Whats the best way to contact business owners?

Well you have two options.

Call them, or go in and talk to them in person. I made a few cold calls on the weekend for designing websites, and got a few people interested. You just have to know when to call, and how to pitch your ideas.

Obviously walking in and talking face to face makes a better impression, but there's also way more pressure. I love the phone because it's a pretty simple process - I tell them I saw their ad in the paper, noticed they didnt have a site, give them some credentials and say at the end, "id love to set up an appointment where we can discuss how to get you more business through the web". that's my strat.

I vote to go to directly to the business. This has worked for me in the past.

It's really a combination of everything you mentioned. If you're starting a marketing campaign, start with defining who you want to market your services to. Specifically what type of business and their size. Marketing to a large organization is much different that marketing to a small mom and pop shop. Once you defined your market devise a strategy. For example, direct mail, followed up by cold call. The initial call should be to send more info like a white paper. Use this call to set up a follow-up. The follow-up call sets up the presentation, the presentation set up the proposal, ect.

Consider using a CRM for this activity to keep you organized. There are a few open source solutions out there. If you have the capital SalesForce makes a nice product.

I have 15 year in sales and marketing, so if you want to shoot me a pm, I'm open.

Try networking events if you are too scared to pick up the phone. Attend meetings where there are groups of business owners and sales people and tell the group about your business.

Networking is a skill as well, but if you like people and believe in your business it can at least get you talking to people which will lead to appointments, contracts and sales.

Hademade,
Good luck in approaching businesses. There are a number of great ideas in the forum...one is doing a one page flyer and distribute the flyers in strip centers late night after closing hours by slipping them under the door. The envelop which holds the flyer would say "Please Provide to Store Manager or Owner ASAP - Important Business Information Enclosed". We've tried it and it definitely gets calls.

Also, we use a voice broadcasting to business owners and the service provides the phone numbers in our marketing areas. They actually have a scraper software that scapes emails and phone numbers off Google based on keyword search...and it works wonderfully well for emails. (Example: Real Estate Agents...you end up with the email addresses, phone numbers and websites for the area you select.)


Cheers, Uncle Chucke

Face to face is the best way.

Just like the others, walk-in and meet the business owner is the best way.

I would suggest a mix of all the suggestions placed in this thread. You can first try cold calling a business to set an appointment to meet with the business owner. True that there are a lot of business owners out there that do not like getting cold calls, but if the opportunity and timing is right for them then they may consider meeting you face-to-face.

In my opinion, just abruptly going to another business establishment and asking for the business owner may not give you the results you desire without setting the appointment first.

You can also purchase a list of business leads so that you already know what business to target and who to contact.

If you can demonstrate how many dollars came in from ad spend, and how quickly they got it, then you can sell in a vacuum.

Nobody is approaching business owners with pre-tested advertising methods...

where they can use the same mailing, ad or whatever that got the business in the same industry, a high return and fast.

This is why response rates to offers to businesses are so low.

An old time direct mailer approached me recently saying that, even when he get's his clients at the top of Google, increased business is marginal for his clients.

I have a pre-tested mailer in front of me for a builder that got a whopping 207 on 1
return.

Wouldn't you think other builders might be a little bit interested in knowing more about that?

Having that sort of value loaded for your prospects, makes the method of contacting them less daunting.

So my point is, get your offer enticing first, then knowing how to contact your target audience becomes almost automatic.

Best,
Ewen

Great content here, Ewen you say you use emails to business's? Having a powerful offer was in your first approach or second?
thanks,
richard

Haha I love these threads!

As David Miller is saying up top there, it's often debated and talked about on the WF and then people finally come around to the inevitable realization that cold calling is going to be the most effective way to stir up business, NOW!

The great thing is it almost acts as a barrier to entry, if you aren't willing to pick up the phone, then, you're not going to make with this biz model.. otherwise it would just be way too good to be true (and it's pretty damn good in the first place)

Really, it's all about lead gen. you ALWAYS have to be focusing on lead gen... be it cold calling, e-mailing, direct mail, networking, whatever it is... make a habit of doing all of it all the time.

The worst thing you can do is sit around the forum and other places (I'm really guilty of this over the past couple days) and focusing on stuff that isn't adding to your business' bottom line.

The great thing about constantly having leads come in the door is when a prospect doesn't convert into a client, you could care less, his loss, you've got 15 more businesses sitting in your pipeline waiting for you to contact them.

When you DON'T have a ton of prospects and that ONE doesn't convert, you'll consider throwing in the towel right there!

On top of my rant, the BEST place to stir up business is if you can get into your local BNI or a similar type of business networking group in your town.

I run my own SEO shop, and I also made my iving for 14 years selling mid-range servers and peripherals over phone. I was a cold-calling machine, and might have more outbound cold-calling sales experience than any other person on this forum.

