How to scale my business from 50k to 500k per month

by Rocketguy

Posted: 12 years ago 19 replies

OFFLINE MARKETING

I am really at a crossroads with my company and could use some advice from people who have experience with telemarketing/cold calling or have worked in a call center.

I currently have about 50k a month that I am billing each month give or take a few thousand. I want to scale the business up to as large as possible and hopefully be well in the 6 figures each month. We only do SEO and we are a pay for performance company so we have a pretty good offer.

Most of our current business comes from emailing potential new clients and we get some referrals. I am considering building a small call center as we currently have only 1-2 sales guys who just work leads that we create. I have a couple questions.

Is creating a call center easily scaleable?
If someone is cold calling for 4-5 hours how many leads could be expected?
I was planning on paying the telemarketers a base hourly wage plus a commission/bonus for each signed client.

Any info or advice on telemarketing would be greatly appreciated as I have never built a call center before and I am doing research now.

#500k #50k #business #month #scale

WillST 12 years ago

Very commendable for dreaming big and setting a lofty target!

Unfortunately I can't help with the question you pose as I have little experience in this area...

But I was curious as to what offer you specifically advertise to your clients? Do you work for free until rankings are achieved, and then bill them?
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Rocketguy 12 years ago

Yes, that is correct we only get paid on performance/rankings.
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depp12 12 years ago

I cant offer any advice on the potential of establishing a call centre but i would imagine the costs could be high if your going to do a bulk hire.

Why not just hire one telemarketing person. Train him/her up. Give her training followed by a call script of what you feel works. Then give her a set daily target of appointments to achieve and a set minimum amount of calls to make every day.

Once you get that person achieving. You have the formula. Then hire another person and so on. or start again.

On another note get those sales guys bringing in a few leads themselves too. Everything cant be handed on a plate to them.

Telemarketer - 40 calls a day- Arranging 5 appointments a day minimum -

Reps - should have 6/7 prospect meetings a day minimum and should have themselves booked up 2 weeks in advance. Their targets should include a mixture of new business and upselling and looking after existing clients.

The easiest people to sell to is existing clients.

Good Luck..
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- 1 reply
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- Brian Boyd Banned 12 years ago
  
  Have you thought about outsourcing the whole deal?
  
  Now, I've never done this (yet) but have had some preliminary discussions with places that specialize in it..."Lease a Sales Rep" is the best place that I've found. Google them.
  
  Hope that helps.
  
  Brian
  
  Thanks
  
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Rocketguy 12 years ago

I just imagine hiring one telemarketer and they might not perform. That is why I would want to hire at least 3 of them to all work side by side and see what sticks.
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atrbiz 12 years ago

I've hired many telemarketers the past few years, and I can tell you from experience you definitely do not want to just start with one (if your budget allows) then I would recommend starting with 2-3 telemarketers and evaluating performances weekly of each rep,etc.

I paid my telemarketers hourly plus bonus per appt/closed sale.

Good luck!
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rolltide 12 years ago

Art- how many hours on average did it take your callers to get an appointment?
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IM nice guy 12 years ago

50K a month is ridiculously good income, do you mind sharing how long it took you to build to that level? and are you only offering SEO?

Sorry I can't answer your question, it's a bit far down the line from my current experience.
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Rocketguy 12 years ago

I have been doing this for about 2-3 years. We only offer SEO.
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- 1 reply
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- IM nice guy 12 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by Rocketguy
  
  I have been doing this for about 2-3 years. We only offer SEO.
  
  Is this profit, or turnover? and do you have your own SEO team that you setup? and if so, are they outsourced/virtual or local?
  
  Hope you don't mind all my questions, just love hearing about success stories, it's inspiring.
  
  Thanks,
  
  Nick
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
  
  Warriors - Try LINKVANA For Just $14 First Month, Including Credits To Try Out The System! Check it out!
  
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Rocketguy 12 years ago

Ya, my thoughts were that I would need at least 3-4 telemarketers so I can evaluate performance and get rid of the people that aren't performing. If you only have one caller then it is really hard to tell what you are doing wrong.
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Murtag 12 years ago

Hi,
I've worked cold calling (knocking on doors), as well as in call centers (as I am currently doing now around university work), and from what I've gleamed of how you get new clients its sounds like face to face cold callers would get a much better response (though I don't know how much you charge your clients - this would impact how to approach them).

Here's a few quick points on cold calling from a phone though:
A good cold caller can get about 1 lead an hour - though depends on your offer of course

Also if you register with something like the FSA (financial services authority) or equivalent for your location/service they'll give you a number so potential clients you talk to over the phone can check who you are - helps with trust etc

when writing a script try and fit in as many rapport building questions as you can

hourly wage plus commision is fine for employees

hope I helped at least a little
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foenyxly 12 years ago

Wow...that's fantastic to dream big.

I'm a newby on this online marketing stuff, but not sales. As an independent agent in the life insurance field, buying leads is very expensive, so I bought lists and hired telemarketers to turn those lists to appointments. I work from home, so no office space for them, they have their their own Metropc or Boost Mobile phone, so they use it to call the list...I pay them not by hour but by appointment, and a bonus if the appointment turns to a client.

I've make a good living doing this...so hopefully this will help you out. You can find telemarketers who are willing by posting ads on free ad sites such as Craigslist.
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Rocketguy 12 years ago

I have outsourced workers overseas and I also have an in house staff as well. They do different things as the in house is mostly writing content and posting it. I also have a company that I outsource article writing to as well.

My average client is a little less than 1k per month.
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rolltide 12 years ago

Rocket-Congrats on building to 50K/mth in residual income. How did you acquire most of these clients?

Good luck on getting to 150K.
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Tsnyder 12 years ago

There are a couple guys in this section of the forum who have a
great deal of expertise on the subject but your subject line may not
attract their attention.

I've never tried to do this so I don't know if it can be done but
I'd change the subject line to "How to scale up business by building
new call center" or something of that nature that includes the real
question about building the call center.

That will get their attention
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Rocketguy 12 years ago

Ya, I am still researching the call center/telemarketing thing. My biggest questions are what markets to target and finding good callers. I usually target dentists, surgeons and lawyers, but I would imagine with those markets it would be hard to get past the gatekeepers when calling.
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- 1 reply
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- Neil M 12 years ago
  
  I've had a decent amount of experience both as a cold caller and in hiring cold callers for my business now. We've been most successful by using the appointment setting model and sending in sales people.
  
  As far as niches go...roofers, contractors, etc are a bit easier to get through on the phone to the decision maker in my experience.
  
  Thanks
  
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  >>>>Visit Rising Ideas Labs <<<
  
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ScottGrey 12 years ago

Rocketguy,

Have you thought about other ways you could grow bottom-line dollars without necessarily needing more sales? For example.. could you partner with a web designer or adwords guru and offer more advanced services and split the profits with them? What about blogging services.. you could hire freelancers to write content and mark it up 3x and pocket the difference just pushing the paper. I've seen companies go from 50-500-5m in a couple of years without ever hiring additional sales people.

Scott
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