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Instagram Management: Cold Call my way to 100 clients

Social media marketing, advertising, and growth

maikooo

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Day 12

Calls : 30
Leads 9

Day 13

Calls : 30
Leads: 3

Day 14

Calls 30
Leads: 6

Day 15

Calls: 28
Leads: 8

I have also started to send cold email with audit reports of their Instagram page attached. It's working well so far but yet to close someone
Sorry if this has been asked before, but do you offer some kind of 'sweeten the cake' deal? Free-trial, % discount or anything like that to entice the sale?
 

SquatchMan

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I'm getting a hang of this now. A lot more confidence in my voice and no slurring or umms or hmms. Most of these people are giving me emails though. "Here's our manager's email. Send him/her an email and he/she will get back to you."

This sounds like people too scared to say no and just giving you an email address. I'm sure some are interested, but lots of people will pretend they're interested to get you off the line and never talk to you again.

Slightly annoying, but just how it is when cold calling people. The people that you constantly have to contact before closing probably don't see the value and will make terrible clients anyway.

Have you closed anyone yet?
 

Ziad

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Have t updated this thread because Ive been super busy.

I managed to land a digital marketing agency who will be sending all of their clients our way at a cheaper rate for $600/month.

They’ve started off with 1 client and will send the rest when they see our results.
 
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Zcott

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Good job so far Ziad!

Cold calling is tough and you are improving.

I used to work in a cold call environments (telemarketing, recruitment and telefundraising), and I've got some tips if they provide useful at all.

I don't know if you are doing it or not, but I recommend recording your calls and playing them back to yourself to see where you are going wrong, what is working well for you, how you can improve etc. Are your questions are closed or open? Write down what objections you frequently come up against.

If you are getting email objections, you could say 'Absolutely, I'll send an email, I have loads of information and brochures of how we can help you. And so you're not overwhelmed, what aspects of instagram management are you most struggling with?'

There are also loads of closes you can do. No conversation is the same so it makes good practice to learn a few, might help you get a few more leads.

For example, what's called a thermometer close, you can pitch them and close by saying:
'on a scale of 1 to 10, how interested are you in this service?'
'about an 7'
'7 is quite high, but it's not 10, how can I help make this a 10?'

Or alternative close. Offer them two services in your pitch and close by saying 'which service would you like to go with, X or Y?'

There are loads of closes, Google it and you might find something of use.

Hope this works out well for you. 100 clients @ $850pm x 12 months = $1,020,000. Smash it in the face!
 
Last edited:

maikooo

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Have t updated this thread because Ive been super busy.

I managed to land a digital marketing agency who will be sending all of their clients our way at a cheaper rate for $600/month.

They’ve started off with 1 client and will send the rest when they see our results.
Congrats! Interested to know how it works out for you to do this in the 'outsourced' way ... did they make you sing some exclusivity contracts? cheers
 
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Slightly off-topic but do you recommend any CRM specifically? CRM's seem to have reproduced like rabbits over the past few years.

The only one I have had experience with was ACT but that was several year ago. HubSpot is worth trying as it's free, at least the basic model is and gets good review but there are loads of them out there all offering their own unique feature set.
 

Ziad

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Good job so far Ziad!

Cold calling is tough and you are improving.

I used to work in a cold call environments (telemarketing, recruitment and telefundraising), and I've got some tips if they provide useful at all.

I don't know if you are doing it or not, but I recommend recording your calls and playing them back to yourself to see where you are going wrong, what is working well for you, how you can improve etc. Are your questions are closed or open? Write down what objections you frequently come up against.

If you are getting email objections, you could say 'Absolutely, I'll send an email, I have loads of information and brochures of how we can help you. And so you're not overwhelmed, what aspects of instagram management are you most struggling with?'

There are also loads of closes you can do. No conversation is the same so it makes good practice to learn a few, might help you get a few more leads.

For example, what's called a thermometer close, you can pitch them and close by saying:
'on a scale of 1 to 10, how interested are you in this service?'
'about an 7'
'7 is quite high, but it's not 10, how can I help make this a 10?'

Or alternative close. Offer them two services in your pitch and close by saying 'which service would you like to go with, X or Y?'

There are loads of closes, Google it and you might find something of use.

Hope this works out well for you. 100 clients @ $850pm x 12 months = $1,020,000. Smash it in the face!

