How do you cold call specific groups of people?

Doctors will be a different animal than auto mechanics, since with doctors you'll likely be dealing with a "gatekeeper", whether it be a receptionist or nurse in charge of answering the phones for the practice. These gatekeepers are normally told or trained to screen out these types of calls which often makes doctors and other practice-based businesses very difficult to cold call. Oftentimes these "gatekeepers" may also be the people tasked with themselves doing the very services you provide.

For auto-mechanics, I would suggest placing your calls towards the very beginning or end of the work day. In my experience labor positions tend to have a period of ramping up and a period of cooling down during which the owner is most likely to be receptive to taking your call.

For the doctors, you need to make it sound urgent enough that you need to get straight through to the doctor themselves, otherwise your name and number are going to go on a piece of paper lost on a desk ne'er to be seen again in 2014. To that end, I recommend the following articles:

Getting Past The Gatekeepers
How To Get Past a Gatekeeper

Good luck!

You're joking, right?

There's a ton information on this subject available in the search here. Look up Jason Kanigan. He's posted quite a bit about this. Enough to keep you busy for a while.

If you want to use phone prospecting, any "trades"-type operation decision maker--which will include stores, electricians, dentists and yoga instructors who do not make money if they are not working directly with a customer--will be a challenge to get ahold of and have a conversation with. That's OK. Since most people give up very early in the game, it's an opportunity for you to be smart and reach all those people everyone else is failing to get to.

You'll find there are better times to call these companies and reach someone you can talk to.

Use the Little Unsure Technique to reach the right person.

http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...ccess-tip.html

Posts #5 and #162 give examples of this technique being used, which many people from this forum have used successfully.

You can ask the gatekeeper when a good time to call back and have the best chance of reaching the decision maker would be. "Jane...if you had to talk to Mary, what time would you call back?" Calendar this time and do it.

Ask if it's a bad time to talk. Prospects appreciate this.

Over time you will develop expertise on when the most effective time to call this niche is. That is valuable information and will increase your chances greatly...and no competitor of yours will have bothered to do this, giving you a huge advantage.

You want THEM to call YOU. So figure out how to get YOUR phone to ring. If you're the caller, you're not in a position of strength. THe flip side is if you're calling them b/c they asked you to!