My 3 month cold calling test results - Inexperienced caller, ridiculous script, results

You think your cousin would be a born again cold caller haha. Not saying it's easy, but the money and value you bring to clients can be worth it. So you closed 11 total sales over the course of about two months? Each one bringing in over 6k?

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it.” ― Jordan Belfort

You can say almost anything and get business if you stay on the phone and dial. Unfortunately it takes a boss hanging over your shoulder telling you that you have to do it for most people. Awesome story.


What I like about your story is that it isn't full of BS advanced techniques... just simply saying basically "Hey Im trying to drum up some business , wonder if you could help me out".


If pro's around here would make things less complicated to implement then maybe more people would succeed. I agree. I hate all the text book theory stuff... and renaming of techniques that are basic, to make them sound sophisticated... Just simply ask someone if they are interested in web design...or in this case, if they know anyone interested. That's all... If there is interest then the rest is natural.



A half stoned 17 year old kid can generate leads if they stay on the phone dialing. Call centers don't make millions on stellar people who can get a 100k salary, they make it on average 10 dollar per hour people who aren't qualified to work other jobs, who simply stay on the phone all day dialing, repeating very simple scripts. That's all. It's a fact.


Hurts a lot of "consultants" ego's to hear that though, so that kind of talk is discouraged heavily here.

I freaking LOVE the original post. In all of the telemarketing that I ever did, I was handed long overly complicated scripts which I whittled down to basic quick calls. I did well and taught my telemarketers the same when I ran the rooms later. I really love stories like this. They make me wish I was back running a room again. Some average guy comes in and you show him how to get leads, something that so many people can never seem to figure out for themselves, doing something that most anyone can do if they actually put in effort.

You hit the nail on the head with this one. It pisses me off hearing some people talking about cold calling. One of the IM forums I regular had someone who posted a thread about a new business they were starting and it seemed like just about everyone was saying cold calling does not work or insulting the OP and his business plan.

Very inspiring stuff

Using a "T.O" system is another element that made this work like a clock, for 5 different reasons. I posted last night that this was one of the best threads I have read in this section, but then deleted it because I didn't want to distract attention away from Shadows last post, which was even more inspiring than the first! Awesome thread!


People think they can just hire some BPO from the internet, and have remote telemarketers closing big sales for them all day long, and they get discouraged because that doesn't happen. Having a guy sitting in your office sending you transfers does though, if you aren't too lazy to close your own sales.


Again, this is one of the most inspiring , and bare bones, honest posts that I have ever read in this section. This thread is "real".

Yeah, it might help some to think of cold calling as simply "calling." Just call people on the phone. It's that easy. You do it all the time.

I remember watching Gary Vaynerchuk a couple of weeks ago. If you don't know, he is a big social media guru with a successful agency. Somebody asked, "We have a small business. How do we use social to get going?"

He gave some good tips and then said, "The best way for you to get going is to get a list of the businesses (in San Francisco) that could use this service, and then call the list from top to bottom and ask them."

Well done. For some models with an endless list of suspects, the most direct, churn and burn, 1 call close is obviously enough to generate a good profit over time.

For other models, like mine, 11 sales in 3 months would kill my business. I wouldn't have one.

The simple way obviously works and has it's place, but it's not right for everyone or the superior approach in all cases. There's a whole raft of objectives you can obtain while picking up the phone beyond simply going for the lay-downs and burning through 1000's of potential leads and sales. And which maximizes the return from your sales and prospecting efforts.

It's poor advice to knock all that and pretend it's unnecessary.

I just wanted to let you know how valuable your post was. You've done us all a huge favor.

His prayers just got answered through you.

It's clear this strategy is no respecter of any economic situation. It simply works.

I'm giving it a shot next week.

Hey shadow,

Did you close any of these warm leads in person or just over the phone?

Awesome post Shadow.

"Doing the right things, is more important than doing things right." - Both are important, but the first is more important than the second.

Most people need to stop learning and planning. Stop making excuses for your lack of results. It isn't the economy, your industry, your city, your country, your family, or your culture. It is YOU. You know enough. Put it to use.

Cool opening. For me, this works too. Just simply stating what I do, and why I want to meet.

I get some general responses: What do you do?
or: We already have a supplier

but, I can go from there. "Not a problem.. What we notice is... Can I ask you a question?".

In my experience, the opener really isn't so important aslong as you show you have strength & warmth (research shows that strength & warmth are the two most important factors in influence, character-wise. Example: Very strong, but can be very cold at times. Obama, both).

Yeah, I still haven't decided what I like better. Churn and burn or using a more professional script. Both have their advantages.

Cold calling might get you business, however, IMHO it's inefficient and makes you appear needy and desperate... The most efficient way we got our customers when starting up was a Joint Venture. I initially approached local web designers, but found them resistant - I think they thought we were going to poach their clients. I then found a lady offering secretarial services. We did her SEO in return for her promoting our services. We gave her a script to which she gave input and evolved the script as we went. She was bloody good, too good. She gave us more customers than we wanted, and they were quality customers. We had to "turn her off" after a while. :-) Random cold calling is a bit shotgun, or like Forest Gump's box of chocolates, you never know what you'll get... :-)

Nobody can make you needy and desperate except yourself. It's the way you communicate

Even if you came off needy and desperate, which you shouldn't through the way you convey your message and tonality, who cares as long as you are bringing in the money.

Interesting story, nothing new to learn but I feel as that your cousin was disperete for money so help lot in it lol..
anyways I agree with you. creating plane wasting time in research on how to land in the ground, it is better to start work as I do believe that we learn from experience and whatever we try we will get at least some results.
It all depends on our determination and focus.
Thanks

Shadow, did your guy use a dialer or did he just manual dial?

shadow92 I am rarely on the forum anymore, but received your story in the WF email just now. I was intrigued by the headline and pleasantly surprised with your story. It is a great one and very realistic for anyone that wants to put in the time and work. Young or old. Does not matter. What matters is the attitude. You have a great one is kicking off your business.