Someone commented that business owners don't like to get phone calls, and that is partly true. Business owners don't like inept cold calls, but they do like phone calls that will tell them in 60 seconds how they can make more money or solve some small biz problem.

To make that call a warm phone call is very simple.

Do this:
1. Call the receptionist and ask to speak with Mr. XYZ. She will essentially tell you "no". That is fine.
2. Tell the pig-headed receptionist that you have a zip file that Mr. XYZ will want to read, and you simply want to give Mr. XYZ a heads-up that it is coming.
3. She will see the logic in that
4. Request Mr. XYZ's email address. She might offer hers, but you must insist on his because of the private nature of the email.

In your email to Mr. XYZ, tell him briefly that you called and receptionist offered his email address. Ask him to read your zipped file because it contains detailed information on his (competitor/business/etc). And close your email with your committment to call him back in two or three days.

5. Call him back. Its a warm call and he expects you, or he did not read your email and its his bad and you look more professional than him, or he deleted it.

That's what I am doing right now. I do not have enough data to provide a valid statistical analysis for you, but it feels right.

Follow-up is key. We cannot do business with offline businesses without using the phone. Most IM folks hide from the phone, and that is bad. It's bad for the IM'r, because in his or her mind, the phone becomes something to be avoided.

Avoiding the phone will cost you a lot of money.

SEO Jerry
DMGNA.com

Man, this is cool. You're getting a lot of great advice here. Glad to see that I can get help when I need it.

I will apologize first for the long post but I think my perspective would be helpful.

I'd like to tell you what its like to be on the other end of the phone or other side of the door as a business owner that could use your services.

I own a small real estate brokerage called Jolly Homes and I get contacted for SEO and advertising daily. I mostly get emails, which I DESPISE more than anything. I get them so much that I have even taken up space on my Contact Us page telling them not to contact me, which they do anyway.

I also have sold web development and owned a .NET development firm of my own, so I know both sides of this fence.

You must at least call them. If you email them first they will see that as weakness and not want to be associated with you. You'll see why later.

Before you approach them,you need know who that business owner is and how they think. No matter where you look, there are generally 4 basic personality types and each have their own language. The good part is that 2 of them would almost never have a successful business.

If the business is successful, you are dealing with personality types that are wired differently than the majority of the population and thus need to be dealt with in a special way.

Do's-
1. Only talk about benefits and how you can MAKE MONEY for them.
2. Make them think they are special, cutting edge, and ahead of the pack.
3. Get to the bottom line quickly-->they make decisions fast so ask for the business early. Be QUICK! Their time is EXTREMELY VALUABLE. A no, isn't always a no.
4. Have them make the decision. "Is this something that your business is looking for?"
5. Make sure that they know at all times that they will be in control, BUT that you will be taking care of everything. -->They HATE the "details".
6. Be there respectful servant (at least in the beginning).


Don'ts-
1. Don't talk about saving money, special offers or discounts if they buy today.
2. Don't ever let them think that 'everyone is doing it'-->They never want to be considered 'status quo'. Normal is a 4-letter word to them.
3. Don't use the Fear of Loss approach-Fear based selling makes them angry because they willtake that as you thinking they're stupid. See #1 above.
4. Don't give them your 'advice' - they don't want it until you've given them results to prove that it has worth.
5. Never, ever, ever, ever, even infer that they are doing something wrong currently or that you are smarter than them.
6. Never send them something to read or watch. They pay people to do that for them. Again, they don't want an education, they want money and prestige and they want it NOW.

Almost every person that contacts me starts out like this, "I was searching google in your area and you didn't show up in first position or on the first page, did you know that?" -->reading the advice above, what do you think my reaction is?....Well, you're an idiot, goodbye.

What would work..."Hello sir or mam, my name is ___I am calling to see if my services could enhance your already successful business. Did I catch you at a BAD time? (it is never a 'good time' because they are always 'busy' but is almost never a BAD time, if it is find out a better time to call them back)

"Well, I know your time is valuable so i will be brief. I work in Internet services(whatever you want to say but be specific but not jargony) and I am really impressed with what you are currently doing with your website. Would you be interested in discussing how my company could bring you more business through the Internet?

What is working for you right now? Are there any areas that you would like to enhance or implement?

Imagine you have hired my company and we are driving dollars to your bottom line on a monthly basis.(a little NLP) What kind of results would you expect of us? ANSWER "xxxx"

We can do that for you and take care of all the details. How would a monthly charge of $xxx.xx sound to you if we delivered "xxxx" in return?

Take their answer and either sign them up or set a time to check back with them if they say no. DO NOT try to 'sell' them it will be a waste of time and will also almost guarantee you failure in the future. Sometimes they just want you to call them back to make sure that they are special enough to you.