Thank you so much for the tips. What's your best advice on getting past the gate keeper? Most of them usually tell me "our marketing manager can help you, let me give you his/her email so you can reach out"

Thanks a lot again. Your post is extremely useful.
 

vshetty.vs

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Most of them usually tell me "our marketing manager can help you, let me give you his/her email so you can reach out"

Have you considered changing your approach and cold-emailing the marketing manager first?

I don't know much about marketing to Instagram but maybe that's just the process most businesses are comfortable with.

Also, would a page with a dedicated marketing manager really need someone to manage their page? Do your current clients have marketing managers?
 
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Zcott

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Thank you so much for the tips. What's your best advice on getting past the gate keeper? Most of them usually tell me "our marketing manager can help you, let me give you his/her email so you can reach out"

Thanks a lot again. Your post is extremely useful.

No worries, happy to hear it was of use!

Getting past the gate keeper can sometimes be as easy as 'Hi, I'm here to talk the marketing person, thank you.' It comes across authoritative and sometimes the gate keeper will just put you through.

If you don't know their name, you can also scout the company on social media and LinkedIn beforehand to see if you can ind some names with relevant titles, then phone up and say 'Yeah hi, I need to be put through to Joe Bloggs, thank you.'

It is also important to remember that in telemarketing a lot of what you do is information gathering. If you don't know the name of the person and the gate keeper tells you who to the name of the person you need to talk to, write that name down. Then when you phone up again you have a name and you sound more authoritative.

I am a bit rusty on telemarketing, it's been a few years since I did it, but when I was in any kind of sales I often look to YouTube. It's full of great sales tactics to use, this one is great and you can easily adapt it.

 

maikooo

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Have you considered changing your approach and cold-emailing the marketing manager first?

I don't know much about marketing to Instagram but maybe that's just the process most businesses are comfortable with.

Also, would a page with a dedicated marketing manager really need someone to manage their page? Do your current clients have marketing managers?

Good point, I have come across situations where people just say "we just hired marketing manager who will take care of all social media" ... it seems to me it's about having a "body" to take care of social media. As soon as they can afford one, they go for it - it's cheaper, plus they can throw as many tasks as the person is willing to absorb...
 

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If you don't know their name, you can also scout the company on social media and LinkedIn beforehand to see if you can ind some names with relevant titles, then phone up and say 'Yeah hi, I need to be put through to Joe Bloggs, thank you.'

In my experiences cold calling, drop the last name if the firm is small enough or the name is unique enough to not have multiple "Joe"'s there. If they do ask which Joe, I would chuckle a bit, apologize, then say their full name.

"This is Justin calling for Joe." Probably worked ~90% of the time.
 
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Jonathan Hoch

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If you're having trouble, you can also ask to be sent to their sales team. Talk to them about THEIR inbound marketing, THEIR successes and failures with it, and if it's even a tool that the sales team has at their disposal.

You can go a long way by first building champions in the company, who will help you sell your services.

Sidenote: I was a machinist at a very high end performance shop here, and they hired some "millenial" to run their entire social media campaign. It drove me nuts, because she was stupid and lazy. I talked to the boss, and basically trained her how she should be showcasing the business. After basically chewing my bosses a$$ and then hers about how People LOVE seeing the "behind the scenes" of companies, these were the results:

She was instructed to showcase the mountains of car parts that we were shipping around the world, with a list of different countries for that day. (that overcomes the "do you ship to bum F*ck egypt?")

She began taking pictures of the cars being worked on in the shop. (Wow you work on some really cool cars)

She began taking pictures of the cars on the dyno with skyscraper horsepower charts. (Holy cow that's another 1,000 horsepower car)

She began taking pictures of the machine shop and custom parts in raw material/mid machine/finished.

She took videos of the test drive with people shitting their pants at how fast their cars were afterwards. "Scary. Too much power. My car isn't even fun anymore." Aww give it a month, you'll want a bottle of nitrous on top of that... (Those usually didn't get posted, because the owners were embarrassed about their reactions to their own cars)

He even had a video go multi-million viral, when we dyno'd a friendly cop car before a huge street racing event in town. We then pulled up a dyno chart of a 800hp E55, instead of the pathetic 235 the cop car actually made... :D

And the sales jumped significantly.

If they have one, try working with the sales team first, and get them buzzing about the idea before talking with the boss.
 
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NewManRising

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Hey Ziad,

If it is not too much trouble, could you explain your technique or script you go by on the phone? Do you introduce yourself and company before talking about the problem and solution? Or do you go right into it? What is your routine? Could you give us a glimpse at how a typical call goes that has been successful for you? What part of it do you think "hooks" them?