It is exactly how we built our agency, one client at a time. Many have been with us for years. We are transparent and educate as much as we can along the way. Most importantly, we don't shy from doing the work. There is only so much you can do to automate or JV. The reality when dealing with clients, is just do the difficult stuff no one else wants to do. And guess what? You look up and you cannot believe what you have built from an idea and no outside investment.

We are now 8 1/2 years in now and loving the journey. Again great story and thanks for sharing.

Myra Love

I noticed that this thread was the the headline as well.They did however screw the numbers up. I didn't make six figures in 3 months. It wasn't $694,000 ...it was $69,400. So the title is definitely misleading.

I accidentally put an extra zero behind the comma in the op.

Just posting this to clear confusion from the folks that are coming here via the emai.

According to me this is a story that can work only on some country like United States.
It seems like who create websites in some niches like restaurants, dentists, real estate, rank these sites and contact by cold call interested people to sell spots on that sites.
I red that these webmasters make more money than you in a few time.
Obviously this is a story, but in some country can work.

Love the story....but have a couple questions.

- Where did you get your list of businesses to call?

- I have done telesales in the past...and to be able to average (100) calls an hour, about (1) call every 40 seconds sounds very hard to do. Figure you will have a 30 second chat with most callers minimum.

Was this using predictive dialing?

- How did you get the 'trust factor' when offering these higher ticket services?

- Did have to worry about getting numbers that were not on the national DNC list?

- Did you get a CC over the phone or do check by phone?


Thanks for the insight!

Thanks Shadow for sharing your story. Very inspiring.

Question: Where did you get your list of businesses to call?

I think it is really about the number of calls you make that matters more than what you say. It is said that out of 100 people you contact, about 1 person will be interested in you - and the numbers you provided in your post reflect this. Keeping things short and to the point works best - nobody wants to listen to a sales person going on and on for a half hour. I think this goes for emails too. I rarely read those long sales emails I get from LinkedIn, but I read the short emails usually.

A nice little trick, too, is to have the transferer send them to your website that has retargeting implemented. Then the person who did not buy immediately will start to think you might just be a big deal...

Inspiring! Whoever says they can't make money hasn't used their heads well enough.

What seems to work best? Asking for credit card payment or check by phone?

Thanks for the all the detailed insight and answers to my questions!

So many people look down on sales people. But without it most companies would no exist.

Yup, it can really help to separate lead gen from selling. We covered a lot of ground on it here:
http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...-too-much.html

That said, some salespeople like Claude prefer to generate their own leads because he knows he can do a lot of the selling himself, so that the closing part is almost all done. He explains it better than I just did in this post here:
http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...ml#post7736604

This is a terrific case study, thanks for posting.

There is a simple way for your dialer to only dial ONE number, yet make 100 calls.. Here's how...

Awhile back I created a sequential dialing app using Twilio that requires the caller to only dial ONE number, and the app does the rest of the work. It will dial as many numbers as you want automatically in one sitting. You just have to set it up to work the way you want it to. It can also let the caller know the name of the business and the owner's name before it makes the call.

Its basically a "poor man's autodialer" yet very customizeable. You will need a Twilio account to make this work, and if you use a your browser its insanely cheap to make calls. Calls can be recorded if you like too.

Kind of hard to explain here, but I did a tutorial on how to create this app using Excel and Twimlbin.

Instructions are at the following link

http://offlineclassroom.com/welcome/...g-dialing-app/

If you set this up for your cold caller, you simply give them ONE number to dial one time, and they are off to the races!

Exactly.

That is exactly as it should be.

Thank you.

It's really not apples and oranges, some just pose it that way because they don't want to be lumped in as a mere "telemarketer", which I think is one of the most proud things you can be!

Pro telemarketers are high caliber selling MACHINES!

This is a very important post for people starting up or having difficulty on making the work. I also had to do the hard calls and walk around town centers delivering flyers to promote my work. It was cold, boring and difficult but I know that it had to be that way. I had to see that if you do not make the effort, you can not start making money. It does get easier, just stick with a plan - any plan.... Thanks for the share, I loved it.

Awesome article I actually got refereed to this article in another post.

Well Done Brother!!

Hi Shadow,

Can you please share the details of what was included in your '$500/mo Video Marketing' package?

John, I know you've played a part in getting people to just go from doing nothing to picking up the phone and dialling like a machine all day, and obviously that is better than nothing and if you keep at it will find the laydowns.

Compared to nothing your strategy is great.

Laydown telemarketing Vs Advances telesales is a different story.


You're preaching a dogma to newbies here, and it's not one that's going to maximize the effectiveness of their sales process.

By maximizing the effectiveness, I mean getting the equation into the positive.

Spending most of the day on the phone everyday calling random, untargeted people by business category to get 1 maybe 2 people who will buy there and then - from an absolute cold-call from a stranger, is the least efficient use of time and a complete waste of a large majority of potential buyers who could have been buyers with a more sophisticated and involved approach.

So the equation of time and resources invested/number of leads and sale returned is, even if still netting a sale or 2, is skewered in the wrong direction. You're spending far too much time and resources for a very minimal return on what is actually possible.

Wouldn't people rather hire someone and consistently generate 11 sales in a week rather than over 3 months?

You get on the phone and call. That's great.

But there is a massive difference in response rates and people willing to engage with you based on the proposition that is put them.

A proposition which is just a straight 'here's what I have. you wouldn't be interested in one yourself would you' is just not going to compare with other ones where the value proposition isn't so risky or asking them for a major commitment.

