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10,000 comfortably NOs cold call challenge

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cikatomo

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Why?:
I wanted to start my own drywall company, but realized I need to learn how to sell.​
Knowing almost nothing I have googled "how to sell" which led me here and somebody posted Benjamin Dennehy video:
I loved it, it made sense to me and now I want to learn how to do cold calls. Selling is something that always wanted to know, but I was afraid to act. After 20 years, (I am not 20 years old), this needs to change. There is simply NO OTHER WAY.
This kind of threads, seeing people starting from zero and progressing over time provides tremendous value for other people. Especially for me since I'm also scared to death cold calling. So I want to provide readers the same.​

Why 10,000 NOs?
I felt that @Vilox thread ended too soon, at least for me, it seems he just started to warm up and then it abruptly ended. From experience I've learned it takes about 2-3 years to learn some trade above amateur level. I figure 10,000 NOs will take that long. It's enough long time to develop strategies for repeatable success. Methods will probably change in that period and I will most certainly employ other methods beside cold calling.​

Why NOs?
Few reasons.​
  • Dial itself is too easy. Means nothing to me.
  • Want to get comfortably numb to getting NOs. Unless I don't care it's a NO how can I be relaxed to going for YES?
  • Want to make prospects feel they can be comfortably saying NO. If they are not comfortable saying NO, why would they be comfortable saying YES? Making prospects comfortable with me is top priority

Ok I don't know what else to say at the moment. I'll post findings after 100 NOs.
 
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That's a lot of cold calls. More power to you man. Here's an even better way to learn rejection. Ask the most beautiful girl out on the street and see how you feel afterward. You might be scared to do it, but it's good practice.

They'd probably say No to me and I'd be okay with that. I'm a Nerd, not a good looking dude. True story, I don't get approached by many anyway. So I know I'd be okay.

Total overkill, but you'd definitely learn how to get over rejection fast. You'd eventually come to realization that your still alive. Just walk away and say "Well I'm glad I tried!"
 
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Do you think there's potentially an easier way to start a successful drywall company...?

Yes there is, but I was hoping I can push my designer to create design business. For the drywall I have to do everything myself.
 
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Just a quick update since it's been a while and things don't go as fast as I hoped, but there is some minor progress. I am spending 12 hours a day on work and commute and then home preparing for a baby so not much time for calling.

I will try to use the commute time to do the calls so I'm developing mini CRM only for calls, with data imported from yellow pages, I can easily use on phone while driving, with minimum touching. The ones I've tried were not suitable for mobile. CRM so far looks like this: cold_call_crm_screenshot.webp


First round of calls I will use to weed out dead from alive businesses.
 
What's your goal? Getting comfortable with rejection, or making sales and growing your drywall business?

What if there's a way to get a Yes this week rather than spending 3 years getting 10,000 No's?
 
Why?:
I wanted to start my own drywall company, but realized I need to learn how to sell.​
Knowing almost nothing I have googled "how to sell" which led me here and somebody posted Benjamin Dennehy video:
I loved it, it made sense to me and now I want to learn how to do cold calls. Selling is something that always wanted to know, but I was afraid to act. After 20 years, (I am not 20 years old), this needs to change. There is simply NO OTHER WAY.
This kind of threads, seeing people starting from zero and progressing over time provides tremendous value for other people. Especially for me since I'm also scared to death cold calling. So I want to provide readers the same.​

Why 10,000 NOs?
I felt that @Vilox thread ended too soon, at least for me, it seems he just started to warm up and then it abruptly ended. From experience I've learned it takes about 2-3 years to learn some trade above amateur level. I figure 10,000 NOs will take that long. It's enough long time to develop strategies for repeatable success. Methods will probably change in that period and I will most certainly employ other methods beside cold calling.​

Why NOs?
Few reasons.​
  • Dial itself is too easy. Means nothing to me.
  • Want to get comfortably numb to getting NOs. Unless I don't care it's a NO how can I be relaxed to going for YES?
  • Want to make prospects feel they can be comfortably saying NO. If they are not comfortable saying NO, why would they be comfortable saying YES? Making prospects comfortable with me is top priority

Ok I don't know what else to say at the moment. I'll post findings after 100 NOs.
How many you got so far?
 
You shouldn't get 10,000 NOs you should get a YES. I had recieved 3 Nos in the past week and honestly each time it felt soulcrushing, each time I pinpointed the mistakes I made, if only I did x and y... now my opportunity is gone.
Going in with the mentality of: I just want to pick up a few easy Nos today and call it a day will give you just that... a NO. Do your absolute best to get a YES, get smacked in the face and have it in you to learn from that - you made the mistake, you miscalculated what the other person wanted, you missed an opportunity to focus on the other person's cues of intrest, you were underprepared, your product is shit, you got overly emotional and started thinking about your POV instead of their POV, your timing was wrong....
Honestly, I'm starting to like this selling game, I just hate that you have to find the right opportunity, right time and you have to execute near to perfection... which is in a way fun but in a way really not when you fail.

Or find a market with low competition.

The only thing that stopped me from quitting is the fact that I had created these opportunities for myself. It wasn't 'luck'... so as long as I'm alive and the market is alive I'm getting my sales.
 

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