30 clients in 30 days or money back

[mdivljina]

Okay so let's update this bitch.

After very clean 20 no's in a row, I decided to change my offer. Up to now I was cold calling and offering a free demonstration of how I can help towing services in the US get more cash calls online.

I've decided to offer them a free preview of how their website could look. It's something I'm going to try out next week (gonna do 150 calls).

Right now I'm vetting the lead list I bought. Lots of broken links to the website and non-relevant leads.

Will update soon.

 

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[mdivljina]

So I've called 30 tow trucking businesses today and it was a hot F*cking mess.

I need some feedback. Whatever you say, just say something. Give me something. I feel like I want to pull my hair out.

So I call them and in 50% cases I get a dispatcher on. He/she can't make a decision so asks me to leave a message. F*ck that. I know the owner won't be convinced, even if they actually do pass the message along. (Oh yea, and F*ck the company that sold me the calling list. What am I supposed to do with dispatcher numbers? I could've done that myself by Googling them...)

I naively thought that I'd get owners on the phone (because all the people I called in Croatia were owners).

So even when I get the owners on the phone they cut me down or whatever's the usual response to cold callers. I don't even feel the rejection at this point. It's just frustrating to put in an hour and a half into cold calling and to get zero, zilch, nada, nothing out of it. Straight no's.

Out of 30 people, there were 2 who said I don't have the time and said call me later... which I will do later today.

I set out to make 50 calls today, but with this rate I just F*cking said, F*ck it. Before you say something like : "You shouldn't have quit, etc.", the answer is yes. I should have. I didn't get a single F*cking objection. I don't need to call 300 people or 3000 for that matter if I just get shut down and no's all the time. Without a single objection from any of 30 people I called. Something needs to change. Be that my method of outreach, my script or my offer. But 30 calls without a single objection means something's not going well here.

Cold calling is a F*cking tedious job. It's like banging my head onto the wall again, again and again and expecting the wall will break before my head does.

I even changed my script from last week. I started off with hello, I found you through Google (it's a F*cking lie, but it's at least believable) and then I say: "I do website design, do you have a minute?" Most of them say no right here and I just F*ck off. I rarely got into my pitch of offering a free preview of a website that includes no involvement on their side whatsoever (they don't need to pay for it and I don't waste their time).

For those of you who were not tuned in, last week I was offering a free demonstration of how they could get more cash calls online.

Any comments, feedback, anything from you guys?

What do you think? Should I skip to another niche? I really don't care about the tow trucking niche. The reason I chose it was the prices on AdWords for the towing industry were not competitive at all. I could've easily given them value (more cash calls) and taken their hard-earned dollars in exchange. But if the owners are constantly on the road, I cannot catch them to even get a chance to talk to them, what's the point?

Do you think I should move onto another niche where I can add the same value (website design and AdWords)?
What is a man to do?

Give me something...

 

[fred303]

"I do website design, do you have a minute? " this is your problem.
You win or lose the attention of your potential customer in the first seconds if you don't manage to link the results of your solution with the goals of the customer. What you're telling him is about YOU, all he cares about is HIM.

If his problem is really "not enough customers" talk about his problem, he needs to see that you understand his business and problems. The website is just the tool you will use to fix this problem . If you go to a car mechanic and want your car to be fixed, the last thing you care about is which screwdriver he will use.

But do you know the goals of the customer you're calling?
I know it sounds silly but I called many small companies who didn't want more customers, they just had enough work or not enough employees and the last thing they wanted was more customers.
Have you done any campaigns for towing businesses? Why did they buy from you? What was their real problem? Ask why your offer is interesting to them, listen really good to what they tell you and what words they use to describe it, use these words later in your conversations.

Another approach is to go into an easy conversation and to ask him for his opinion or help.
This is how I would do it, some might not agree, I don't care this has worked well for me in the past and I do this for a living.

I'm not a native English speaker so the wording can probably be improved.

You:
Hi this is MD , i saw that you are running your towing business in XYZ (his city)
I'd love to hear your opinion on the towing business in XYZ- city ,
or I wonder if you can help me out with something related to the towing business in XYZ-city,
would you have a minute to chat or am I disturbing you with something?
(i like to ask if I'm disturbing because it takes the pressure out of it and gives them a feeling of control)

Him:
Best case: Yeah sure, what is this about?
Or less good but still OK: Why?