Speaking to someone over the phone for a few minutes and then asking them to pay you $1000 there and then is just too big.

Even just asking them do they want to be sold to buy your supervisor is to much for most people in a busy day to contest with. They immediately have to stop what they are doing, and you will only get the real laydowns who were thinking about that very thing that day.

Inviting them on a webinar, or inviting them to receive other info is going to get far more people to accept the initial proposition. Even to an appointment is not so immediate.

Inviting them to receive something coveted to them for free will boost response rates, bring more people into your funnel and boost your sales figures considerably.

So your getting 2-10x more sales for the same work or less.

Check out the ROI these companies achieved.

http://www.soarselling.com/wp-conten...ost_Anyone.pdf

Hiring someone to make calls is great and will yield results and if your profit margins are high, that is enough make a good living.

But if you want to generate the highest possible revenues and return from your efforts then there are much better sales processes that will help you do that then churn and burn.

People should invest time looking into them instead of simply going along with majority opinion to just get on the phone and look for lay-downs.

I forgot to add that there are cold email approaches that will have you selling more and being able to pitch more businesses owners a day and set up the next step.

Just listening to Dan Kennedy's magnetic email marketing course, and was thinking how important email is. I'll be implementing an outbound phone sequence on a bought, general list shortly that is about offering fremiums over the phone to build a email list of qualified leads (if they are interested in the fremium than they are qualified for later upsells). Giving something away for free is obviously going to boost response rates. People need to opt-in to get it. Then I can use email and phone follow up over the next week or so to upsell them on better paid versions using a system like Dan's or Ryan Deiss' which are similar.

Another strategy to target a different segment of medium to large businesses with corporate structures that I'll be using in tandem to just mass tele campaign is the Breakthrough Email system from Brian Kuerzberger. Incidentally, just listing to the first CD of Dan's email course, they are interviewing Brian Kuerzberger and they use his method.

I have his course. It's the real deal, has made billions, but has a really low volume that most will want to ramp up, but should perhaps discipline themselves not to. He advocates just keeping 20 businesses at anyone time in your sales process, because the communication and back and forth and workload you'll generate from just those 20 contacts at any one time in enough to handle for one sales rep, and any more will be too much to handle.

He states an 80-90 response rate from emails. And emails around 4 people in the same company simultaneously, letting them know he has contacted 3 other people looking for the right person to speak to. Just a sentence or 2. Underneath that he has his value proposition/usp/elevator pitch or whatever, but in a non-sales way. The first email is basically an enquiry and seeking more info on who to talk to, but they also read a 'pitch' like most would open with on the phone.

I've seen the same primitive, brute force, inefficient method preached to newbies here for years. It's harmful to their business to use a method that yields the lowest returns simple because 'they can get a sale or two out of every 100 calls (which is very unlikely etc for phone pro's)'. And just wanted to counter balance that by pointing out to other there are others ways that have been proven to produce much better results.

In response to Underground,


Certainly, if there is a better way than telemarketing I am all for it, having made thousands of sales online without picking up a phone for years, myself, in several markets. However this thread was about a telemarketing strategy that worked for someone, and so, it was appropriate for a telemarketing professional to participate in the discussion.


I don't think anyone, including the OP, is saying it's the end all be all; simply that it is an effective way to get business, that always has and always will work, in lieu of having another way that is less time consuming and more effortless, as you have rightly stated.


Many people don't have the knowledge, understanding, or resources to pull off a "pull" marketing campaign, and , if that is the case; telemarketing will get them some business. I think that is all anyone is saying.


Very worth while to talk about, particularly in a thread about that subject.

-John

To be fair, earlier in this thread you were criticizing other advanced or alternative techniques and approached as BS theory and basically saying that all you need it to pick up the phone with the most basic pitch.

I've seen you advocate that many times in the past and it became the default sales process on this place. Every newb thought all you had to do was make a hundred calls a day and they'd be rolling in it. I've seen many people make some good money, so it's works obviously.

But many people don't even know there are other options with better results.

You maybe be a professional in using this approach John. But you could be using that knowledge to instruct people here better so they get maximum results and don't just score a sale here and there.

For some reason, the heard alway gravitate toward this method. It's probably the least efficient phone method next to doing nothing.

It's best place is if someone is broke, desperate and badly in need of cash and has a week to make calls and score some much needed cash.

For people with different concerns about how to create an efficient, reliable, repeatable sales process for their business that can return the maximum amount of leads and sales for every hour invested, it's a very poor one.

Either they'd have to spend the best part of the day on the phone making cold calls, or in having to hire someone spend the time and money to manage, train and employ them to ultimately use a sales method that yields the lowest relative ROI to other methods.


I guess there for where we are, where a lot of people are desperate have the biz-opper quick money mentality rather than an business-minded approach, it's probably right.

And of course is far better than doing nothing.

Underground, if you have a system whereby a person can start tomorrow morning, with no money, as a newby, without going through months of learning in order to get up the money to afford that learning for themselves, then by all means, share it with me. By all means, I want to know. I will start testing it tomorrow and if I make a sale this week with it, I will preach your message, and tell everyone that telemarketing is NOT the best way for a newby to start from nothing.


Sorry I offended. Sincerely. I really do mean that.


I am just sharing something that enriched my own life, however zealously, in hopes that it will enrich others the same way. That's really all. It is not my fault if people respond to it.


Sorry. Seriously.


Whatever works works. Im just sharing what worked for me. Gonna step out of this thread, so as not to cause any more issues.


Please PM me if you come up with that plan mentioned. I will seriously try it.


-John

Yes, cold calling works.

I've been a freelance writer doing marketing communications for almost 25 years and every time I need work I get on the phone.

