First day cold calling, 55 calls.... 55 'no's

Keep dialing. I had alot more no's today. A few rude cuatomers. But two interested for next week. So do t worry. Johns script works. Made me $700 yesterday

I'm not sure what script of his it is... but you aren't dialing enough.... by call 200 you'll probably have something. Eventually you'll get to be around 1/100 but these numbers don't matter.

Keep calling, dial faster, get the no's out of the way.

I would Suggest a different Niche tomorrow

The One Man Band Business can be great but have a lot of objections

Also you want to be working off a daily call list of at least 100 ideally 150

Make more calls. Plain and simple.

Why not use mail and have the interested ones call you instead

If you made 55 dials and talked to 55 decision makers I'd be impressed, even if they all said no. What were your real metrics on this?

Where's your list coming from?
What are you saying to them?

You are looking for your guy. Not everyone. Someone who is open to having a website made for them, or their existing one improved. The rest you can screen out.

55 No's isn't a big deal. You're looking for the one person who IS interested. Keep calling. There are other factors here, like your experience and your tone.

55 calls is similar to flipping a quarter two times and complaining it didn't land on tails even once.

Cheers guys - looks like I just haven't dialled enough numbers! I'm gonna go for all the electricians and plumbers tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how I get on!

Frankly I didnt have much luck in those industries, so I just moved on to barbers and hair salons, and lawyers.... I suppose in this heat , those industries may be a exceptionally irritated too...

I had the opposite results, after reading John's, now infamous, report I jumped on the phone for the 1st time & started calling lawyers in my local area. The 1st 3 seemed really interested & I'm still following up with them.

What I would suggest doing is a bit of search engine research, find out what the competition is like for these guys & make them an offer they can't refuse!

All the best.

I have been doing cold calling and you will not get response very soon. As you are not alone calling them, they gets 15 to 20 calls a day, even if they are interested they will not hire you. Make them realise that you are providing free of cost for week or will analyze there website for free this is make you differ from other. As i am doing this even i get a 1% to 2% from 100 to 150 calls a day. They will love you to work for a week and after that 10 out of 5 will say thanks for working but we don;t want your service now, we will let you know very soon. But don't loose hope as you got 5 clients to work for and give your best to those 5 and may be they get yiu more clients with you impressive work.

55 calls (dialed numbers) is not enough to make any kind of judgment.

As many have said above me, just keep calling!

And don't bother with how many numbers you have dialed.

You should be focused on the number of CONVERSATIONS you've had.

If you haven't had any conversations at all. Your opening is weak.

If you have good/long conversations with the prospects but can't close. You haven't built up enough value in the mind of the customer.

create a demo site on a subdomain for them with their company name and you should be fine.

If I hadn't grossed several hundred thousand dollars in revenue on my first 55 dials, I wouldn't have made it through the past eleven years.

I'm so glad I got lucky on my first day. Otherwise, I would have had to learn to market my services and get up every day and try to sell them to people every day. You know, like a real business.

That kind of proposition involves setting daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly goals, even hourly goals, and working hard to meet them.

It requires working when you don't want to work, working when it's difficult and working through problems when it looks like you are going to fail no matter what you do.

It mandates a lifetime of learning and dedication to developing several kinds of skills and who the heck wants to do all that? I just want to do something easy and simple online, preferably on an iPad. From my imaginary yacht.

Make 100-150 calls/day for a week straight then you should get a better idea of your conversions,etc...55 calls isn't much, don't get me wrong I've gotten a deal within my first 50 calls but it's not always going to happen.

Keep dialing...

Best of luck,
Ahmad

Well, I have been, I guess in retrospect, spinning my wheels and never really focusing on making this a real biz...but now, I have to! Why do I always wait until I have to? (just talking to myself).

I do know how to help businesses, have the knowledge, and I'm actually pretty good at talking to people....have a couple G Places clients and have them up at the top, but not a real business.

So, what's the free script that Mr Durham has? I'd like to check it out, if anyone, or even John D can help me out....so I can start cold calling. Thanks, Mike

I've found very little luck with cold calls, that probably why they are so dreaded in the sales world, are you using LinkedIn and Facebook. That can often help especially with the 'ol giveaway ebook.

never give up!

