Cold Calling - Am I doing this wrong?

[Malcolm1653]

Hey Jon,

There has been some good feedback here.

I am in the financial services business and call businesses for 45 minutes a day and during that time I am able to make somewhere between 25 and 30 calls. That nets me one meeting with a business owner. On a good day I get two meetings booked during that same time. If I do get hold of the contact I want, I'll spend about 10 to 15 minutes with them at most over the phone.

I use Sales Genie as my list source and then I use PhoneBurner which automates my calls. I feed my list into the system and it auto dials for me. I can then sort each call by the outcome. I can send automated emails and I can direct the system to leave a voicemail while it starts to dial the next number. It costs me about USD $165 per month.

I have created a call script that gets me the conversation and the appointments I want. I usually speak with 10 to 15 people per call session and then out of that I usually speak with 2 to 4 business owners (the people I really want to speak with). The rest of the calls are gatekeepers, voicemail, someone taking a message, no answer and bad numbers, etc.

So out of 2 to 4 business contacts I am able to get the 1 to 2 meetings. (Now at least)

For the first few months I was testing out a number of scripts. Some were better than others but mostly they sucked. Then I read the book by Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator. The book is Never Split the Difference. He helped me understand how to captive someone in a conversation and to use an approach that made the person on the other end of the phone or negotiation feel like they had control (felt safe) when speaking with me while I directed them toward the outcome I want. Once I deployed his approach I started having the success of a 25% to 50% meeting booking ratio.

I have trained sales people on solution selling for years and managed a ERP distribution channel where I was brought in to close sales for our distributors but I could never figure out cold calling until now.

I'd be happy to have a zoom meeting with you where I can show you my systems and process.

I have also started a referral system or process. In a matter of two meetings, using this process I received 24 hand written referrals. (This system is new for me but the company I bought from knows that out of every 8 to 12 referrals I can close 4 to 8 contracts.)

If you have a problem make it a system.

As far as the whole self confidence in calling people. I have some great thoughts on that . I dealt with the less than adequate in the past but they don't even come up for me anymore.

If you want to review my systems and process I'd be happy to connect. Just PM me. Cheers!

 

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[458]

How to characterize myself... I've been plagued by self doubt most of my life. In the past, I really didn't know how to interact with people much at all. Now, I have a pretty decent handle on that. On the sales side, if a prospect has a budget and a project, I can close them 9 times out of 10. Cold calling to find/develop projects is something I would like to get good at.

My current strategy is to partner with IT service companies. These companies will run across custom software projects on occasion (a few times a year). Typically, they don't have anyone to refer people to, and so that client need just goes unfulfilled. I've gotten a few projects this way in the 6 months I've been pursuing this.

If I called 20 companies a day like you said, I'd likely have 40k/month in revenue.

Maybe I'm an idiot and should just do that?

But I also feel like I'm wasting a lot of time when I call. The list I'm using kinda sucks: only about 15 percent of it are companies I actually want to talk to. The rest wouldn't know their clients well enough (either because they only do break/fix, or because their clients are only residential, etc). So, I spend a lot of time looking at websites, marking people off the list, etc. In 2 hours the last time I did this, I made 5 calls and sent 3 emails.

I also wonder if this strategy is the best use of my time. Should I try going direct to potential clients? And, if I do, I wonder if what I'm planning to say is the best strategy.

Here is the thing that you need to realize. No one cares about your success or your business processes and how you decide to structure your time as much as you do. You are not paying me for advise, therefore I have zero incentives to lie to you or keep you sending me fee money.

You can hire 1,000 coaching and consultants, none of them have done what i have done in the amount of time i have done it with zero background or experience doing it.

Here is the bottom line, take it how you want:

You are 200% responsible for building through trial error/blood sweat & tears all lead generation processes(buying lists is bullshit, ive never bought a list in my life), scripts, email templates, follow up processes, and manual material of YOUR sales cycle that can be later systematized and automated through fronters and closers on a dialer driven system. NO ONE and i don't care how much you believe otherwise, is EVER going to produce these things for you to the degree that you can produce them yourself. The difference between success and failure is truly decided right here. There are no shortcuts, you won't find one no matter how long you search on here or otherwise. Just get to work.

In this life you are either closing or being closed, the cold call game is harsh and brutal and the industry is a sharks den. Lead brokers will take every penny you have on all lies. No one cares about you making money, only you do..

Its blood sweat and tears on that first go around, but what you learn is so valuable you can flip into into the next venture and make billions. It's that or pay everyone else to "coach you" and "figure it out for you". Your last hire in that sequence is a bankruptcy attorney.

Good luck!

 

[458]

@458 is a cold calling genius tour de force. Maybe he could chime in?