It takes large numbers of calls but it doesn't require a fancy script.

First I find the right people to call. Then I make the call during business hours. (I believe that calling before or after work hours is annoying as all get out, especially now that many people are taking calls on their cell phones and are not at their desks.)

I have a simple script. Basically, I ask them if they use freelance writers or have thought about using freelance writers. If there's absolutely no interest, I thank them for their time and go on to the next call. If there's an interest, I continue the conversation.

If there is no answer, I leave a message that includes my name and why I am calling. Then I immediately send an email that explains my services and how I can help them.

I explain the whole thing in Real Skills, Real Income: A Proven Marketing System to Land Well-Paid Freelance and Consulting Work in 30 Days or Less, my book available on Amazon.

-Diana Schneidman

Okay, I'm jumping back in.


For what it's worth Underground, I too see the value in what you are saying...


I think I may have come across in a way that could be seen as antagonizing the issue, and haven't acknowledged what you are saying to the extent that I should have. I have learned some lessons over time, and it's important to acknowledge that there are a lot of people with stuff to share that is valuable, and I shouldn't be so singularly focused on my own points sometimes.


If you will indulge:


One reason I tend to move away from the more advanced subjects myself when talking to newbies is that, I once had a room, which I created from the ground up that sold directory listings.


It was a niche market, all of our leads came in from offline affiliates, who were basically bird dogs who sent potential customers to their own affiliate web pages, which we provided for them. The potential customers would fill out a form (inquiry) on the agents web page. I had a few hundred recruits nationally. They each received a commission for the leads that came through their pages, if our telemarketers closed them.


We weren't cold calling at all. My telemarketers were basically not even selling, rather "qualifying" customers to see if they were a good match for our service. So it was a pretty efficient system. The people who called in were already 70% sold by the recruiting agents, and the web pages they were sent to by the agents... We closed maybe 1 out of 3 inquiries on the first call.


The reason I advertised to affiliates instead of directly to the end customers was because I found that it was too hard to advertise my services directly to the end customers in such a competitive market. I had tried it a lot, and it had never panned out for me...


However, it was EASY to advertise to people who were looking for commissioned sales opportunities (What I am referring to as "offline Affiliates") , and THOSE people would respond to my ads by the hundreds.


Online advertising had finally worked... however indirectly.


There was another benefit I would also discover:


Not only did these affiliates have tons of people filling out inquiries about our directory listings, but I began noticing that my site was listed ALL down the first page of the search engines for our keywords, because all of the people I had recruited as offline affiliates had begun promoting their company web pages, and driving us up the search engines. They had hundreds of articles and listings all over the internet that I hadn't even placed myself or worked for...


I said all of that to say this:


I am not unfamiliar with better ways of targeting prospects, nor the efficiency of providing telemarketers with a higher quality of exclusively generated leads.


In the time leading up to that though, I had spent TONS of money trying to learn how to advertise directly to end customers, before I figured this out. And I never was successful. My efforts were a money pit.


It took me years (of reading on the Warrior Forum), and it took me losing my ass about a dozen different times to the tune of thousands upon thousands of dollars over time, that I really didn't have to spend being on a mere telemarketing manager's salary throughout those years.


I basically lost my ass ALOT, and spent all of my family's disposable income trying to learn to do things like advertise, create offline email lists, and the like.


I had went through Perry Marshall's courses, and before that I went through CORY RUDLE's courses, and I spent every spare dime I had after buying their expensive systems, in order to test out the ideas they presented. Failure after failure.


Their ideas were valid, but there were a million nuances to them that, even though they explained them thoroughly, would still take me years to really grasp, and understand, or to OWN the knowledge they were sharing.


Then I bought some course that taught you how to do it through SEO (Natural Search Traffic) for 500 bucks , and I spent 6 months working on it, and a ton of money on trying to implement it... and it came to nothing.


Since those days, I have learned how to build lists, and I have learned a little about how to advertise, and I have started to own my knowledge of IM to some extent...that took a decade to fully grasp...


Today I have the experience of having written reports that yield inquiries and sales... or as Claude refers to them as "Lead Generation" books. I accidentally learned that, without even planning to... It would have taken me years to learn how to do it well on PURPOSE.


I think for MOST people, it takes awhile to own their knowledge of IM, even if they are taking it in like crazy and cramming their brains with it.


Eventually you get it, but there are so many nuances that most of them you learn accidentally, while trying something else.


IN SPITE OF ALL OF THAT THOUGH...


The ONE thing I know that a person can grasp without years of learning IM, and without years of learning advanced pitching techniques, which will work for them absolutely, is how to find "lay downs", and put money in their pocket that will help them fund all of this other development.


Basically, a guy who works construction and has never been on the internet, like Shadows cousin, can do that.


So in my own experience, that has been the easiest thing for people to grasp.


Many of the people who I have taught to get laydowns on the phone got their start that way, and now they know more about offline marketing than I do, and that basic start funded all of their learning.


It's the one thing I know that they can do without a huge learning curve in order to get them through until they can understand all the other stuff, and more importantly, give them the initial traction and confidence to believe they can actually have an effect and make something , (ANYTHING), happen.


So I hope that helps you to understand where Im coming from.


Again, my apology was sincere.


-JD

People seem to think 11 sales in less than two and a half months is bad. And that may be true for you. But for the newbie starting out, that could mean the world to them and would be more than enough to get in the game if they are running a lean and mean operation.

Beautiful, this is just how it happens. No automated crap, no I sit back and the system makes money for me. If you're lazy, gtfo. If you want/need money sit your ass down and work. You have to put time into it, that's the secret ingredient. And you have to be consistent. You also have to learn how to take no as an answer and move on to the next lead.


The rest is (intellectual at best) masturbation.