I usually write a script and stick to it for 100 calls. I evaluate after each call, but I don't amend until I have made at least 100 calls. This lets me change one thing at a time and evaluate results. This also helps me increase conversions.

I recommend you read multiple sources to help you develop your own strategy. Two I recommend are "Smart Calling" by Sobczak and "Power Prospecting" by Patrick Hansen.

I cold call for a hyper competitive service industry that is very hard to differentiate. While it is possible to go through the entire sales cycle in a single call, it is not common. Especially for the most profitable clients. Those clients already have someone else providing a service 99% of the time. They also get pretty good service from their current provider. I cold call and ask questions that make people start to think more about their current service provider. If I am lucky I catch them at the right time.

Once they let me send information the sale has just begun. Now the fun part begins!

If I could just sell to that group my life would be heaven on earth. Sadly, I have to prospect to find those leads first...

Since I am not a business owner and I am just a sales executive, I don't have the same time commitment you have. I only have to spend 20% of my time prospecting on my own to keep my sales pipeline full. The rest of my time is selling my now 'warm' leads, selling leads given to me by full time prospecting assistants or servicing and up selling current clients.

When I first start cold calling a potential client I do the following:

1. I google the business name. Do they have a website? If so, what information can I gather from it? Anything that can be used on the phone helps make the call less "cold".
2. I write a script for that business. What do I have to offer THAT business? Why should they talk to me?>
3. I write three goals for the call. Maybe my primary goal is a signed contract. My secondary goal and third goal will be very different. My secondary goal might be simply to find out the service provider they are currently using. My third goal is almost always to have the prospect to agree to allow me to follow up in 6 months. They almost always say "yes" to at least the third goal. This lets me feel like nearly every call is a 'win' in some sort. This is important, to me, to keep me from getting discouraged.

If I spend the time on a script and get a voice mail I will leave a message and just add a part about my phone number. I usually include a time I will follow up on the VM. It is usually a week later.

If I am unable to use the script because I do not get a person on the line, then I put it in a 'scripts' folder for later use when I try back another time.

If I get a gatekeeper on the phone I DO NOT try to get over their head. A lot of time gatekeepers, especially in my prime industries, don't make decisions - but they influence them! I try to get them to give me as much information as I can. Once I have gotten a ton of useful info from them I ask them an innocent question that gives them an opportunity to introduce me to decision makers. I then send a postcard to thank them for their time.

I have had pretty good luck with this, even though I am pretty new at it.

You can turn a cold call into a warm call if you first send them your USP, figure out how long and often they've opened your email using an email tracking tool like spypig or whoreadme and focusing your efforts on those that have opened them multiple times and who take long looks and what your message conveys.

Follow up, ask questions (don't sell) and be thankful.

My closes are somewhere in the 20% range and I only deal with "warmed up" prospects. No's are reduced, "thank you for calling me, Carlos" are increased.

I hope that was helpful.

Regards

Los

Just remember, end the call the same way you want to start the next one. Stay positive! Imagine there is a hillside covered in stones, 100's and thousands of stones cover this hill side. However under three separate stones lies a diamond waiting to be found! Wouldn't you flip every stone you could until you found all three diamonds? Consistency is the key to live the life of luxury! I know you will get it, find your groove and do what you know works.

Hello there Tim,

when you cold call you have about 6 seconds to hook them, any more then 10 and you've probably lost them...

so you need to get to the point fast...

When you call them:

-they don't care who you are- so forget intros;

-they don't care about your company- forget about it;

-they hate telemarketers types- so avoid sounding like one;

-they WANT TIME AND MONEY NOW and like free information.

So figure out exactly what you are offering in one sentence.

Don't be like :

" hi my name is Tim something, i have the best bla bla. we are the best in business bla bla. "

That's how you loose them.

Let me give you an example here ( this is actualy something I use.. )

Hi,

I'm calling about your business I saw on the internet. Our simple blog harnesses Google to attract a long line of prospects begging you for information about your business...

...then you go into a call to action... ( you get them to a capture page, or to your site or whatever )

So the whole pitch is about 30 seconds.

This is just an example and I use a service for it, if you call them in person it might go a little different, but I think you get the picture.

It's also important to figure out if you like doing it or not. Don't just do it because somebody says so.

If you like it, continue and you'll get there.