I make 100 calls a day,give me some criticism on my script.

Yeah, that's what the OP might have missed from your first post. I'm sure he'll understand what you mean now.

My answer: Easy fast sales... predictable results that are also controllable to a high degree. Almost on demand money.

If I wanted to get as many people to buy as possible, I'd sit down and craft a good converting online sales funnel that targets only those who're looking for the service... or use any of the many other online marketing techniques.
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Every strategy has its pros and cons. Also, keep in mind that I'm not against cold calling at all, I just think that the OP doesn't really have a plan, it's just blind action.

Cold calling can be fast, and the reason I like it is that so many other forms of marketing involve you waiting for the prospect or lead to contact you. It's a good mix to add into your plan but it isn't right for everybody.

I don't care if you're sending postcards, cold calling, using PPC, networking, etc. the fact is if you do any of those things without knowing why you're doing it other than to get an appointment or get sales, then you're going to fail.

With cold calling, it is statistically low with conversions, unless you factor in your conversions as X amount of prospects = X amount of leads = X amount of sales and not counting the prospects in the conversion process. You can dial 100 prospects and only get 1 good lead out of it. That's pretty common... that's what your average will be as a beginner. When you're new and still learning, it can easily take you 10 leads in order to get a sale. That's why you see so many threads about 1,000-2,000 calls and no sales.

The sales cycle will depend on the price point of course... but also, the sales person. My average sales cycle with cold calling could be 3 days, while someone elses could be 30 days. There's a guy that's worked for me, who is probably at best, average on the phone and has a sales cycle of 23 days. A girl that's worked for me had an average sales cycle of 5 days. The more skilled you are, the better your average sales cycle will be. It could be fast for you and I, but it may not be fast for the new person reading this right now who never had any experience.

The truth is, cold calling can work for even the worst sales people. You can get sales with no skill. How many leads you average per 100 calls, and how long or short your sales cycle will be, is dependent on your skill.

I'm no phone pro... it's just what I've personally observed.

I'm a big fan of numbers and statistics. There's a lot of things you can track... For me, if someone doesn't buy within 30 days, the chances of them buying EVER, go down by 300%. I like to track leads per 100 calls, average sales cycle, average follow ups per sale, etc.

Now... this is the reason I think that the OP may not have a plan or know why he is cold calling..

He hasn't acknowledge why he is cold calling, what is appealing about it, and why he isn't choosing other methods.

To get into this business, and choosing cold calling as the main way to get clients... tells me these are the possible reasons:

1. He doesn't have money to invest in his business to bring incoming leads while using the phone to gain additional outbound leads.
2. He's desperate, and is doing it because he thinks that's the only thing he can do.
3. He has experience cold calling, enjoys it, and is good at it.
4. He isn't utilizing any other method and feels like he should be doing SOMETHING to get clients.

So... we know it isn't reason number 3. He doesn't enjoy it because he wants to tell people he's not calling to sell them anything. He's afraid of asking for the sale and being bold.



#1, #2, and #4could be the reason... and I don't have a problem with #1 or #2.. I've been there, that's how I started out, but I wouldn't recommend it to anybody. Being desperate and making phones... man... they can tell and it will turn them off.


When I started, I had no other option... I went through the phone book, made calls... I woke up early, called the east coast, called the west coast later, called hawaii and alaksa even later, sent out emails from 10pm-3am, put up ads on craigslist, went to sleep for 4 hours and started again.


His reason for calling is to set up appointments... does he have experience with appointments, face to face selling? If not, and you're getting someone to agree to an appointment, you're spending money on gas, time on driving and meeting, when if they were really interested they probably would have bought over the phone anyway, it's just a big time suck. If you aren't stellar, face to face then I'm absolutely against cold calling to set up appointments. It's a waste in my opinion. There's some old school sales guys that are great at it, but the way I see it, is that in the 2 hours the meeting takes, that's easily an additional 100 calls that can bring you a sale much faster.



If you choose to cold call... or use any method of marketing for that matter, you need to know exactly WHY you're doing it. If your focus is only on the sale, you will fail miserably. There's a bigger picture.



People are always saying offer value, but what does that mean? It doesn't mean telling them how your service will help them out immensely..



The best lesson I've ever learned was that people don't care about you, they care about themselves...and to get people to care about you, you need to care about them. One of my favorite cold calling techniques, is scraping a bunch of websites, numbers, etc. with mobile renegade and running Avast in the background so I get alerted when websites are messed up, have malware installed, and other things. When I call them, I tell them why I'm calling, tell them why I was even looking at it, and tell them to contact their hosting company and they can do a security audit and usually fix it... Half of them aren't ideal clients for me so I called just as a courtesy, and others are so disgusted with their current website people they practically sell themselves to you. One business, who wasn't an ideal client for me, was locked into a 3 year contract anyway, hasn't done any business with me, and has been one of the best sources of referrals.


My advice to anyone wanting to get started by cold calling is this...

• Identify your goals with cold calling... is it to get one big deal every other month, is it for easy sales (low hanging fruit), is it to have a faster sales cycle?
• If you have the money, you have to spend it on other forms of marketing. Cold calling is good because you're doing something while waiting, but if you're not doing any other marketing activity to bring in inbound leads then you have nothing to wait for.
• Unless you're awesome in person, drop dead sexy, and can light up a room just by walking in, then forget the appointments... don't cold call for appointments, that should never be your goal. If your goal is easy sales then an appointment is not an easy sale. If it's for a big deal, then you're originally calling to build up rapport and get that big deal, an appointment is just a step that got added in along the way, it isn't a goal, it should never be a goal. Leave the face to face crap for networking events and BNI.
• 100 calls isn't enough, it will never be enough.
• Track your stats... Some people may not even get 1 good lead per 100 calls... thats okay.. it means you will one day improve to being average. Track your sales cycle. After 5-10,000 calls you should have a good idea on what your average leads per 100 calls, and what your average sales cycle is. Evaluate, test, and improve.
• Make sure you know your business... if you're the type that is outsourcing almost everything then you're probably going to struggle a bit on the phone. When you know your stuff, you will have more confidence, you're able to answer tough questions and can probably do well.

For most people... they use 1 technique... and that's why they will never be a real business, and will usually always be a freelancer. By yourself.... any 1 method you use, you can probably make 5K/mo relatively easy. If you're trying to build a business... 5k/mo isn't enough.

He doesn't realize how much you have mellowed out over the last few years! About three years ago I think you would have ripped him apart.

Calutusoar listen - hurt feelings have no place in business. It's about being professional. Professionals can take it right on the chin and still find the value in what they have been told.

You have been given some GREAT advice from someone who knows as much about building a business on the phone as anyone else here. Hell - he started just like you, called a million numbers, and now has people working for him selling web services. Quite an accomplishment.

He doesn't even remotely owe you an apology. You should print out his words and hang them on your wall. This man knows what he is talking about. If you approached him differently, he would give you more help. The only reason he posted was to help.


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