I'm just insane, like a mad scientist.. but definitely not a genius

 

[458]

which is why you say 'do this yourself.' The average coach wouldn't even think about that unless they'd done exactly what you'd done previously.

99 percent of people that write books or coach never did what they're claiming they did.

Only reason any of us is here is because MJ did what he said he did first and then wrote a book. He doesn't coach or consult that I am aware of and I've been around here for a long long time.

 

[458]

It doesn't sound like you're that bad at it, to be honest.

Cold calling is a wicked numbers game. I think in @458 's thread, he was saying his guys hammer the phone with 200 dials a day.

Maybe if you outsourced the opening cold calls and just closed the hot leads after a handoff it'd change the game?

3,000 - 5,000 dials per day, 200 connected calls per person

 

[458]

I own a small company with a team overseas that builds custom software for businesses. I've made enough to pay for the expenses of a family of four, in an expensive city, but not much more. The reason I haven't made more is that my sales skills have been lacking. That's changed, though, and I've gotten a lot better at it. At this point, if a prospect has a project and the budget, I can easily talk them into using me. I do that by listening and giving the client what they want (a development company that cares, understands their business, will help them build what they truly need instead of what they think they need, and will support them long-term).

Recently, I've cold called IT service companies, talking with them about a 'potential partnership' where I provide software programming services to their clients. Out of 200 calls over the last 6 months, I've netted about $25k. That's not a bad return on 200 calls, but I need to ramp things up dramatically. (I had several other large projects that are now concluding that were supporting me). Out of those 200 calls, I had probably 20-40 conversations and about 5 companies that have said that they want to direct clients my way. Out of the five, 2 have already given me clients, and will continue to do so. The others, I'm nurturing.

By the way, even though I have clients that rave about me, I haven't gotten too much referral business. I talked to a recent client a month ago, for example. He said, 'by the way, I mentioned your name to a friend of mine.' Now that I think about it, I probably should have asked for that friend's name and phone number. Overall, though, my best source of leads has been service firms that know the business needs of large numbers of clients. I do get former clients that have me do a fair amount of additional work for them.

So: a few questions:
1) Calling IT companies that support the computers and networks of other businesses is an easy sell. When I do find someone that's open to working with me, we have a great conversation. We'll often end up talking for an hour or more. Is this the best use of my time, or should I try calling companies that might need my services directly?

2) The list I'm using, from Dunn & Bradstreet, no less, is frustrating to use. I'd guess that only 15% of the companies on it are my target market (IT companies that support small to midsized businesses, and are themselves decent size (10+ employees, min). The rest are companies that fix iphones, repair laptops, or generally have a very small mindset and probably don't gross more than $50k per year. These types of companies would never have a conversation with a client about their custom software needs. I find that I spend a lot of time sifting through this mess. In 2 hours yesterday, I sent 3 emails and called 5 companies. Is this normal?

3) How do I know if I'm using my cold calling time effectively? I've read books that say that I should be making 10-20 dials per hour, and not spending much time researching prior to making the call.

Thanks!

Goals?
Budget?
New lead ceiling per day? IE. There is 10,000 new leads available in the market place per day.

Depending on your answers I can give you some good direction and course of action.

 

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[Louisv]

Hey @Jon L - I think I have a pretty good tip for you, which is a strategy I've developed a few months ago.

One tactic that massively boosts cold-call conversion rate, is to find relevant companies and first advertise to them on LinkedIn (you can pick names of companies to advertise to their employees) before you cold-call them.

Run a few awareness ads with your main value-proposition, but nothing too complex - all you want is for them to associate a name to a face. Focus on showing your name and your face on the ads because this will increase your conversion rate (people trust other people and not voices on the phone).

After a few days, try calling them, and just introduce yourself - they will be much more receptive because the cold-call will not be so cold.

They will be much warmer to you because they've seen and read about you on LinkedIn in a non-intruse way (such as sales cold-call).

You can pull this hack for about 10-20$ a month, to reach anywhere from 50-100 companies.

The results are phenomenal and since you're B2B, this strategy is perfect for you.

Let me know if you need any help!

 

[Jon L]

I own a small company with a team overseas that builds custom software for businesses. I've made enough to pay for the expenses of a family of four, in an expensive city, but not much more. The reason I haven't made more is that my sales skills have been lacking. That's changed, though, and I've gotten a lot better at it. At this point, if a prospect has a project and the budget, I can easily talk them into using me. I do that by listening and giving the client what they want (a development company that cares, understands their business, will help them build what they truly need instead of what they think they need, and will support them long-term).