You:
I worked with a company in ABC city
(not in his towing area but a city he knows and that is similar to his city)

and they told me that in the last years the business became tougher because of
[ a problem you know of in industry] do you see the same happening over here?

problem examples:
fewer customers because
-so much competition entering the market, piece of cake is getting smaller (
- less cars on the roads
- the new law making it easier to open a towing business


His reply either depends if you hit or don't hit a pain point.
Yes, we get much lesser calls than 3 years ago.
Yes, cops are not as strict as they used to be.
Yes, we had to let go of 3 people because of business decrease.

You:
Yes, it's the same as in XY, the company I worked with told me.
(If you want you can put the finger deeper in this wound, magnify the problem, to increases the chance of him to act on the problem.)
If you have some more time I'm happy to share with you how I managed to help increase new customer rate by x%. (ask again for the no, give him control)

and then you pitch your solution - not your tools.
You can also explain him why his business decreased, how people nowadays look for towing services, etc. but don't go technical.


In case you didn't hit a paint point and he says something like:
No, this is not an issue for me, I have more work then I can handle.
I don't care anymore, want to close business soon anyway

He disqualified himself and you should move on. If you want you can still ask him if he would you like to stay in touch anyway in case he needs more customers one day and ask for his email, when to call again etc. depending on what exactly he is telling you.


Anyway, this is getting too long, I'd try to get into a good conversation with the companies and check if they have a problem you can fix. Of course, this approach works better if you know of a specific problem in a certain industry.

 

[fred303]

one more remark, where are you based? why are you calling in Croatia and US?
I think cold calling is much easier in my first language

 

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[Matt Hunt]

I wouldn't ask a yes or no question. That's probably why you're not getting anywhere. You give them an easy opportunity to say no.

Cold calling is tough, and you're gonna get a lot of no's. Check out Andy's thread, as well as Lex's thread he just posted on some alternative methods for prospecting. Perhaps you could combine the cold call with something else, like a video you email to them (remember to lead with value), and let them know ahead of time that you'll be calling them. That way they'll already know who you are and how you can help them.

I think cold calling is tough because people tend to do business with people they know, like & trust. And they don't know you, like you or trust you when you call them unexpectedly!

 

[Walter.LV]

So I've called 30 tow trucking businesses today and it was a hot F*cking mess.

I need some feedback. Whatever you say, just say something. Give me something. I feel like I want to pull my hair out.

So I call them and in 50% cases I get a dispatcher on. He/she can't make a decision so asks me to leave a message. F*ck that. I know the owner won't be convinced, even if they actually do pass the message along. (Oh yea, and F*ck the company that sold me the calling list. What am I supposed to do with dispatcher numbers? I could've done that myself by Googling them...)

I naively thought that I'd get owners on the phone (because all the people I called in Croatia were owners).

So even when I get the owners on the phone they cut me down or whatever's the usual response to cold callers. I don't even feel the rejection at this point. It's just frustrating to put in an hour and a half into cold calling and to get zero, zilch, nada, nothing out of it. Straight no's.

Out of 30 people, there were 2 who said I don't have the time and said call me later... which I will do later today.

I set out to make 50 calls today, but with this rate I just F*cking said, F*ck it. Before you say something like : "You shouldn't have quit, etc.", the answer is yes. I should have. I didn't get a single F*cking objection. I don't need to call 300 people or 3000 for that matter if I just get shut down and no's all the time. Without a single objection from any of 30 people I called. Something needs to change. Be that my method of outreach, my script or my offer. But 30 calls without a single objection means something's not going well here.

Cold calling is a F*cking tedious job. It's like banging my head onto the wall again, again and again and expecting the wall will break before my head does.

I even changed my script from last week. I started off with hello, I found you through Google (it's a F*cking lie, but it's at least believable) and then I say: "I do website design, do you have a minute?" Most of them say no right here and I just F*ck off. I rarely got into my pitch of offering a free preview of a website that includes no involvement on their side whatsoever (they don't need to pay for it and I don't waste their time).

For those of you who were not tuned in, last week I was offering a free demonstration of how they could get more cash calls online.

Any comments, feedback, anything from you guys?

