Kicking the Competition

Let results speak for itself; telling people you're superior means you aren't.

Much more powerful that way.

Business owners are good bullshit detectors.

Anyway, dial 200 new prospects tomorrow instead of wondering waiting around if this "shiny object" actually pulls anything. Do what works.

You have been asking questions for a long time now yet have not learned that much.

No one gives a flying funk about you. Who gives a rats ask how old you are?
What are you going to do for the prospect.

I knew someone was going to tell me to just pick up a phone. Guys, i can cold call and do this. Rearden and Eddie, you guys are great warriors. I've seen you post so much helpful information on WF and I know what you're saying is true. I know it seems like i'm always firing questions in different directions, but that's because for some reason I cannot find myself completely effective in the directions I go. I have no idea how i have over 400 posts and still feel this bad at the sales and lead generation part of IM. Yes I know I can just pick up the phone and call 200 people a day until my thumbs break, but so far it has not made me effective money.

Here's the real reason I want to do the video. I've got a blackhat buddy living in the US who recently ranked for a few cities in the US. He only ranked his site, not even videos. Google keyword tool tells him he gets about 1600 total exact searches. He gets 4-6 calls every day about his SEO. I don't see why this can't turn out into a profitable scenario.

I'd be having people call me who are either pricing, or ready to spend money. Keep in mind these are people willing to search for SEO.

So for example. I just got a plumber recently. It was hard enough selling this guy on a site for 500 after I made him and 3 other people an example site. He was the only one I closed. Idk why three other people would agree to an example site, and then say they don't want it after it's made and looks good when they either have no site or it looks like one from 1998.

Perhaps my biggest issue is the type of clients I go after, small area clients who won't really benefit unless they want to spend a little. None of them want that. When I go after big city-type (200K+ population) clients, I've had a 0% conversion rate. I know I can help them, but the message goes in one ear and out the other when I try to talk to them.

If my biggest issue is sales, what do I do about it? I'm clearly missing the basics of something, my guess, business-to-business communication at this point.

It just seems at this point I'd like to try something that will send people my way that are ready to spend money. I know it seems kind of like a ramble, but i figure at this point it was somewhat necessary. Plus I just woke up

Right after I post, I suppose David answered my question on my biggest issue being sales. I will start researching on the sales front.

I suppose from feedback based on cold calling has been people never seem to trust me. I always thought that's just because a lot of people who can't do what they say they can do call business owners all day. Then I come in and perhaps it's just me screwing it up. I'm sure it's a lot of both those reasons.

I'm just getting confused at this point. I should have started out with sales. That would have made sense.

I'm sorry for all the "I's" David, that's just how thoughts come out. : /

I know you want to tell why you are the greatest ever, but they'll never listen if you don't join the conversation already going on in their head. Don't talk about how great you are. Help them solve their challenges.

Most blackhat methods to get ranked work exceptionally well - for a while, until the Big G catches on and dumps your site from its listings. If you truly want to build a long term business, be VERY careful using your friends "techniques"

David I only mean I clearly need to change something up on the sales end of what I'm doing. A firm basics lesson will do me wonders in hopefully the near future.

Billy, I'm not sure the blackhat methods he uses exactly, just that it deals with social signals mainly. However I did read enough panda update threads to know blackhat is not my thing...

Thanks for the help guys, this has been one of my more enlightening threads, where I've really discovered why i need to round off all the skills necessary to get this job done.

Pick up "Advanced Selling Techniques" by Brian Tracy. Read and implement cover to cover.

You mention cold calling isn't "effective money." Tell us the sum aggregate of your results.

How many have you dialed in totality? How many have converted?

I know where you're coming from. I got into sales the "reverse way."

I learned copywriting, created my own ads, and solicited business that way via warm methods, no cold calling whatsoever.

Then I went into another industry (life insurance) where I would call on response cards to set appointments, and approach the door cold with the lead in hand, with the goal of getting in immediately to sell life insurance.

Now I'm involved in a B2B industry where I cold call exclusively; there is virtually zero leads to work.

I mention this because I've done, thought about, pondered, and tested most marketing methods. They either suck your time dry, and pass you by another week or month without any substantial results, and bring you that much closer to failing all together.

While no method is bullet-proof, when you cold call over the phone or in person, you can *control* results more than any other method. I know marketers will argue with me. But marketing goes stale, requires a hefty amount of capital to weather the marketing flops (you're luck to get a 30% success rate aggregate on all marketing campaigns).

However, in many industries, the ones who continually build a pipeline of prospects via cold methods are many times the most successful over the short- and long-term.

Bottom line, save yourself time with these obscure methods until you lay the foundation. What I didn't realize is that cold calling in person and on the phone will make you a tremendously superior salesman. Marketing through warm methods hampers that sales growth process, in my opinion.

In the meantime, in all seriousness, share *what* you have done cold calling to us. Show us how many people total you've called, and how many deals you've gotten out of it.

Otherwise, make it your personal goal to either walk cold into 50 new businesses daily or cold call 200 new prospects daily. Ask for an appointment to show them what kind of work you do.

Also, if you're concerned about people not trusting you, clean up, suit up, and walk in cold. Ask for the owner, make eye contact, shake hands firmly, and ask for the appointment.

Most people will trust someone who has the balls to walk in cold.

Thanks Rearden and Claude. Like I said, this has been a very eye opening thread for me. This is the technique I've used the most. I read a lot on cold calling a while back, the technique that stood out to me the most was calling and simply asking if the owner was interested in a new website. If they were I can make them an example site. And we could move from there if they're interested.

I've made about 1000 calls. I have closed 10 clients from cold calling in my time doing such. So a 1% conversion rate. I suppose that's good and accepted, however I'm not making much money from the clients. In fact don't have any "per month" clients.

I know 1000 isn't much at all. But it's hard when I can't make good money from the companies that I barely convert via cold calling.

But you guys have inspired me to get back into cold calling. It got confusing for a while, because i was having such a hard time making money from it. But if i work on the sales end of this, I should do better.

Where do I get my list from? It takes me like 2-3 hours to put together a list of 100 decent leads because I manually go through google. Another problem I find is finding the leads that are in a good position to be helped. Ones that aren't in google.

I should have said list of prospects.

Infofree.com -- $40 for up to 25000 names a month.

Or buy a scraper. Kenmichaels has a good one.