*Cold Calling Made Easy (You're Technically Not Even Cold Calling)

erm... "I just told them it was for improving their business"

Then what? They dropped it and you both went on your merry way?

dude, you are so in the wrong section.

If you did what you say you did, it is referred to as a "hope and a poke."
It is most likely NOT a sustainable adventure.

Do it 1000 more times, THEN come back and tell everyone how great it is.

Get off my forum!!

But seriously man, this is horrible:
Don't try to sell, just email them as if you were to email a friend.

Hey Billy we havent spoke in a while, hows the wife and kids, need a website?

Hi there,

He has somewhat of a point. I received an email recently that was very personable and almost too friendly. It was clear the sender had taken the time to research me and noted items from my bio.

I did read the email but I didn't act. I thought to myself "if they send me another email like this, I'll bring them in for a meeting". They happened to be flogging something my company needed, but they did it in a very low-key conversational way.

It made a change from all the hype nonsense we all receive by email - the salesy pushy emails. There's room for salesmanship but not on a first date.

All the best,

Sasha.

I agree with SashaLee.

It's all about being different!

If picked up a client before by email because it wasn't a mass email. It was specifically for the recipient.

No, I wouldn't consider it a sustainable business, and I seriously hope though that this isn't the way others think of this as. (If you read the ending, you'd see I didn't say it was a serious business that you should stick forever) Yeah, I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work in the long run when contacting a lot of businesses, but it worked, and I thought I might as well give my two cents. If saying 'improve your business' doesn't work, change it. I didn't literslly just say that either though.

I too agree with sasha. I said "talk like you're with a friend' because others try to make their emails *too professional that it comes off as spammy. I've had clients tell me this in the past.

I think the point internetmarketer1 is trying to make is to focus on gathering leads and contacting them in a friendly tone with whatever your Irresistible Offer is and you just may be surprised at how many of your prospects will close themselves on doing business with you if what you are offering is something that can help solve a problem for them.

Many marketers try to pitch, sell and close prospects without first taking the time to get to know the business owner a little and uncover any problems that they can help them solve.

If you called businesses in your area to introduce yourself as a local business owner like them, and instead of trying to sell them on whatever it is you wanted to sell them you simply asked for permission to email them "an idea that can help their business" and you get a yes... this is the start of a selling situation.... if you focused on starting a relationship with 10 to 20 business owners a day and keep on letting them know you can do this, that and take care of problems for them... you can come across more as a trusted friend and advisor instead of a slimy salesman who is only interested in parting the business owner from their money.

Any business owner can tell you that they get several calls each month that start off like... I'm calling from Windows Technical Support about a problem you have with your windows operating platform. We identified security flaws and your machine may have been hacked... Let's fix that for you right now over the phone... I need you to go online and download this fix so we can secretly gain access to your machine and steal your bank account details when you are not looking.

Business owners can sense if your intentions are simply to get what you want or if your intentions are to be of help to them and their interests. Build a list of business owners in your area, contact them in a friendly manner and continue to follow up and over a period of time many of them will decide they can use your service or product and will close themselves as long as you have been contacting them on a regular basis to see how you can be of service to them.

I know someone who has been doing this with IT and telephony equipment for years. He sells to large companies or govt. (think your local hospital) and he is essentially the lowest bidder in the region. The companies tend to have a competitive bidding process in place so they half-expect it..

I can`t be 100% sure, but from what I`ve gathered from his company, his reps don`t bring in more then 90k a year in revenue per individual.

I think the biggest thing with e-mail is that most people will take the time to look for your competitors, (unless they are dummies) and if you truly don`t have the best product at the lowest price AND something that the prospect knows he needs without prompting,then forget it.At least, if you have someone on the line, you have a chance to guide the prospect`s line of thinking.

I always ask for an email to follow-up on the conversation. See nothing wrong with this method except for the fact that you ask for their email very soon.

my method:

Call them up>> get the interested>> explain your services>> offer something special>>grab their email for followups and future conversations.