Well done OP, and may this serve as a lesson to the hundreds of online "marketers" that waste their time looking for easy money/blackhat BS and our time by "sharing" what they never did. The noise-to-signal ratio is higher than anywhere else in internet marketing, only sharing more case studies can fix that. Hope the moderators of this site take note as well.

Very interesting story and the moral applies to all our various businesses.
We always give up too soon and find excuses. I am a big victim. lol
Persistence is key in marketing. I can't remember how many times i started little niche sites to rank and gave up just few weeks after instead of regularly posting.
To be a successful entrepreneur involves 2 major things
- Start the business
- Stay in business
Thanks for posting

Hi Underground,

The thing that fired me up on Animals post was this, and I responded to it directly:



What he said there is simply not true, and I was offering a rebuttal to that, and asking for him to provide backing for his statement. I don't think that was being irrational.


I don't think my last few posts dismiss anything that was said in my apology to you


Again, if one can teach a newby to do that stuff then that's great, I just haven't seen a ton of newby's popping up saying that these things are working for them, right off the bat.

My comments are not aimed at anyone who disagrees with me, they are aimed at anyone who is making generalizations without offering specifics and backing for their point. Such as animals quote that cold calling is the number one way for a newby to fail.


That is clearly not true! The case studies SHOW that it is clearly not true, and that is the type of statement I call "BS".




-JD

I have years of telemarket experience, owned a room, trained people...and it is a matter of smile and dial...keep gong....you are looking for someone interested, once you find them...."never let them go" (like the old song LOL>> or at least not until they say NO 3x and then keep them to call back, email back or in local biz, visit)

You can up your odds greatly by targeting "need"....for me, when I see a biz advertising a lot, running groupons, taking coupons in local flyer mags.....that is the one I target. Not the totally busy/established "I don't need to advertise and I may retire next year" guy....not the totally broke gal who has NO ads out anywhere....not the "elite' who feels ads are beneath them "My decor biz is by word of mouth"...

go where they are already advertising,

and or go where they need help (like bad reviews)....

call at the right time - like no salons on a monday....call restaurants at that slow time between 2-4
and so forth

don't sound like a salesperson (yeah I know but don't)

Don't distress yourself so much - I personally don't think of it as "cold calling">> I think of it as connecting to people who "need" me and my services (whichever one they need)

Thank you for your consideration Underground, you are an objective person. I know I have been overly passionate in the past at times. We live and learn.

But from where did you get the cold numbers to call?

Plus you need to grasp the point that the few hours it takes to send the emails, has you pitching 600 people in those few hours. The response rates are from people where it makes sense for them to speak further. 80-90% willing to take a call from you, your surely going to get a lot of sales if you have a great value prop and reach them at or as close to their tipping point.

Even if you say you did got to pitch 600 DM's in the space of week for just 12-18 hours work, that still a day more lost productivity, even if you do get through to a qualified dm willing to hear your opener and sales presentation and who's a laydown first time out, within a couple of rings, on the first call.


You think it's easy to even get responses and generate that amount of leads from a few hours a day? Let alone with cold calling. In direct mail they're happy to get a 1% response rate in a lot of cases.


Is anyone here other than Savidge making 100 calls in a couple of hours and finding 30-90 of those people willing to hear their pitch and response positively to it to at least be willing to take the next step and see the sales presentation?

Wow! That's inspiring, I juts learnt 3 things from your story.

==> Never Give up
==> Stick to the master plan
==> Invest Wisely

Thanks for sharing.

Man, You are really crazy! You are awesome i must say, i could never do that. I would rather invest that money on Google adwords. From your story, i am sure that won't even reap any results compared to what you got.

You have just inspired me to try any idea, no matter how odd it might look. I learnt three things:

==> Always Know that There is nothing wrong in trying
==> Be Positive and Have a Plan
==> Always stay committed until you get your desired result

Thanks for sharing

Okay Animal...


There are various ways, and JV's are a great way. Most certainly.


Ah! It's a great day to be an Internet Marketing Warrior! Is it not?


Thank you Shadow again, for this awesome thread!

All I can say is that I have used lists with higher conversion, that are a lot more complex to generate, but generating a LASER targeted, pre-qualified list does take time and resources... so that is a factor.


It kind of all evens out really, for the most part.


The leanest meanest thing I have ever done is just tear a few pages out of the phone book and go to town. That wont work for certain niches, but for general small business it's fine.


Some things you CAN'T use a generic list for.

In other words, if you are trying to target ballet dancers for a ballet talent directory or something, then you need to take different measures than just the phone book, but if you are doing attorneys, dentists, antique stores...the usual suspects, then the yellow pages are great!


It's simple, and it gets the job done, that's all that matters at the days end. If I want two sales that day and I get them, I'm happy. doesn't matter how many leads you burn, they are free lists, there are thousands of listings, and they are full of people who obviously use advertising and marketing.

I personally prefer the churn and burn method because it's easy for anyone to get started, you have a good ROI even with a below average sales person and just by the shear numbers being hit, people are bound to improve naturally.

Scraping a list, and hammering out the dials can certainly be profitable for pretty much anyone.

There doesn't have to be an either/or ultimatum here.

What style fits you better? What style is more ideal for your business?

I doubt ATT, Charter, Comcast, other companies cold calling in a mega way, are doing vast amounts of research beforehand. They wouldn't be profitable having $10/hr slaves with poor education having the power to investigate, research and target the proper people. However, on the flip side of this, these companies on the corporate sales level ARE doing massive research and using different techniques than the $10/hr call room.

Churn and burn works for them, and will work for anyone offering lower end services. And yes... even $1,000-2000 web design projects are low end services.

