My Cold Calling Experience- 7 hours In the Field

Yeah but I fear reputation management will be a tougher pill to swallow for most business owners. Most businesses have 4-10 keywords that need to be cleared and that's a lot of work hence I'd be charging them $2k and up. If we're talking strictly helping them get more reviews by creating a review funnel then that could be sold for $2-300 with a $50 monthly fee I guess. In all reality though that won't be a real solution for businesses that have bad reviews on Yelp because of Yelp's aggressive review filtering.

Awesome I'll keep a look out for your results.

I'm on the grind too my friend.

Well I wasn't exactly pitching the receptionists, unless you call this a pitch:

"Hi, I’m not sure who I should speak with. My name is ______, and I help dental practices by helping them generate more patients from their marketing. But I don’t know who would have this under theirumbrella there…"

What would you suggest as a better way of getting past the gatekeeper?

If you are still keen on web design then may I suggest the following to get a lot higher success rate:

1) Find a business without a website or one that needs a total makeover/ new one. Especially if the current site is not mobile friendly and you cant tap on a phone number to automatically make a call (there are lots of other reasons too but this is just one example)

2) Build only two pages for them. The home or contact page as an example. For remodelled sites borrow logos photos etc if the quality is any good from the existing site. Just make sure the two pages are miles better than the existing site. I buy a $15 template from Themeforest. If I land a customer I will buy the Wordpress version if it is warranted for that business. Keep on using that template until you get a sale.

3) Screenshot and save the completed pages.

4) Call up the business owner. Tell them you have noticed that their site is old and not mobile friendly. Make them feel that they are missing out on customers making purchasing decisions on the run etc. Research mobile purchasing patterns if you want to. If they say no then say to them something like ... 'Thats no problem, but I have actually created a sample site for you and I think you would love the look of it. Can I send it to you regardless? My rates are extremely competitive as well.' ... They generally say 'ok'. Set a time with them to follow up. I like to give them 2 or 3 days.

5) For those that say yes you then complete a proposal document. Tell them about your business, highlight the constraints of their current site, and the benefits of the new site. Include your price. Make a quick note of how many pages this quote covers. I normally use a figure of the number of pages in their current site plus 2 more pages. Add the screenshots of the dummy web pages you created and remind them that this is a sample of what they could receive, not the whole site. Convert into a PDF file and send it.

6) Follow up on the email with a call 3 days later. Convert over the phone. Profit!!

This has worked for me much more successfully than cold calling with nothing to show. I have tried to streamline the operation, and I obviously suggest you (and anyone else wanting to do this) do the same. I give myself 1.5 hours to put the two pages together, then another .5 hrs to complete the proposal document. I have a very professional template.

In your 7 hours of cold calling you could potentially complete 3 of these opportunities and you will land at least one of these as a client. The more you do it the more efficient you are at churning them out.

You could save even more time by lying to the potential client in saying that you have done a sample for them. But obviously they will have to wait fir 2 hours as you create everything. If they say no regardless then you have saved 1.5hrs design time, but I don't wish to do that. (That's just a personal decision for me, I'm not judging you ).

They get onside very quickly if they can see what their site may look like within 30 mins of getting off the phone to you.

If you knock out 2 of these per day (at 4 hours per day) Monday to Friday (10 per week) then you will get at least two sign ups. The quality of your sample site, your telephone manner and your proposal will obviously have a bearing on this also. How you price will determine how many you plan to achieve per week.

Just my thoughts if you don't want to go down the reputation path.

Beautiful. I'll try this out today and post my results later tonight.


Thanks for all the feedback John. I read through that report, and it seems that the script is based off of knowing the business owners name. What I was actually doing was going through Google Places listings and calling business that didn't have a website, so 9/10 I didn't know the business owners name.

Either way, I might be dense but I'm missing how the script in the report would help me get past the gatekeeper (which seemed to be my biggest problem).

Lol, so I see.


Yeah I was using Google Places, to find businesses that didn't have a website. I could easily do the same in other niches, which is exactly what I plan on doing as soon as I'm done with this post. My plan was to set up phone appointments and line them up (as soon as I can start generating them lol), and if anyone misses an appointment I was going to get right back on the phone until the next appointment for 3-4 hrs a day.

It's definitely encouraging to hear about your success Deidra!

Ahhh... I see. THAT's what I was missing!

Sir, yes sir!

Very revealing post. I applaud your effort.

Not disagreeing but why not just make a list with the biz owners name?

Also I would focus my list on businesses with 10 employees or less, that way the owner is usually in arms length of whoever answers the phone... if not the owner answers themselves.

If the lead says his name is Bob, and a male voice answwers, just say "hi Bob?"

You will get to pitch more...

What you are saying, in all fairness IS NOTHING LIKE what Jasons is saying. You are pitching the gatekeeper saying "Im a salesman".

I dont always agree with him , but its not fair to say you are failing and give his pitch the credit for it, when you arent really using his pitch.

However most of the problem here is your niche, you are choosing a high difficulty level niche, Attorneys are better than dentists or ANY kind of medical professional.

Medical professionals ALWAYS have gate keepers who are trained to only pass the phone if its life or death, even then they will likely tell you to come in or make an appointment.

You SERIOUSLY decrease your odds by starting off in that niche. They are even further decreased with the approach you were taking...

However I do like the rep management pitch you came up with. Nice.

-John

Hey Lasse!

Havent seen you around in ages!

Good to see you posting!

-JD

Glad my advice is working for you.

The vast majority of people will not be interested anyway: they are suspects, don't worry about them.


You can try asking questions before pitching, ask how their listing is performing for them. Are they completely satisfied with the amount of business they are getting? Are they looking to get more business?

All of selling is centred around the theory of motivation.

Your customers has current state of 'A' and they are looking to get to the desired emotional state of 'C'.

The whole selling process is about positioning your product, 'B' as the solution and then offering them incentives to walk across the proverbial bridge that B represents to meet their goals.

The further away their emotional states of A and C are, the easier the sale is. The more motivated and dissatisfied they are the more receptive they will be to considering to paying the price to get it, the closer these emotional poles are (complacency), the harder it's going to be, which is why it's absolutely critical to identify these things before suggesting a solution.

Going more into depth.. the role of the salesperson after identifying their current and desired emotional states is to lengthen the perceptual distance between the two which creates tension, once you create enough tension with both incentives and fear of loss, then the customer is going to start leaking buying signals like a doomed ship before succumbing by buying.

Qualify their interest first before before talking about getting a website, and try to control the subject of their objection for why they haven't got around to it yet.. let me explain.

After we've had a talk about where they are now and where they would like to be in terms of sales, leads, exposure etc it's time to find out the reason their site isn't up yet.

'Do you mind if I ask why you don't have a website?' Is it the money, or do you just not have the time?'

Don't let them give you a reason that you can't answer. This is what I mean by handling the flow of objections, give them a choice between two answers which you have rehearsed an answer for.

If they say it's the money then most likely they've had quotes from other companies which is far beyond their budget. This is perfect if you can position your product as a high quality alternative at a better price.

If they say it's the time then well.. that's just an excuse.. and following the sales process correctly will kick their motivation into gear.


Hope this is useful.

If you could post the script you are using I'll make some changes to see if we can get it pumping