What do you think? Should I skip to another niche? I really don't care about the tow trucking niche. The reason I chose it was the prices on AdWords for the towing industry were not competitive at all. I could've easily given them value (more cash calls) and taken their hard-earned dollars in exchange. But if the owners are constantly on the road, I cannot catch them to even get a chance to talk to them, what's the point?

Do you think I should move onto another niche where I can add the same value (website design and AdWords)?
What is a man to do?

Give me something...

Hey bro, cold outreach is a tough business. I did like 2k cold emails this past winter (in the U.S. market.) I did most of it manually, scraping the info one by one. I did manage to get a few meetings but I decided to stop doing it.

Here's the thing - when you're cold calling a business, most of the times you reach the gatekeeper. To get to the decision maker, you have to befriend the gatekeeper first. Then, even if you're lucky (or skilled) enough to get to the decision maker, it's not an impulse buy. It's something they have to carefully decide upon weighing all the pros/cons.

Now what are the chances of you calling a business, and they:
1. Know, like and trust you
2. Are in the market for your service
3. And are ready to BUY NOW?

Well, they're pretty slim. Another thing, when I was visiting my relatives in the U.S. they got like 5-10 cold calls a day. That's to their home, not a business. Now imagine how many other marketers cold call a business in a given day. That's why it's hard to get past the 3 sentence "no thank you."

What I'm transitioning into right now is content. Create the best content in your niche. Educate the business owners on how they can run their own ads on Google. Give them all the ins and outs. Show them every little detail you know (how to buy ads, what keywords to bid on, how to write compelling headlines, how to spy on their competitors, I mean every little tactic you've uncovered.) I know this sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out...

This will create goodwill and brand recognition for you. This will build the know, like and trust factor. And then once the business owners are actively searching for "how to run google ads for a towing company", they see all the content you've created, who are they gonna do business with? The cold caller, trying to hustle a 'free presentation' or you?

Make sure all of the content you create has a subtle pitch at the very end. Something along the lines of "Hey if you enjoyed this video/article/podcast and you'd like me and my team to run your ads, make sure to click this link and let's schedule a time to talk."

Now they're in your funnel. Now they're reaching out to you. And the best part is that you're building your brand.

Just my 2 cents. Hope this helps.

 

[Solais]

So I'm starting my digital agency (will file for LLC when I get 10 clients on a regular basis). I specialize mainly in Google AdWords since I know how to do it, but as luck may have it, it also fulfills some needs for my clients.

I've been working on my USP and would like you people to comment on it.

The USP is:

30 clients in 30 days or money back.

It sounds good and, when I commented it with my friend she described it as shining and sparking haha.

My main problem is I don't actually get my clients (local business owners) sales with adwords but rather leads. If they don't track the calls (leads) properly they're not going to recognize my value. I'm also working in Croatia which gets you at about 500 clicks per month (in Zagreb, Croatia's biggest city) for a certain niche and I'm not really confident they can convert that much.

TLDR: The USP is in bold, I'm not sure if I can deliver.

Whaddyall think?

I'll be your guinea pig.

Hit me with a PM and I'll reply.

 

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[mdivljina]

"I do website design, do you have a minute? " this is your problem.
You win or lose the attention of your potential customer in the first seconds if you don't manage to link the results of your solution with the goals of the customer. What you're telling him is about YOU, all he cares about is HIM.

If his problem is really "not enough customers" talk about his problem, he needs to see that you understand his business and problems. The website is just the tool you will use to fix this problem . If you go to a car mechanic and want your car to be fixed, the last thing you care about is which screwdriver he will use.

But do you know the goals of the customer you're calling?
I know it sounds silly but I called many small companies who didn't want more customers, they just had enough work or not enough employees and the last thing they wanted was more customers.
Have you done any campaigns for towing businesses? Why did they buy from you? What was their real problem? Ask why your offer is interesting to them, listen really good to what they tell you and what words they use to describe it, use these words later in your conversations.

Another approach is to go into an easy conversation and to ask him for his opinion or help.
This is how I would do it, some might not agree, I don't care this has worked well for me in the past and I do this for a living.

I'm not a native English speaker so the wording can probably be improved.

You:
Hi this is MD , i saw that you are running your towing business in XYZ (his city)
I'd love to hear your opinion on the towing business in XYZ- city ,
or I wonder if you can help me out with something related to the towing business in XYZ-city,
would you have a minute to chat or am I disturbing you with something?
(i like to ask if I'm disturbing because it takes the pressure out of it and gives them a feeling of control)

Him:
Best case: Yeah sure, what is this about?
Or less good but still OK: Why?

