telemarketing: I'm not local. How do you avoid meet ups/"wants local" kind of deal

Personally? Be local
Since you are not why not just explain that to them. If they still object just move on to the next and make a note for when they next come up on your list.

2 Ideas for you here to answer your question directly:

1: One call cold close

It will take alot of numbers dialing and alot of practice but you CAN learn to close in one call on cold calls.

Most people around here do it with warm ones though.

2: Create Warm Leads:

Here is the simplest way:

Place ads in free and paid publications that entice people to call in based on a free offer (like the yellow pages does), then when they call in, present them with premium options that make the free option look so drab, that they at least want to upgrade to a small "paid" package with some actual "features".

You should be able to close 1 out of three or four call ins on a bigger premium package, or even have a higher closing ratio than that.

In short, offer something for free, then upsell the call ins.

What I would do, is place ads , offering something free, then when people call in - Upsell them to a paid package.

Use a "Loss Leader".

When people call YOU as opposed to the other way around its easier to close them in one call on the phone.

There are other ways to advertise, such as affiliates, flyers... but you get the picture.

Create an offer that drives peoples curiosity just to the point of calling in...no further...dont try to sell anything in your ads... then once you have their interest and have them on the line, you have leverage, and you have identified them as a person in your market, you have them in your pool, now upsell them on the phone.

Thats the easiest way. You could try to sell them right in your ads, but it will decrease the response rate, and you will get a SMALL handful of tire kickers who are skeptical about your offer (Not always more "qualified" as theory suggests), instead of getting a LARGE pool of enthusiastic people who are anticipating something great to happen on the phone, and who are already in excited mode (Not always just freebie seekers, as some may suggest).

You will actually find more sales in a pile of excited people who are anticipating something positive, than with a pile of people who have been screened and qualified and are skeptical before they call, even though there is some interest... Would you rather have 4 "qualified" prospects per week calling in and closing maybe one of them...or would you rather have 40 excited people responding to a free ad, who may or may not be qualified but are excited, of whom you can sell ten out of the 40?

Number two is my advice.

Take it or leave it, this is just what I know from experience.

-John

Ps. There is a reason Willy Crawford has the biggest maling list perhaps on the Warrior forum, its called a "Loss leader". He aint afraid of freeby seekers, he understands their true value and the numbers. He understand the value of having a person "come to YOU" and join your pool at ANY price, or lack thereof.

If you work too intensely on "qualifying" then you qualify out alot of people who would have been buyers, had you drawn them in with a sense of anticipation and positive expectation, instead of qualifying them out.

There are two schools of thought on this, and alot of it depends on your model and whether you are selling thousand dollar sites or $50,000 ones. But for what I believe you are after.... Place free ads and go for volumes of prospects calling in. you will get more sales.

I agree that it is best to be local. But let them know up front where you are, and how you would like to close the deal. Then they will at least know up front.

John's advice here is golden.

To add, try and stress your availabity as far as phone and email support, and try and meet with a screen sharing program so they feel its a bit more personal.

For an advanced tactic, tell them. "Listen. Your in...Texas right? Ok perfect. If that's what it takes to prove that we can do some amazing things together, I'll fly out to Texas next week to meet with you and sign the contract. Sound fair enough?"

They'll never suggest you fly out to them. Ever. But they WILL sign your contract and give you their credit card info

- Mark Cuda

There are Two Types of Clients, my friend.

Those who DO care that you aren't local,

and

Those who DON'T care that you're not local.

Sort.

Identify and get rid of Type 1 quickly and spend your time & energy on Type 2. You have a mouth and a brain. Ask good questions. What John said just above is the type of question that you can pre-emptively ask.

I made a vid about overcoming the common objection over a year ago:

@ Claude,

Well, it was a bit off the cuff... I didnt really give it much thought, it kinda just struck me...

Let me try to rethink why I thought that...

Oh yes.

I was thinking directly of your Phillipino outsourcing example, and had forgotten that the OP wasnt about that for a moment. I guess I was thinking for a moment that we were trying to overcome the old "Will I get rejected because of my accent..." question. So my answer was more a "killing the elephant in the room" kind of perspective...

As far as prejudice. I have none, but in general , for alot of people some does exist, I dont think its a "racial" prejudice though... It's more of a "Their sending all our dang Jobs overseas and Im not going to contribute to it" kind of prejudice.

Again, I dont have it, but alot do.

All in all, I think I was more just excited about your post and wanted to throw some more creativity on it... might have gotten too zealous there, and not thought it through.

I dont mind being corrected by a guy like yourself at all Claude. Not just back patting , but ... you know.

That happens alot when you are just responding to a post you saw, (like clicking a post just because it says "Claude" without thinking about what "thread" you are responding to or in, and thus addressing only the subject of that specific post, out of the context). I sometimes just respond to a single post and that can cause me to be irrelevant. Its something I gotta work on.

Nowhere in the OP does it mention a fear of being rejected because of a foreign accent. Thats not what this is about. My bad.

Edit: At Mark... Yes, its all about the delivery. In my own mind it isnt offensive at all because of the way I see it coming across tonally, just exactly the way you described. However, I was thinking for a moment that we were addressing a different issue.

In fact I hear the tone saying "You are smarter than the other kind of guys arent you Bob?". Understanding that people have issues with stupid things, but you arent stupid, I can tell.

Basically killing any potential elephant in the room about giving work to foreign countries. Again though, thats not what the OP here is about.

No worries... Claude. Dont lose any sleep man... Like I said as much as we talk here there is bound to be some confusion here and there, you just cringe and go on... Much like a cold call.... You stumble here and there, or hit a bump... you just cringe and go on. Water off a ducks back.

In fact, if I tried that line, and it didnt work...no worries. I would just cringe and go on.

Don't you just love when everyone realizes we were all thinking the same thing?!?

And John, what you said last is EXACTLY what I meant. The "oh come ooonnn, your WAY better than everyone else! Am I right? Or am I right?"

- Mark Cuda

If the rules aren't in your favor:

DON'T PLAY THE GAME!


Make up your own game.

There's already some great advice here.

My best piece of advice would be to niche with a specific service
or set of services in a specific industry.

If you're the only person specializing in doing reputation management
for plastic surgeons then you no longer have any direct competition.

You can also make a list of prospects to approach using the phone
book or the internet or even by finding associations in the industry.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

If you're sneaky,you can get a local VOIP phone number and just say you'd rather just close the business over the phone.

Cold calling is good option to close deal. Mostly client don't care this thing you are local or not.

If your expertise is doing the work in the Philippines, maybe you ought to think about being a partner with many US based internet marketers and let them be your sales front. It brings you credibility w/ the customer while you work in providing top notch service on your end.

Claude, I bought your book on Selling Local Advertising and I must say that I like it too, it's very straight-to-the-point. Great job! I don't want this thread be turned into a promotional one but I could not find another place to recommend it and I think many will benefit from buying it.