Am I being impatient with my leads?

Cold call to get an appointment, or just sell right then and there.
I think Jason's and others' scripts address that.

Perhaps email your portfolio links before the appointment and be sure
that they look so they are prepared.

Most people seem to think mock ups as a sales tool are a waste of time.

when you agree to send them over an example, tie them down a bit more, this will come with experience but get some agreement from them that they'' look at it within X days/hours and that you will be ringing them back at X pm on Thursday , get them to agree a convenient day/time for that and diary it, then when you ring back , if they don't connect you can think they aint taking you serious or not interested.

What do you send with the example /demo sites? Full time sensitive call to action order opportunity or a loose open Im not going to tie you down because I need you approach.
You know builders are less reliable than politicians right. Test out some time sensitive offer , you cant do any harm if theyre not buying already

Sending mock ups and emails is a waste of time.

You are essentially working for FREE and chasing/begging for their business.

Not an advantageous position, yes?

Get them to make a deposit that can be added towards the final sale amount. Don't waste time chasing tyre kickers. Qualify harder.

Sending emails does not equal sales. Money in your account does, a credit card over the phone. It's a nice illusion though but it will mislead you.

So if you are using this method you have the right to be impatient, because what you are doing now doesn't work!

You can start overdelivering AFTER you get paid and not before. That just opens you up to being taken advantage of and getting messed around. And guess what is happening?

I can tell you that:

It has nothing to do with the industry
It has nothing to do with 'Having time to check their emails.'
And save yourself the cost of the letter and the stamp. None of that works.

I don't know you, but you probably need to be a bit more assertive in asking for what you want. This has more severe implications in business than just getting clients. Once they do accept your offer they will expect more concessions, more of your (unpaid) time, advice, discounts.. it's simply not a sustainable or enjoyable way to run a business successfully.

You are positioning yourself as the 'Needy business.' Noone appreciates things that are free. People are attracted to abundance, not scarcity. Start marketing your business as a fortune 500 and think about how much YOU want to get paid. The kind of lifestyle that you want to have instead of boot strapping or considering and marketing yourself as a start up.

I think most of your issue comes down to your self-image. People don't want to help you, they don't care about you, they don't owe you anything. They will run you around for as long as it takes so that's why you need to start ASKING FOR WHAT YOU WANT. Demand it, act entitled.

The kind of people you are attracting to your business ARE tyre kickers by giving out free mock up designs. A much better business is to deliver premium work at GOOD but not low prices.

Charge more and offer more. The value of what you sell justifies the price and not the other way around. Discounts, low prices, mockups all lower the perceived value. People are more concerned with quality (the suitability of the product to their need) and value (what they 'get'; the whole DEAL itself) than price.

For a complex, differentiated product like web design value, will always be important to the sort of prospects and clients you WANT for your business, not just anyone who will take you on.

Because they see the value and importance of having a website they are more inclined to pay you MORE to have the need fulfilled. Fortunately YOU get to be the one to show them the value - or more accurately gently guide them to discover the benefits and value for themselves.

Why don't you post your full sales process and we can help piece it together and start earning you some money.

Matthew.

Hello nyk24!

I have also read a thread here on this forum that talks about sending mockups etc. I too like you tried it. I sent out about 10 mock ups and I did not get any sale form it. I know that that it might be too soon for us to decide on it with just 10 mockups. But in the time that it takes me to get the mockups ready I figured I am better off doing more calls and hopefully catch interested people.

This is what i do Cold call->email them as requested-> follow up -> after 3 to 4 follow up calls, close the deal.

What I have found is, many people here talk about closing the deal on the first call or within a week etc. I am sure this is possible, I have also myself closed a deal on a 1st call (first contact with the prospect). But most of the time, it takes anywhere between 2 - 6 weeks until i close the sale.

Now i am not saying this is how it works. I am based in the UK and this is what WORKS FOR ME!

All I can tell you is NEVER QUIT! NEVER EVER QUIT! i was same like you when i started, worrying about my next deal, will they buy? etc. Trust me! THEY WILL BUY!!! Someone out there is waiting for your call.

I am very grateful to Jason, Iamnameless, pantera etc for their awesome threads and advice on this forum. Stick with it and soon you will be like me and many others helping out newbies on this forum.

