so what am I doing wrong??

Sooooo...are you just walking in and presenting to the first person you meet?

That's presenting to unqualified prospects. And a huge waste of time.

Are you doing any discovery? Do you have a consistent sales process?

Why are you expecting that just because you say something's worth $Y, they should agree?

How about finding out what they think it's worth?

Couple links:

My All-Time Favorite Article On Cold Walk-Ins

and

The Little Unsure Technique - to ensure you speak to the correct person.

Well dagnabit, the Search function is broken (at least for me) at the moment. I'll return to this.

Create a direct-mail marketing campaign.

Send out postcards and sales letters, and direct prospects to a website or voice recording to request a free guide/report about Google lead generation services.

If they don't respond, you can call your prospects to be sure they got your mail piece and start asking them questions.

Also, was what you told your prospect about making 2-4gs believable?

One thing I've learned is... It's easier to sell to businesses that do a lot of advertising than businesses who don't do anything. Maybe she was one of the businesses that don't do anything.

That just means she did not believe you. OR did not have the money.

Saying like "its to expensive" is almost always a blow off.


I hate to break this to you, but ... unless you learn how to sell ...

You will have the same results over the phone.

This is your first problem.

Having the attitude or belief that you are bothering them is going to be reflected in everything you do and say.

And your prospects are going to pick up on it. They might not know exactly what it is, but they will know something is not right, and will more than likely say no to what you are offering.

Even if you change straegies to cold calling or direct mail, this belief will still be their contaminating things.

So your first step is to work on getting rid or that belief.





I agree with another Ken, either she didn't believe you, or it actually was more than her current budget allowed.

I wonder...

Did you show her testimonials from other customers who you made money for?

If not, then how did back up these claims that you could make her that much money? Or did you?

Or did you assume that just telling her she could make x amount would make her want to buy.

Did she ask how much you could make her or did you offer up the amount?

Was money a driving force for her? Or could it have been something else?

In other words, what questions did you ask her?

How did you qualify her?

How did you gauge her level of interest?

Did you find out any of her hot buttons?



Until you get rid of the belief that you are bothering people it is not going to matter if you do cold walks or cold calls.

You need to work on that belief and change it.

THen you need to have a really good look at your sales process. Figure out where things are breaking down, and fit it.

The best way to talk to a business owner is to be introduced to them by
someone they know and trust.

That's obviously a thousand times better than walking into a business cold.

There are a pile of different ways to make that first contact including direct
mail, email, referral systems, speaking for business groups, becoming part of
a charity group that has a high number of business owners, going to business
networking meetings, going to trade shows...etc etc.

If you're a marketer yourself you should be able to come up with multiple ideas
you can test.

Kindest regards,
Andrew Cavanagh

Hi there,

You've come here crying about results but you haven't told us:

1. Who specifically you talked to
2. Why you talked to them
3. How you knew they wanted what you had to offer
4. How you knew they could afford what you had to offer
5. How your offer was so outstanding they should have stopped what they were doing when you walked in the door to take up their time.

All the best,

Sasha.

There are lots of great people posting great stuff for you here and I want to ask you a little different question - because I believe your value proposition is all screwed up.

How do you know what your service is worth to them?

Have you provided the service to others?

Do you know about marketing or do you know how to do marketing? There is a big difference. A lot of people people are out there selling and trying to sell when they only know about something, and have never actually done it.

Here is what I found - once I started getting results for people, things became much, much easier. Business owners recommended me to their friends. They invited me to lunches and events where they openly told people "this guy is making me a lot of money."

This type of endorsement makes selling so very, very easy. As soon as people hear another business owner say that, they immediately ask for your card and give you one of theirs. A simple follow up the next day will land you an appointment.

If I were starting again, here is what I would do.

1) Pick the type of business you believe you can get the best results for.
2) Start building campaigns and track the results.
3) Send the leads to a business you want to work with, but make sure you don't use their business name in the marketing. This will make you get creative, and you will build something generic that you can use over and over again with different businesses.
4) Create a simple case study. "I created "X number" of phone calls/conversions or customers. Here, I have them on a list, or here you can see the stats.
5) Stop cold walking and start networking. You have zero credibility with these people. Cold walking might work better if you had an established product with name recognition. I know people may poo-poo on me for this but cold selling is the most work intensive way to sell. Yes it can get you started, but I personally do not believe it is the best way for everyone.