You:
I worked with a company in ABC city
(not in his towing area but a city he knows and that is similar to his city)

and they told me that in the last years the business became tougher because of
[ a problem you know of in industry] do you see the same happening over here?

problem examples:
fewer customers because
-so much competition entering the market, piece of cake is getting smaller (
- less cars on the roads
- the new law making it easier to open a towing business


His reply either depends if you hit or don't hit a pain point.
Yes, we get much lesser calls than 3 years ago.
Yes, cops are not as strict as they used to be.
Yes, we had to let go of 3 people because of business decrease.

You:
Yes, it's the same as in XY, the company I worked with told me.
(If you want you can put the finger deeper in this wound, magnify the problem, to increases the chance of him to act on the problem.)
If you have some more time I'm happy to share with you how I managed to help increase new customer rate by x%. (ask again for the no, give him control)

and then you pitch your solution - not your tools.
You can also explain him why his business decreased, how people nowadays look for towing services, etc. but don't go technical.


In case you didn't hit a paint point and he says something like:
No, this is not an issue for me, I have more work then I can handle.
I don't care anymore, want to close business soon anyway

He disqualified himself and you should move on. If you want you can still ask him if he would you like to stay in touch anyway in case he needs more customers one day and ask for his email, when to call again etc. depending on what exactly he is telling you.


Anyway, this is getting too long, I'd try to get into a good conversation with the companies and check if they have a problem you can fix. Of course, this approach works better if you know of a specific problem in a certain industry.

This, this is gold man. I will save this and I will nurture what you wrote here.

And yes, I do find cold calling much easier in my own language. I've had more success on that front. 30 calls 2 clients Croatia, 50 calls, not even a single indicator of interest US.

Hey bro, cold outreach is a tough business. I did like 2k cold emails this past winter (in the U.S. market.) I did most of it manually, scraping the info one by one. I did manage to get a few meetings but I decided to stop doing it.

Here's the thing - when you're cold calling a business, most of the times you reach the gatekeeper. To get to the decision maker, you have to befriend the gatekeeper first. Then, even if you're lucky (or skilled) enough to get to the decision maker, it's not an impulse buy. It's something they have to carefully decide upon weighing all the pros/cons.

Now what are the chances of you calling a business, and they:
1. Know, like and trust you
2. Are in the market for your service
3. And are ready to BUY NOW?

Well, they're pretty slim. Another thing, when I was visiting my relatives in the U.S. they got like 5-10 cold calls a day. That's to their home, not a business. Now imagine how many other marketers cold call a business in a given day. That's why it's hard to get past the 3 sentence "no thank you."

What I'm transitioning into right now is content. Create the best content in your niche. Educate the business owners on how they can run their own ads on Google. Give them all the ins and outs. Show them every little detail you know (how to buy ads, what keywords to bid on, how to write compelling headlines, how to spy on their competitors, I mean every little tactic you've uncovered.) I know this sounds counterintuitive, but hear me out...

This will create goodwill and brand recognition for you. This will build the know, like and trust factor. And then once the business owners are actively searching for "how to run google ads for a towing company", they see all the content you've created, who are they gonna do business with? The cold caller, trying to hustle a 'free presentation' or you?

Make sure all of the content you create has a subtle pitch at the very end. Something along the lines of "Hey if you enjoyed this video/article/podcast and you'd like me and my team to run your ads, make sure to click this link and let's schedule a time to talk."

Now they're in your funnel. Now they're reaching out to you. And the best part is that you're building your brand.

Just my 2 cents. Hope this helps.

Another big fat yes. I plan to increase my business to 20 clients by 1.9. Right now I've got three, but when my college test mania ends, I'm all into cold calling in Croatia. There's a math I can work on down here. In the US obviously not.

When I get some capital (cca. 5000$), I'm going to create my own website, a lead magnet and pick a niche and target the owners through Google Display Network. Basically I'm going to build some content, but put it on steroids so I don't have to wait three F*cking years for someone to notice my blog.

Also I'm going to try and create relationships with magazine editors of influential magazines in the niche by basically offering them content on how to profitably market a business (for local niche business owners) because as much as I've seen lots of people in those magazines talk about the techniques of how to do the job, but not a lot about the sales part.