Get in a mindset that you're calling Madonna or Lady Gaga. Stupid reference but it will serve you well.

Hope that helps. That script is rough but i think you get the idea.

There are a lot of ways to contact business owners, but after many years of learning the options, I have come to the conclusion that the best way for me was not to contact them at all, but to have them contact me.

That meant having a great website that ranks high for keywords that my potential business owners would use to search me out when they needed me. Then I would merely answer their requests for information in a way that would allow them to realize in their own minds that I was the solution to their problems.

Another way to do find interested business owners is to be where the business owners are, and to meet them on a friendly professional basis. If your target audience are lawyers than go to networking events that lawyers would go to, etc. Every city has business networking groups and events. Google it to find out where they are.

Also, try meeting business owners at meetup groups. If you're not familiar with meetups, you really should find out more.

Chamber of commerce and BNI can work as well, but you have to be prepared to really commit and work these types of venues to see results. But if you're going to be successful in your business it's going to take some work to make it happen.

Be the best around at what you do and gain a good reputation in your town. It really is important to be good at what you do. It's a great ego booster and sales tool, when you know your stuff. That may take time if you're not already there.

Choose a couple of methods that work for you, and them work them hard and regularly. When the referrals start coming in your job of meeting new clients will become a bit easier.

The best way is to meet them in person at niche conventions. Nothing tops a face to face meeting.

I think the debate gets to be silly

Cold calls work.
Cold emails work.
Cold walk in work
Cold mail(direct mail work)

But when cold it has to be good.

So which are you best at? Play to your strengths. If you are great in person than cold walk ins are the way to go. if you have great phone skills cold call. Write great sales letter than pull out those hand adress envelops and stamps and mail them. And yes even cold email works but unless you are damn good at it and have a large list the conversions are lower than I would like myself.

Now for more of my tips from the other side and how I feel about each.

Cold emails I touched on. Most feel like spam so I am very likely to delete it unless you have drawn me in.

Cold calls: 99.9% of people who cold call me have no business on the phone. They never catch my attention. I only half listen cause I feel sorry for them. So if you plan to cold call get that script together and work it till you are good. And aim for potential clients you don't care if you get at first. Because unless you have done it before you will likely suck at it till you get practice. But remember cold calling is a numbers game. So you will be getting like 1 yes in 100 calls and stuff like that. The key is to hit the phones and figure out what works.

Cold walk ins: So few do this anymore that IMO it is truly powerful if you know how to sell in person. Hell if your pitch is good but the price or service isn't right for them they may send you to a friend they know who needs your services. I think cold walks in are by far the highest closing percentage if you know what you arre doing. But they also take the most time. If you dial a lot you can likely close more by cold calling.

Direct Mail: If you are good at this you can get better numbers vs cold calls. But you need to learn the secrets of getting into the A pile. And you need to draw them in right away with your letter. Remember that this method merely leads to warm calls. Either them calling you or you calling them. The big boys like google use direct mail and it works. The negative for the marketer is this has a higher cost than email or cold calls.

And let's not forget the key to long term business growth and that is networking. And I am not just talking official networking events. You should be ready to sell yourself at any moment. On a blind date and she asks what you do? Sell how you help businesses. Her mom or dad or brother or etc might be an owner or manager who needs your services. The date might tank but you might still get a client. And this is true anywhere. Walking in walmart and over hear someone talking business and you think you could help? Introduce yourself. Eating at a new resturant? Ask to see the owner or manager. Compliment the food/etc and introduce yourself.

But in the begining do what you are best at. But in a real business sooner or later you will do all 5 of the above. Though hopefully you will hire people who know how to cold call and do the other things you are not good at.

I think its a common problem in every business. When you want to talk to owner you need strong reference if you got then you can talk to owner and you would get the thing you want but even to contact an owner for your business is very difficult.

Get involved with a networking lunch or local chamber function that allows you to showcase your business. Calling by phone might work but getting in front of a group and having people interact with you is a surefire way to get the attention of business owners. Not to mention that they see you in person and get to ask questions on their own time. Works for our website business time and time again.

Business to business marketing make it very easy for you to meet the professional oriented clients. These clients not only helps to promote your company but also your products.

You will be hesitant until YOU are actually sold on your product. If you know that your advertising will make them money and you can prove it, then you should have no problem picking up the phone and telling the receptionist that she must put you in touch with the owner because he stands to lose a lot of money if she doesn't. You would have no problem walking into any business and getting to YES.

You may want to think about giving the advertising away for free in the beginning and using tracking numbers for each ad. Tell them you only get paid if--they get a lead, make a sale, get an email, etc.

If your advertising is any good you will make a ton of money and it will be easy to get to the owners.