About to start cold calling for my local business directory - can anyone help with the script?

9 replies
Hi guys,

After recent renewed motivation to finish off my idea of a local business directory for a specific niche, I have decided to finally sit down and finish it all off.

The site is up and online (for the most part) and I have had it customised to work in such a way where I think it is good to go.

I have a cold caller on hand which has done some calling for me before. He seems okay, and I have pretty much all of the niche-businesses all separated into specific states (8 total here in Aus).

So I pretty much have everything good to go and all of my documents set up online with Google docs for the callers to make notes as they call people, etc.

The only problem I am having is with the script.

I have made the website but have not yet done much for advertising. I want to start filling the numbers before spending money on advertising, and I am sure I can make this work - but I just need to think of a good script.

I am planning to spend a lot of what I earn back on advertising. I will be pushing SEO and Video SEO for the most part, I may look into other forms but those will get me some good traffic. I will be looking at hiring multiple VA's to do the SEO work for me if all goes well - but first, I need a script which is going to get me these guys signing up.

I have added a few legitimate businesses listings to the site myself as a free one-month listing just to give the site some feel. I am planning to get my caller (and myself) to call up and offer free one-month listings anyway for a few days just to start filling some spots. This I believe is the easy part.

But I need some sort of script to get them in on the site: It is aimed at restaurants Australia wide and I am going to charge $15 per month (12 months up-front commitment needed).

I need the upfront commitment because I want to treat this seriously and actually provide them benefit for being on the directory, as such: I need the commitment of a year upfront so I can properly allocate funds to advertising.

Does anyone have an idea for how a script for this would go like? I'd probably even be willing to pay a little (not too much hopefully) for a script related to this.

Any help / input / anything is appreciated. I am really hoping to take this to the next level!
#business #calling #cold #directory #local #script #start
  • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
    Any ideas?
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  • Profile picture of the author Transcripts
    I might be looking at this wrong, or perhaps I'm not fully understanding you, but if it were me you were trying to sell this to, I'd rather see a fully functioning, already ranked website, so I know just what it is I'd be getting for my ad dollars.
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  • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
    You're looking at it the right way - you're pretty much spot on. But I don't want to invest the thousands (that I plan to) without actually having anyone in there. Is this something common to do? Perhaps it is and I am looking at it the wrong way - but I read in another thread someone was signing people up without even having the site online!
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  • Profile picture of the author ZassarDotCom
    thanks for posting it here..
    i also need somebody to explain this problem..
    come on warrior..share with us here!
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    • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
      Originally Posted by ZassarDotCom View Post

      thanks for posting it here..
      i also need somebody to explain this problem..
      come on warrior..share with us here!
      Are you also making a directory, or already made one? Which niche-type are you targetting?

      I think to give them a free 30 day trial is a good starting point!
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  • Profile picture of the author msaqib301
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    • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
      Originally Posted by msaqib301 View Post

      any more ideas ? i am blank :O
      Seems there are more of us, haha
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  • Profile picture of the author Transcripts
    Maybe just start with business info you find online, but only putting in the names, addresses, (but not clickable numbers or websites) to start with?
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    • Profile picture of the author krzysiek
      Originally Posted by Transcripts View Post

      Maybe just start with business info you find online, but only putting in the names, addresses, (but not clickable numbers or websites) to start with?
      Hey! Thanks for your reply! I've already done that a little, and I am sure I can do that a bit more to start filling the numbers - but I'm trying to give away free 30 day listings right now. That alone should be getting the numbers rolling in :/

      I guess I really need to brush up my 'free 30 day listing' script before I even try charging for it !

      I was thinking to fire up a Adwords campaign (I don't know much about optimising it though!!) for the short term to get traffic flowing into the site, while I get a lot of SEO work done to it. This way at least they're getting something out of it.
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  • Profile picture of the author hotlinkz
    Does the site currently get enough traffic to justify your $15 fee?

    Not many business owners will pay even that small sum to get listed in a directory with very little to no traffic. You will need to do a big marketing and promo push to get some initial exposure for the directory. Then you will have a lot of clients coming to you by way of the directory itself.
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