So, build a system that you can show proven results. Business owners don't want a "someday maybe" results promise. They want proof of "you give me money, I get you more money in return - here is the proof." Most of them have spent a lot of dough on pie in the sky marketing with people they don't know.

They have learned that "The pie in the sky can only make you hungry."

Create a system, go to every networking event and meet people, then schedule appointments where you tell how you generated leads in the past. Don't talk about the future and what you are going to do. Talk about the recent past, and what you have done.

That's it. You will succeed. With a strong value prop and the right positioning, selling is very, very easy.

When you are struggling to sell, something is wrong with the product. I've seen people who couldn't sell candy to a monkey who are making lots of money because they provide a lot of value.

Forget about this technique or that technique. Those are advanced tactics you can use once you are selling. If you can't sell at all, you are positioned all wrong, or you can't provide real results, and people know it.

Everyone here has given great advice; advice I probably will leave to them. However, I do want you to remember to focus on emotions. Make them want your service. Whether this is a phone meeting or in person, make them want it without trying to make this obvious. By doing this, they'll feel compelled to buy.

Of course, this won't be easy for you to implement right away, but it works. It works because you are pushing their buttons; buttons that they are trying to find answers for: how to find clients, get more visitors, etc.

well thanks to everybody for their answers, really make me think on a lot of things that I am "doing wrong"

actually Jason I was not juts talking to everybody, I made up my mind on travel agencies and on those cold walks I asked to talk to the person in charge of advertising, most of the time they would tell me they dont have that kind of department but will tell me whom should i speak too

that question you ask is interesting, yes I thought that people would believe what I have to say just because I say it but now I see thats just nonsense, they want proof, people just dont believe and in this particular town their are like walls who just dont want to get out of their box

and I have to agree to Dan, cold walks are really not for everybody i just discovered that, what you sugest of sending leads to a company is actually a great hook... I am not sure what do you mean by "start networking" (I am not in the US, so not so sure what do you mean by that) but it occurs to me that i can just send them leads for a few days and then go and tell the people in charge of advertising what I have been doing and even show him the calls list (even the recordings)

I am not sure if this would be too invasive but I will defnitely get their attention

other than that I thought that this selling process would be easier, I am thinking that the best way to go is cold calls... I can go past the learning curve in maybe a week (even if results are disastrous for a few days) and then I wont be wasting time and looking like a dumb who wants to get something out of their company and they are eager to shut the door (cus i believe most people act like that)

I am saying this cus I need the money but, definitely thinking on talking to business groups and giving away information on how to seel on the internet will definitely make them hear what I have to say, I really think that on that point selling will be a piece of cake (like Dan says again)

thanks guys, this whole process really made me realize that I have to bring some proven value to people before anything so I am focusing on that

actually I am about to run an adwords campaign on all types of "internet advertising for business" keywords (you get the point, to drive business owners who are looking for IM services) and I just realized the competition are kinda slow in my country... I hate that they are charging peanuts which makes it a bit hard to earn some good money (I mean some fools even charge $200 bucks a month for the campaign including the advertsiing costs... that really kills the market) but I am sure that if I bring some value to the customers they will want to stay with my services.

apart from that I am going to give away a 30 mins consultation on the best strategies to market their business online and after that I will offer them to do the job for free for like 10-15 days until they see clients coming in and clear return rates (after that I am thinking they will happy with the service and they would be more willing to pay a reasonable fee to continue getting clients this way)

so like dan says, (and I do get the point) is not the same to knnow about it than to know how to do it... so this is exactly what I am going to focus on right now

any thought are still appreciated, thanks to everybody for the input

by the way, yes "interentemarketer1" I am thinking on making them need my services... if they see they invest a few dollars (even 50 bucks and they see a client) I think they will be happy and motivated to pay for my services

In terms of efficiency and morale, I prefer cold calls. In person rejections are not only tougher but you also waste a lot of time moving from one business to the next.

Calling is much more efficient in my opinion.