 

[Bru]

This is a great approach. You have a lot of knowledge to offer and you are not selling anything. You are putting the customer's interests first. Great job.



This approach puts you in the sales mode, even if it is free. Free is such a bait term, which creates suspicion, and it doesn't sound professional. If you really want to say free - say - "a totally free trial period to introduce you to our system." After the trial, if we don't deliver great results to you, there is no sense in going on - wouldn't you agree? Ask questions and WAIT for an answer - make this interactive. You want to be in the authority mode where you have something valuable that he should want to know about. If you approached it as offering some valuable information, I think almost everyone would be very receptive.

Make it valuable. Say, but I'm so sure this is going to work so well for you that you will want to use our systems to grow your business (state the benefit!) every month (show confidence - don't beg and don't use bait words - you will get respect that way). For example - Hello Mr. Smuck - I am calling today because I help businesses like yours find customers and grow. Now because I don't know how your business operates, (you're backing off here - so their defenses will go down) I would like to send you a link to a detailed case study of a local business we (not just you alone) have been working with for a few months now (this is not overnight success get rich plan) that will show you exactly (power word) how we have grown their business every month, even starting with the very first month (make it sound doable). Now THAT is interesting and exciting! All I need is your email and I will send you a direct link to our private (we don't give this valuable information out to just anybody) webpage that has the step by step method that we use fully explained. I think you will find this can be of great help to you and your business as well, but if not, I don't want to waste yours or my time if, for example, you are busy and don't have the time or resources to take on more customers (I have talked to businesses that have told me they are so busy they are turning down work - and I knew these people, so I know they weren't lying). Is there anyone else that I should send this to in your company that should know about this, besides yourself? Ask questions - be interested - don't sound like you are reading from a script. Establish yourself as an authority and you will get respect.

Now you will get clowns that think everyone that is selling something is evil. If they say "we're not interested" - be blunt - say something like, "really? Why would you not be interested in just looking at how we can help your business grow?" Push buttons. Every business sells something - a service or a product. So every business has one common goal - they need customers. I don't mind "getting face to face" with someone if they are shutting me down. If they are going to shut the door on me, I figure I have nothing to lose anyway. And you WILL lose some of them. God made idiots - you can't talk sense to idiots. So don't let it bother you. Let them stay in the stone age that they live in - and go to their competitors and say something like - I just talked to XYZ and they weren't even interested in talking to me. How would YOU guys like to see my marketing system? I'd love for you to use this to gain an advantage over XYZ, because, frankly, I don't like talking to close-minded people, so this may be a great day for you. I can send you a link to a web page that has all the details right now. Look at it at YOUR convenience.... and on and on.

The trick here is to COMMUNICATE with people. Everyone wants to hear from an expert - everyone wants to know the inside track of some trick that will help them. Be that person for them. Forget about selling them anything. Your job is to INTRODUCE them to your system - and the system will sell itself. You can even tell them that. Say, I'm not here to sell you something in 5 or 10 minutes. All I want you to do is to LOOK at what we HAVE already achieved and see if it would be something that you can use for your business. It's not for everyone, but for the ones that we do work with, it's giving them GREAT results. See? No selling. No pressure. No bait words. One on one coaching is the style you should be using.

Absolute gold, thanks @Real Deal Denver

@mdivljina
I agree with @Walter.LV about content
I agree also that cold calling is absolutely tedious, however it s a great school to learn resilience and conversational marketing.

From my side I ve written some case studies, I call my prospect and the script looks like that: just one huge advice, SMILE on the phone, this might sound weird but somehow if you are in a positive mindset and are fully present it helps.

hi there, I m Mick, I don t want to waste your time not mine. My team and I helped a company similar to yours and we developed a case studies describing the process. What do you think If I send it to you for free via email?

This is the way I do to put my feet in the door, the. I start to ask question about the person, the business, the challenges, I barely talk about me or my service.

I just close with asking the mail and for the case studie or say we can even do a Quick meeting to review the process together.

If yes, I analyze the website and define strategies I can help with. I expose them during the meeting and try to close a sell.

Providing advices and content is great.
People likes free stuff that are supposed to help them but they also understand they need help cause they don t have the ressources. Bring value and value will follow.