Thanks
 

Ziad

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Have you considered changing your approach and cold-emailing the marketing manager first?

I don't know much about marketing to Instagram but maybe that's just the process most businesses are comfortable with.

Also, would a page with a dedicated marketing manager really need someone to manage their page? Do your current clients have marketing managers?

This is what I'm going to do now. Send cold Instagram audit reports to the company and then follow up with a call.

No worries, happy to hear it was of use!

Getting past the gate keeper can sometimes be as easy as 'Hi, I'm here to talk the marketing person, thank you.' It comes across authoritative and sometimes the gate keeper will just put you through.

If you don't know their name, you can also scout the company on social media and LinkedIn beforehand to see if you can ind some names with relevant titles, then phone up and say 'Yeah hi, I need to be put through to Joe Bloggs, thank you.'

It is also important to remember that in telemarketing a lot of what you do is information gathering. If you don't know the name of the person and the gate keeper tells you who to the name of the person you need to talk to, write that name down. Then when you phone up again you have a name and you sound more authoritative.

I am a bit rusty on telemarketing, it's been a few years since I did it, but when I was in any kind of sales I often look to YouTube. It's full of great sales tactics to use, this one is great and you can easily adapt it.


Thank you once again! I wanted to ask you, what if I cold email Instagram audit reports to companies? My audits are pretty good by the way, where I send a detailed report on whats good and whats bad with their Instagram page, followed by recommendations. Would it be better to send these audits to the company email on the website, or should I call first asking for a marketing manager or sales manager's email and email it to them?

Good point, I have come across situations where people just say "we just hired marketing manager who will take care of all social media" ... it seems to me it's about having a "body" to take care of social media. As soon as they can afford one, they go for it - it's cheaper, plus they can throw as many tasks as the person is willing to absorb...

Yes this has been the case with me on a couple of calls. They say "we already have someone handling that" but then I tell them all the benefits they can get and more and then they say ok I'll give you an email send us your proposal there.

In my experiences cold calling, drop the last name if the firm is small enough or the name is unique enough to not have multiple "Joe"'s there. If they do ask which Joe, I would chuckle a bit, apologize, then say their full name.

"This is Justin calling for Joe." Probably worked ~90% of the time.

Will try this, thanks!


Thanks for this link! Will go through it.
 

Ziad

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Hey Ziad,

If it is not too much trouble, could you explain your technique or script you go by on the phone? Do you introduce yourself and company before talking about the problem and solution? Or do you go right into it? What is your routine? Could you give us a glimpse at how a typical call goes that has been successful for you? What part of it do you think "hooks" them?

Thanks

I simply look at their Instagram and then shoot them a call telling them they can gain a lot of customers through proper Instagram management. I have recently started to send out free Instagram audit reports as well so they can see how bad their Instagram page is lol.
 
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Jonathan Hoch

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I simply look at their Instagram and then shoot them a call telling them they can gain a lot of customers through proper Instagram management. I have recently started to send out free Instagram audit reports as well so they can see how bad their Instagram page is lol.
How do they know if their report is bad? Do you also audit an industry leader for comparison?
 

Zcott

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Thank you once again! I wanted to ask you, what if I cold email Instagram audit reports to companies? My audits are pretty good by the way, where I send a detailed report on whats good and whats bad with their Instagram page, followed by recommendations. Would it be better to send these audits to the company email on the website, or should I call first asking for a marketing manager or sales manager's email and email it to them?

Definitely to one of the managers. If you can, try to get as many emails as possible.

'Hi <manager>, I spoke to <gatekeeper> earlier about your Instagram marketing and...'

You can make it personal instead of just it getting lost. It also means you have the name of the people you have to speak to later on

'Yeah, hi, it's Ziad here. Just need to speak to <manager> following up on some correspondence we've had.'
 

Ziad

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How do they know if their report is bad? Do you also audit an industry leader for comparison?

I simply point out whats wrong and compare it to pages in the same niche doing much better.
 
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Have t updated this thread because Ive been super busy.

I managed to land a digital marketing agency who will be sending all of their clients our way at a cheaper rate for $600/month.

They’ve started off with 1 client and will send the rest when they see our results.
How is the cold calling Going? This post got me thinking though. There may be a good market for you in doing white label work for web designers that get approached for social media.
 

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Are you calling businesses local to you? If so, have you considered going door-to-door?

This might not apply to you but I'll leave the story here in case it helps someone else.