All the best and I am 100 % sure you will succeed if you stick with it. Make atleast 100 calls a day.

@Ron20 thanks just the morale boost I needed.....like you I am a persistent to the point of annoying....family and friends think I should give up because I have not made it but people like you keep me going and I have always been persistent with things I do especially when I read how others on here have done well

@Matthew thank you for your honest assessment I disagree that mock ups dont work as many on here have done well from them. I gues its my execution that is wrong. I can see your point about giving stuff away for free and taking the piss off you. I will make sure that doesn't happen to me but you are right I need to firm up on my offer because at the moment the prospect has to ask for a price and I have not put any time sensitive offer with it either.

I am happy to see someone with this kind of attitude. Even when I started my business, my family members told me to get a job. There are so many other brilliant people than you etc etc... Take this from me! Care a damn about what people say! If you can dream it YOU CAN DO IT! Keep goin! All the best my friend.

Ok before I do couple more demos and dash to the pub to see england under perform at real football lol I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who has replied so far.

I just gave a few of my prospects a tug, one had his van and tools stolen so is out of the picture for the next month the other asked the price and a couple of other questions and said he would come and visit me tuesday or wednesday when he is in the area so still no sales but I am starting to believe that (a) my niche....builders need a price and (b) you have to keep calling until you get hold them.....almost nag and pester them. Whatever happens over the next few days I will keep you guys informed

come on england!

Nick :}

Nyk24, 99 calls per day is 40% of my calls that i do daily, my average phone calls are 250-300, hard work, and of course , from 25 customers speaking on the phone, at the same time, i get to close 4-5 deals with a non refundable deposit..I put on tape recording, for his and my protection
As mjbmedia said , You have to lock them and then ship them what your suppose to ship them.
Hopefully this helps for You

Hey mate,

As the guy who wrote that original post about doing mock-ups, here's what I can say.

#1. I do not use that method any-more. It DID work and bring me in sales, but that was me trying to avoid the fact at the time my sales skills were below average.

#2. When it worked, it worked for a very specific reason. I wasn't just sending it to anyone and everyone. In order for someone to get the mock-up, they had to be on the verge of buying a website anyway.

So I was using it to close people on the fence.

Have you ever seen the movie Boiler room? In it, the junior sales guys are cold calling propects to essentially prep them for a call with a senior broker.

The senior broker refers to being given "wood". A lead that was shit. When the junior guy would rush the prospect to the "info pack" just to get them off the phone. They never wanted the info pack, so closing them would be impossible.

So if you're sending these guys a mock-up, when they don't really badly want a website, then it's never going to work.

Also, on a side note, here's something I've learnt about contractors:

Unless they run a proper company, for them, more work is more work. If they want to make more money they literally have to work more hours. Huge turn off for these guys.

So you've got to figure out the selling point. Why would these guys want a website?

For them, a website is just some thing they don't need.

@x0r as I said I am calling very small scale nothing like you do. I am going to up my call rate massively soon as I feel I've ironed out most of my errors which everyone on here has been kind to suggest.

I assume your sucess rate is 2% (5 deals from 250 dials) and not 20%? If thats the case thats not bad. I am confident one of my leads will come through and if so that will put me at the 1% sucess rate and in time I hope I will get 3-4% like iamnameless but thats in the future I need to listen and persist for now and I know I can do it with you guys behind me!

@shockwave You are right contractors want more work rather than a site. Before the word website is mentioned I ask if they want to generate more business however I need to probably expand on that somehow....that is what I need to figure out. I can mention how many customers are searching for a builder in their town but I want to stay away from google and seo terminology because it (a) confuses them and (b) they have been burned in the past so I need some kind of angle.

@s62731 thanks for jumping on this thread and imparting your valuable experience. Where did you get your leads from? I ask because all my leads are paying advertisers who already believe you need to spend money to make money. I personally know people buy sites because they need current one revamped, are a new biz, want one because competitors do, customers keep asking wheres the website. There are many reasons to buy today. I am not a mind reader but I will try and sell and package it in a way that says for instance "I need a site if I am to get more business."

I think we can all agree that I need to sell this as a revenue generating package to contractors.

I need to put prices with a deadline in my demo emails and I need to keep chasing leads.