However... take a look at people that work in business development, or accounts for large advertising firms. They don't churn and burn. They identify, they nurture, they spend a lot of time in the research phase and typically have larger sales and longer sales cycles. Correctly identifying and spending time with the people that CAN make the decision and will give you the time.

I personally don't like appointments. For me, they're a waste of time. For others, it's a good thing.

I think Underground mentioned the SOAR selling system, which is a good system. Kind of hard to argue against it, but it's typically used in specialized sales at the corporate level. I guess anyone could have success with it on any level.

That being said... there's no reason to not adjust a basic cold calling script to include a real value statement, whether you're trying to get an appointment or sell over the phone.

There is one guy in the WSO section, cant think of his name, that has some pretty killer looking software (scraper) for fiverr/craigslist arbitrage, that looks like it might be the best list generating idea I have ever seen , although I do wonder about how saturated the various markets would be if everyone used it.


That is about the most amazing list generating idea I have seen for what most newbies in this section would use it for.


Not sure it would be the best for people who sell specific kinds of packages at higher prices, but I'm pissed at myself for not being the one who thought of the idea!


For newbies, it seems like an amazing solution for getting started.

Let me just address this lunacy before I go.

What real-world, sane Sales person would not want to send out a batch of emails in the morning and then be fielding calls and emails from interested prospects who know who they are and what they do and want to learn more?

That's the salesperson's job. Even a busy business owner would not begrudge the time spent responding to qualified fish in their net coming to them wanting to hear more. They know they are talking to interested people who want to hear what they say.

It's not mine. But you reveal yourself here. I'm not self-aggrandizing here. I'm not taking any credit for Brian Kuerzberger's massive success and highly effective sales system. Nor Aaron Ross.

You're not even making calls on the phone every day. You should humble yourself and be open to learning and stop getting it backwards by mocking genuine effective and powerful methods because your deluded about your own made up processes.

Statistics: Only as good as the person faking them.

That's how I feel about the majority of stats mentioned online.

Truly, the only thing that matters, is your own numbers, no matter what style you choose to use, or what method of marketing you're going to use.

Hold on I just re-read what you said. He's actually a client of yours Ewan?

This reason this place is so resistant to things like making lesser contacts and more sales must be because of the nature of cold calling. It's one of those habit forming things. You need to just grind your teeth and get calling and keep doing it until it becomes habitual.

But the trap is getting to comfortable in that habit that anything alternative to it is met with resistance.

Brian Kuerzberger's method would be the absolute best method for any newbie. Because for some cold-calling it just too much stress. The cold email is even simpler to implement than brute cold calling, there's no call reluctance or nervousness. Less effort for more return. Less stress. Less waste. Less dealing with gatekeepers. More chances to pitch. Speaking to interested people with a better chance to have a sales conversation with them.

it should be the standard here, in an ideal world.

Shame you deleted that post John. This thread has ended up detracting from the message of the thread, which is one every newbie should grasp in essence regardless of the difference variations to achieve the same thing.

That is to get a decent, consistent, simple and workable system of contacting businesses and seeing if they interested in what you offer.

Hiring someone to do that like the OP can pay massive dividends. So the point is work out your approach, one that's right for what you offer and just get going and be consistent.

For all the debate in this thread, it all comes down to the above.

Shadow's is an awesome story because it reminds everyone that sometimes all we need to do is go back to basics. What is simple works best. No need to make things hard for yourself.

Wow, finally a really interesting thread. It seems like it's been years since we've had a thread this lively. "Makin' me pine for the good ol' days of the offline forum."


My personal opinion, based on experience, is that sitting down, picking up the phone and calling businesses is the fastest and most cost effective way to generate new business as a newbie with no money.


Sure, there are other more sophisticated ways to prospect and get sales, but if your back is against the wall, find yourself a simple phone script and get to dialing. Go for that low hanging fruit and get paid. Then you will earn the money you need to buy $500 email courses, by people like Bryan Kreuzberger. Yes, his emailing method is sound, but it's designed for targeting higher value clients, that someone with little or no sales experience will have difficulty dealing with.


All of the various sales methods work, and to be successful one needs to know how to effectively implement all of them -- cold calling, email, direct mail, networking, face-to-face, etc. Use the right method for the right market.



However, of all of the various methods, the lowest cost, fastest way to generate new business for newbies is cold calling. Tools needed -- a phone, a list(phonebook, free list from Reference USA from the library), pen and paper, a simple phone script, and the heart & dedication to pick up the phone and have a conversation with people.


Just figure it like this, a horrible rate of one sale per week at $1200.00, is $4800.00/mo. While this is not a whole lot of money, it's realistic for someone just aiming for the "low hanging fruit", just starting out. It sure beats flipping burgers or working retail for minimum wage.

how can i get this software free.Basically I want to trial this , If it is working to me. then I will buy this .

If you are able to get such an opportunity...Please inform me

Did you consider PUMMELING HER WITH YOUR FISTS????

I kid, but 55 calls in 8 hour is unnacceptable, what is she doing, staring at the wall?

In agreement with Ken, you don't have to fire her... You can give her the parameters and say "This is how many dials are possible per hour, and what the job calls for"


Then leave it to her if she wants the job or not.


I once told a manager that something wasn't possible in my early days. He looked up in the middle of my whining story with a serious face and said "Are you telling me that you can't do the job, John ?"

Then he stopped talking and continued looking me in the eye...

After an awkward pause I said "No Sir" and went back to my desk and started performing. Turns out, it was possible! lol


On another note: I've managed 100 people, made millions of dollars in sales, and still didn't make 45k per year!




.

"Well, The obvious problem is me. I hired her and I trained her. It's ultimately my responsibility. If she was doing great, I would be busting my arm patting myself on the back. I don't want to fire her. I can't. She's a single mother that quit a job to join us. I'm thinking of putting her on a dialer. That may fix the issue. I'm not giving up so soon."