Roughly a decade ago when I graduated from high school I got a job selling insurance of varying types. We were taught to cold call because the company found that it worked best in the North East, opposed to door-to-door sales, which they thought worked better in the South. The issue was that you had dozens of sales reps cold calling any and every business in Boston. We were all making 100+ calls per day so nearly every business I called had already been called by another sales rep, or was already a customer (yep, that's embarrassing). Needless to say these business owners and 'decision makers' were not happy about being called all the time by reps from the same company.

So I decided screw it, let's go door-to-door. It didn't make closing any easier, but it did get me face to face with business owners and managers much, much faster. Sometimes on the spot. No phone tag, no voicemails, no gatekeeper bullshit. No one else was going door-to-door. No one. So when I showed up at the door, although I was there to offer the same product that 4 sales reps called about in the past 2 weeks, I got a much warmer response than I did cold calling.

And if the business owner wasn't available for whatever reason, calling them a couple days later and stating that I stopped by on Tuesday or whatever, usually got them to take the call or call back the same day.

Also, for what it's worth, cold calling worked best for me from 7-9am and after 5pm. In between those hours owners and managers are busy dealing with everything else.
 

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Some cold calling tips for dealing with gatekeepers:
  • Always try to get a name at least, whether it's from their website, LinkedIn, or by asking for it. This will help when you call/call back. Asking for the person you need to speak with by first name will sometimes get you put straight through. "Hey this is Mike, did Joe make it in yet?"
  • Persistence is key. For whatever reason, occasionally gatekeepers will let you by after calling for the nth time. I'm not sure if it's because they're sick of you, or if they feel that you must really need to talk to the owner. Sometimes it just works. You may even get friendly with the gatekeeper after a while, and at one point they have mercy on you.
  • Ask for help. People naturally want to help one another. "Hi I'm hoping you can help me. I'm having a problem with your Instagram page and would like to speak with the person who is in charge of that." Be careful how you word this, the wrong wording will cause this method to backfire.
  • I mentioned calling between 7-9am and after 5pm in my previous post. Oftentimes the business owner is there first and leaves last. Calling either early or late may give you an opportunity where the only person there to answer the phone is the owner.
The biggest takeaway is be persistent. Unless you get a flat out 'no' or 'stop calling me,' keep trying the same businesses every few days or weeks depending on how the call goes. I've had people finally take my call after months of calling simply because I was "the crazy insurance guy who keeps calling," and they want to see what could be so important as to warrant the dedication.

You have to remember that you're just a stranger calling them. They don't know who you are. Touching the business multiple times slowly familiarizes them with you. This is the same reason why you might want to run a FB ad campaign to raise brand awareness before you start targeting people with direct response offers.
 
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Ziad

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Some cold calling tips for dealing with gatekeepers:
  • Always try to get a name at least, whether it's from their website, LinkedIn, or by asking for it. This will help when you call/call back. Asking for the person you need to speak with by first name will sometimes get you put straight through. "Hey this is Mike, did Joe make it in yet?"
  • Persistence is key. For whatever reason, occasionally gatekeepers will let you by after calling for the nth time. I'm not sure if it's because they're sick of you, or if they feel that you must really need to talk to the owner. Sometimes it just works. You may even get friendly with the gatekeeper after a while, and at one point they have mercy on you.
  • Ask for help. People naturally want to help one another. "Hi I'm hoping you can help me. I'm having a problem with your Instagram page and would like to speak with the person who is in charge of that." Be careful how you word this, the wrong wording will cause this method to backfire.
  • I mentioned calling between 7-9am and after 5pm in my previous post. Oftentimes the business owner is there first and leaves last. Calling either early or late may give you an opportunity where the only person there to answer the phone is the owner.
The biggest takeaway is be persistent. Unless you get a flat out 'no' or 'stop calling me,' keep trying the same businesses every few days or weeks depending on how the call goes. I've had people finally take my call after months of calling simply because I was "the crazy insurance guy who keeps calling," and they want to see what could be so important as to warrant the dedication.

You have to remember that you're just a stranger calling them. They don't know who you are. Touching the business multiple times slowly familiarizes them with you. This is the same reason why you might want to run a FB ad campaign to raise brand awareness before you start targeting people with direct response offers.

Thanks a lot for all these tips!
 

Mircea Toma

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There is a great book on connecting with people and finding clients I found great value with. It is called "Never eat alone" by Keith Ferrazzi.

It has a chapter out of how to get through gatekeepers with success. I really recommend you look through it.
 

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