Tweak my intro which currently says, "I saw your ad in the paper and Im wondering if you wanted to generate more business?"

Instead I will say "I saw your ad in the paper and
I'm guessing you are looking for more business? Yeah?"

Im hoping to come up with something that naturally leads the contractor to tell me he hasnt got a website and for me to say you need one to generate more business just like you need a truck and tools to do your job kinda thing.....hmmmm I have alot of thinking to do on that score now but I like a challenge and I am so grateful for everyones comments and help so far

@s62731 my bad mate I used the wrong terminology which was rather miss leading as I know you are only trying to help me. I should of said something like "list" or where's your first point of contact rather than leads. My first point of contact is with those who advertise in the newspaper, then those that want to hear a little more I rightly or wrongly class them as a lead I can now go after.

Your first point of contact is with those who see your online ad on Google, Facebook etc. who are looking to generate more business from someone like you. This is definitely something I have had in the back of my mind for a while to re invest some of my profits back into advertising on Google and facebook etc.

I don't want to get caught in this trap that a lot of others do of "working in the business" so I have decided that every Monday for at least a few hours I will devote my time to evaluating my marketing efforts and coming up with some new ideas and tweaking current marketing methods if they need tweaking.

I am not a mind reader yes that is true and I don't think anyone else on here can claim to be either but like you said I need to understand the wants and needs of my target market.

Sometimes though in business its a lot easier and less time intensive to just give the customer what he "likes" not what he wants. If you are from the UK you will have heard of the chain "lush" and this is their exact philosophy. If you watch kitchen nightmares with Gordon Ramsay again you will see a lot businesses trying to pander to customers by offering huge menus which Gordon Ramsay soon cuts down to the bare minimum because he knows the customer will still like it as long as it's cooked and presented well.

I aint saying you or anyone else is wrong about knowing your target market but what I am trying to say is you don't always need to know every detail. Contractors as a generalisation and not a rule just want to make more money and that's okay it's probably more complicated than that, but we only want to work with those who want more work right?

Thank you again for your reply and keeping me focused on my goals

Hi James

Thanks for the quick reply. I apologise for coming across as a bit argumentative as I appreciate your feed back as you have been there and got the t-shirt so to speak.

I have been listening to everything you have said so far and agree with most of what you say and I am trying to listen intently to everything you and the other big guns on here say, not just on my thread but other threads too I think that I can learn from.

Apart from referrals and goggle/facebook ads is there anything else you would do if you were now in my position?

Cheers

Nick

@shockwave thank you for helping me focus today on results. Have just reworked my script going to put it on here to be critiqued in a bit

Okay folks please be kind enough to critique this call script, its still very bare.

The demo has been demoted to those who still need to see examples and I am now focused more on results. I am going to be brave and bold and try to sell in one call. So any help or advice you can give to help me would be great


Hi is that [FIRST NAME]

- YES

Great, my name is Nick from XYZ the reason for the call [FIRST NAME] is that I found your ad in the newspaper.

- OH OKAY

I'm guessing you are looking for more work yeah?

- YES [end conversation if they say no I am already busy]

What would it mean to you if you could get {5-10} more calls per month from people looking for {insert HIGH PROFIT margin work - ie: kitchen remodels, bathroom remodels, basement remodels, windows, doors, siding...etc..etc}

- THAT WOULD BE GREAT GETTING MORE WORK

Have you been up and running long?

- Right, no problem / oh that's great!

Right just wondering have you got a website at all I can look at?

- NO I DON'T

The reason I ask that is without a website it is a hell of a lot harder for me to help you get more work. I understand how important it is for you to get more work through advertising in the newspaper so if I could help you by getting you more calls from your current ad by producing a website that helps you achieve this what would you say to that?

- THAT WOULD BE GREAT GETTING MORE WORK

As a special offer I am currently offering a saving of £80 ($120) but only when you purchase a website from me today for £320.27 ($480)

Do you have Paypal?

-YES / NO

Great / Not a problem you can pay by credit or debit card, I will email you over an invoice now and instructions on how to pay by card.

Thank you for your business, I will be in touch with you once your website is completed next week.

- Can you send me some examples of your work before I make a decision

Not a problem, can I have your email address (then I send them the mock).

Thank you

Bye