The issue is probably not in the mechanics of how the number is dialed. It starts with the list, the offer, the script and goes from there. You can dial 5x the phone numbers and still not have the sales results you need if the training and solution-selling script don't match the targets you're calling. At least you're realizing it's not all her fault, Even if I'm dialing with my fingers, I can call a LOT more numbers than she's dialing.

You may want to record and review some of those calls to see how she's really delivering the script and how people are reacting and when they react during the call. That will help you get to the heart of the sales issue, not just the # calls/hour.

Wonder what her job was that she "quit to join us." Sales super-star or someone who just LOVED the idea of getting a fabulous salary with no accountability and responsibility for results? (Do your job and train her and equip her with the tools she needs to succeed.

Single mom or not, if she's still failing, she needs to get a new job.
As a single mom myself, I encourage you to unpack that "she's a single mom" guilt trip suitcase you've already packed. Just be fair, give her the training, technology, best list and script possible, review the results, document and make the best business decision.

Do you think the name of your company matters when cold calling? As in, would a locally named domain make any difference in your opinion?Thanks!

John, I see you deleted some of the views you made about spending any time on pre-call research in order to customize a call a bit being a waste of time. Or even the mark of a failure.

Have you really found that you win more sales in the same amount of time speaking to 200 random people vs someone speaking to 20 ideal fits who they checked out a bit and found something relevant and important to reference and relate their pitch to?

You've got far more experience than me and I'd be interested in why you shun anything but going blind.

In email, when you just generically spam people with a sales pitch you'll be very lucky to get a response from 1000 emails sent.

But you can send send 100 emails with a personalized email that shows you have a relevant reason for contact and get 10-90% rates regularly.

I've seen a lot of trainers advocate pre-call research and having something relevant, timely and important to them to use in the openers to get more compliance and better success. Art Sobchek, Bob Etherington and others. Bob Ross recently too as a well of getting far more uptake when selling ad space.

But I've seen doubt poured on, from you and others. Like this article here.

I have to pre-select, whatever my preference.

But I think there is a distinction to be drawn between just finding something relevant to open which buys you a bit more time and between the other reason why people pre-select.

At this point I feel I'd rather call 20 businesses I already know could benefit rather than 200 to find those 20 where my pitch has relevance. Financial advisers who have just released a press release for example where I could ask them do they want to get that infront of another 50,000 local people for $000 whatever. Just that kind of straight-forward pitch that I'd give my right-arm to be able to hire someone like you to deliver all day long. I'd only want to hire you for phoning a carefully selected list rather than randoms.

It feels more logical to me that I'd get better results by checking first so I'm calling 20 FA's who have just release press released. Admittedly though, I have tested the two approached so it's just a personal hunch/

It would surely be quicker to take a cursory glance to discount them before calling rather than phoning and 90% of that time being dead time.


So there's two sides. Why do you take such a strong position on one side? In my situation, where what I have ideal customers at a certain stage that are perfect fit for my services, and where it's essential I preselect, would you still advise me just to get a speed dialer and makes hundreds of calls to find them rather than just using the net and certain sites to find who I need?

Hi Underground,


I deleted them because the dialogue seems to have taken a different turn, toward "employees", and I felt that the stuff I had written was leading away from the current direction that the conversations have taken.


Having created a few forums over the past 5-6 years, I have a unique perspective on "threads", and so I try to respect the continuity of them and help them stay on topic. If they take a different direction, then the relevance of the OP gets lost, however even though that can become a lost cause, I still try to respect the continuity and not take it off the direction it was going.


So that's why I deleted that part of my post.


I don't shun anything other than going in blind. As you saw in earler posts of mine on this thread, I have created all kinds of ways over time to generate call lists, and I believe in having a targeted one, however; having been the manager of hundreds of telemarketers, and having for years monitored stats and consistently met quotas for entire large rooms, as well as for my own businesses... I have also seen some other things that some others don't take into account.


To be specific; I have seen telemarketers time and time again complain about a list and blame it for being the reason they can't get sales... While the entire room was producing with the same lists.


This is not something I have seen once, but it's something that other call center managers here on the forum can relate to. We have seen larger numbers of calls, callers, and telesales campaigns than others, and our perspective on this subject is broader.


I have seen many telemarketers talk about how they were tweaking their list and leads, and how if they just took a little extra time to do this or that, or send emails in between calls , then they could do better... I have seen them suggest all kinds of things to make telemarketing easier in their minds, and as a result waste half of their week tweaking things instead of doing the one thing that matters most, and that is talking to a lot of people.


I have, as other managers here, seen average performers, low performers, and high performers, not by the handful but by the TON, on a day to day basis for years, and it has been my job to do whatever it takes to get them performing.


And here is the main common denominator, the one that you can't see from hypothesis, and you can't extrapolate the meaning of by trying to connect the dots in your head that would hypothetically make sense, without having EXPERIENCED it on a large scale basis... There are some things that only experience can teach you, and that common denominator is this:


The guy that always needs more, the guy that always wants better call material, the guy that says we could perform better if we only had "this", the guy that says the leads aren't targeted enough...


Is the guy that never makes quota.


The guys who keep their head down on the phone, and aren't needy, and don't complain about the list, and take the good with the bad, and talk all day long, and don't ask for much, and don't say "we need a better way"...


Those guys make sales ALL DAY LONG!


On another note...I have also purchased a lot of call lists in my time, and have found that you can't depend on a lead list being any better than any other one just because someone thought it was more targeted because of this or that.


Let me give you an example:


Let's say you are an insurance agent, and you buy a call list from a person who says "I generated all these leads exclusively on my website. They are people who actually filled out my contact form looking for an insurance quote"


You may think that is better than what would seem like a cold list.


