrets about work permits immigration lawyers dont want you to know"
I wrote it under the service section on the legal area and I basically sent them to the webpage were they will exchange their information for the free report.
That simple technique has many lessons that I will explain:
a) Go where your prospects gather, what ever you are going to offer, go wherever your prospects are, if somebody is in craigslist in the service section under lawyers, it is because he/she is looking for a lawyer!!!!!!
b) Talk directly to your prospect in a language he understands: If you are looking for a family lawyer, you don't click on an immigration post do you? my headline is talking to people with immigration problems, besides that it is pinching one of the most powerful emotions we have: CURIOSITY, and talking about lawyers.....we all hesitate about their transparency, so I use that as well.
c) Just talk to people who REALLY WANTS YOUR SERVICE: If you are on craigslist on the service section under legal, you see my headline, you read it, you click on it you arrive to my landing page, you fill up the form..Do you think this guy is a qualified prospect???? YOU BET IT IS!!!... and you did not have to "cold call" 400 people and get slammed the phone in your face... these people are already looking for an answer!!!!!
I was having on average 5 sign ups per day!!, no kidding.... so now the question was how do I contact an immigration lawyer and get into an arrangement with them.
Again I was facing the cold calling problem.... and I was going to go to a lawyer office.. me.... a nobody in a lawyer office!!!.... I know I know... silly thoughts, but they seem so real to me... I did not have an office....I did not have business cards... I was not even Canadian!!!!! how were they going to accept me? .... I know I was really stupid, but if I can overcame all my non sense for sure you can.
So this is what I did, I went again to craigslist and I post and ad like this under the job section:
"An Open Letter To Every Lawyer In Toronto Eager To Make More Money"
I should say that I had already 70 leads in my list and some of them have already start writing me back asking me if I could help them...
As you can imagine in the post I explain that I had a lead generation website and that I need somebody to take care of this leads, I was looking for a lead broker to sell the leads for me... and I was going to pay on a commission base... I left my contact information
Can you guess what happened next?
Yes, me, the insecure immigrant with no office, no business cards, or anything at all start getting calls of lawyers asking me to sell them the leads to them...
The rest is history... but that is how I started, that was my first client, true story.....that is how I started a few years ago in this wonderful country that open me its arms... and I hope to become citizen very, very soon.
I wrote this to explain a few things:
a) There are other ways to get clients besides cold calling.
b) Some of them can be free or you can start them with very few investment.
c) When you apply direct marketing principles you are creating a very powerful asset that not many people mention and that the cold callers will never have:
What are those? those are ads, headlines, letters that pull a steady flow of leads every time you use them.... and they are proved to work.... after I "test" my marketing message in craigslist what I did was to use them in flyers, stickers, etc.... and it keep sending a steady flow of leads every month, once I had more money I put them on my PPC campaigns.
Lets see, as a cold caller you always will have just 24 hours per day.... you can't escalate that model..... unless you are hiring other telemarketers and then you increase your over head.... and... a direct marketer will kill you easily.... with the profit margins.
Cold calling it is an 8/hr job, while testing your marketing message will pay you 200/hr once you have test the right message.. you decide to work for 8/hr or for 200/hr....cold calling is like trying to bring water to your home with a bucket while direct marketing is creating a set of pipes to bring the water.... yes in the beginning when you are testing your message it may seem like cold calling is doing more, but once you have tested what message is converting the best cold callers will never see you again, trust me.
Once again I did not write this post to attack anybody, I did it to explain that it is possible to get clients without cold calling and for free, and to encourage all the offliners that are struggling right now.
Respectfully
Miguel "patadeperro" Pancardo
P.S.
I know that my English is not perfect, today I have a native English speaker as editor of all my material, she did not edit this, because this is my personal stuff.
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