But then you get to calling it and find out that the people who filled out that form had been searching google for that type of insurance, and they actually filled out forms for hours trying to get quotes from all kinds of companies the same day, in the same session of researching for insurance, and when you call it 3 things happen:


1: They tell you that they got called by five different agents that week.
2: They tell you that they are just taking quotes right now and comparing companies.
3: They tell you that they filled out a lot of forms and they don't even remember the name of your company.


Compare that to a cold list now...


On the cold list you are catching people off guard who weren't thinking of it, and you are suggesting it to them, and they have no pre conceived notions, and you actually have a chance to get in their mind and give them an idea.


Now lets say that you have a list of 30 of these Qualified inquiries... because they are a bit harder to come by... And the guy next to you has a list of 200 cold calls... He will create a BUNCH of even warmer leads, in the form of call backs, that are even more qualified, as he goes along, AND sell cold calls along the way.


Again, this is from experience, not extrapolation of what would seem like the next logical thought...


In my experience, the guy who is dialing the hell out of a cold list, who has his head down pitching a ton of people, instead of spending a lot of energy thinking about how to treat his golden list, is going to beat you in production 9 times out of ten at the end of the day.


This was one example... and it's not always true, sometimes more targeted leads ARE better...


But without nit picking any particular point, if you can take the GENERAL truth out of this post...


A guy who is willing to really work with what he has, and not spend half of his week trying to make things PERFECT, but rather is putting his head down and just WORKING on the quota with his mind set on getting it, is always going to be the guy who does better.


To reiterate; he is also CREATING exclusive warm leads all along the way. that's what a "call back" is- a warm lead.




Again, these are just general truths.


It even works in the numbers here on the Warrior Forum... There are guys who spend years here, trying to wait until everything is perfect before they really start taking action on marketing... working on ideas that may have been tested but THEY haven't tested it yet, thinking their chances of success will be better by waiting...


Then there are guys on the WF who start marketing their content on free google online documents, working with whatever they have NOW, and getting into ACTION, making distinctions in LIVE action, by the minute, while the others are still fussing over all these little nuances that sound like they work in theory, or that worked for someone ELSE... only to find that they spent six months preparing for something that never was going to work for THEM in the first place, for one reason or another.


It's better to make distinctions in ACTION.


On the WF, the guys who end up making money are the ones who take what is in front of them and start working it hard... and they have $60,000 in the bank while someone else is still trying to figure out how to make things perfect before they will make a move.


I have found this, in closing to this long post:


I could get my mind set that "antique dealers" is a great market to cold call, because of some seemingly logical equation I came up with in my head, spend days preparing a list, and call it for days only to find out it wasn't good to me...or I could bust out a phone book and from hour to hour switch industries until I find one that grooves for me, and I will find a responsive industry to call by the end of a couple of hours.


Maybe antique dealers are great for someone else, but my particular personality gets a better response from day care providers...who knows what the reason is...


The most effective way to COLD call is not to set an industry in stone in that case, or to plan for six months on how you are going to call on THIS category, but rather to bust out a phone book and dial 25 daycare centers, then if they aren't working for you switch to construction companies, and if they aren't working for you switch to attorneys...and don't settle on a category until you get to the one that is grooving for you...


These are generalizations, there are exceptions, but another thing you find out from having monitored all of these calls over the years is that exceptions are called exceptions BECAUSE THEY ARENT THE RULE.


The rule is that if you take whatever is in front of you, get into action and start making live distinctions, you will have a quicker route to success, and make distinctions faster.


In short, you get more done when you are ROCKING than you do when you are PREPARING to rock all the time, and I feel that people put too much energy into planning out lead lists that they haven't even TRIED yet, instead of trying a bunch of calls and finding out what works best for them.


This doesn't apply to all ways of creating leads. I know I have a better chance of selling someone on my mailing list than I do a cold call... My point here could easily be nit picked, and because I say something GENERAL, and Im trying to help as broad a market of people as possible, it would be easy to pigeon hole everything Im saying and say "John doesn't believe in targeted lists"... and that would be untrue. John is actually a PRO at creating targeted ones in truth.


BUT, with that being said, I am not discouraging targeted lists, I am ENCOURAGING rather "WORK WITH WHATEVER YOU HAVE AND GET TO ROCKING!"


"KNOCK ON 100 DOORS WHILE THE NEXT GUY IS STANDING THERE PLANNING OUT HOW HE IS GOING TO KNOCK ON HIS FIRST ONE!"


If you have a targeted list great, but don't spend six months planning to call on a list that you don't even know for a fact is going to make you sell any better than a cold call would.


Im not saying there aren't better ways... Im saying that if you are in action, you will beat the guy who is waiting for a better way every time.


Last point:


I didn't say all of this about my experience to brag, and I didn't say "You can't imagine this unless you have seen large scale numbers" in order to talk down to anyone or say I'm better because of my experience...


I said it for one simple reason: Because you asked.


I don't think that YOU would, but SOMEONE will misconstrue everything I have said and take it as arrogance, or that I am bragging about my experience, and thinking I am a know it all....


That would not be the truth. I am humbling myself to fellow warriors here by taking the time to give my all. Hopefully someone can benefit from that resource of experience. If not, that's okay. Im not the last word, just saying what I have seen as a telemarketer, a manager over many, and also as a person who has made close to 50,000 sales online without ever even picking up a phone.


Take it for what its worth.


Hope this helps.


-JD

Ps.

I think Mobile Renegade is great, just so you know, and some other softwares out there... Im just saying, don't bank on it, if you cant sell cold calls.


If you cant sell cold calls you cant sell hot leads either.


It wont make THAT much difference.