Recently, I've cold called IT service companies, talking with them about a 'potential partnership' where I provide software programming services to their clients. Out of 200 calls over the last 6 months, I've netted about $25k. That's not a bad return on 200 calls, but I need to ramp things up dramatically. (I had several other large projects that are now concluding that were supporting me). Out of those 200 calls, I had probably 20-40 conversations and about 5 companies that have said that they want to direct clients my way. Out of the five, 2 have already given me clients, and will continue to do so. The others, I'm nurturing.

By the way, even though I have clients that rave about me, I haven't gotten too much referral business. I talked to a recent client a month ago, for example. He said, 'by the way, I mentioned your name to a friend of mine.' Now that I think about it, I probably should have asked for that friend's name and phone number. Overall, though, my best source of leads has been service firms that know the business needs of large numbers of clients. I do get former clients that have me do a fair amount of additional work for them.

So: a few questions:
1) Calling IT companies that support the computers and networks of other businesses is an easy sell. When I do find someone that's open to working with me, we have a great conversation. We'll often end up talking for an hour or more. Is this the best use of my time, or should I try calling companies that might need my services directly?

2) The list I'm using, from Dunn & Bradstreet, no less, is frustrating to use. I'd guess that only 15% of the companies on it are my target market (IT companies that support small to midsized businesses, and are themselves decent size (10+ employees, min). The rest are companies that fix iphones, repair laptops, or generally have a very small mindset and probably don't gross more than $50k per year. These types of companies would never have a conversation with a client about their custom software needs. I find that I spend a lot of time sifting through this mess. In 2 hours yesterday, I sent 3 emails and called 5 companies. Is this normal?

3) How do I know if I'm using my cold calling time effectively? I've read books that say that I should be making 10-20 dials per hour, and not spending much time researching prior to making the call.

Thanks!

 

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[Tiago]

Check out Connect and Sell. Their services might get you connected much faster.

Also I’m working with a coach who owns a 7 figure business, has built it through cold calling and is teaching me cold calling and sales. If you want I can connect you with her, she might be able to help.

 

[Rabby]

So: a few questions:
1) Calling IT companies that support the computers and networks of other businesses is an easy sell. When I do find someone that's open to working with me, we have a great conversation. We'll often end up talking for an hour or more. Is this the best use of my time, or should I try calling companies that might need my services directly?

2) The list I'm using, from Dunn & Bradstreet, no less, is frustrating to use. I'd guess that only 15% of the companies on it are my target market (IT companies that support small to midsized businesses, and are themselves decent size (10+ employees, min). The rest are companies that fix iphones, repair laptops, or generally have a very small mindset and probably don't gross more than $50k per year. These types of companies would never have a conversation with a client about their custom software needs. I find that I spend a lot of time sifting through this mess. In 2 hours yesterday, I sent 3 emails and called 5 companies. Is this normal?

3) How do I know if I'm using my cold calling time effectively? I've read books that say that I should be making 10-20 dials per hour, and not spending much time researching prior to making the call.

1) Calling referral sources is the right thing to do, if they actually send business. If you're going to spend time selling, sell to someone who can send you multiple clients over time. You'll also have an easier time of it... calling an IT service guy gives him a way to help his clients. He's naturally aligned with the idea, and not "defensive" because you're collaborating on how to sell to his clients, rather than selling to him directly.

One thing I might change, is build something into your pricing so that you can pay the IT service guys a commission based on the size of the sale. This will motivate them to send more people. Keep in mind, a lot of them are probably MSPs and VARs who are actually selling on commission.

2) Try Sales Genie. You might find you can sort the list a lot better, and get more of who you need. Also, I wouldn't spend hours sorting through the list. If it takes 2 hours to sort the list, you could just call all the numbers in that time. Don't research too much. Another thing you can try is just use Google Maps search... it's free and you can call all the businesses of a type in a zip code. I think Sales Genie is worthwhile to try though.

3) Research is an easy way to waste time. You can call an iPhone repair shop and talk to them for 10 seconds, or you can spend time figuring out whether they're just an iPhone repair shop by reading their web page. The second option seems like it could take a lot longer. If you want to sort them, don't do it yourself. Hire someone for $10/hr and teach them to sort the list for you. YOU wasting YOUR time is a travesty to the business. It can't be allowed! If the skill you're working on is calling, spend time calling.

All that said, it's probably worth adapting your cold call script to an email and sending those out too. It's nice to get incoming emails and calls from interested people right?

 

[458]

wow. This is cool. Do you find that the county websites are more up to date? I'm looking at SalesGenie right now, and a good portion of the list I just created are dead ... their websites don't work (I have no interest in talking to a computer support company with a website that doesn't work)

Every county and document type has a different cycle times but on average they post online twice per day. Some are free and some are paid. Most allow download by PDF, some are Tiff images only.

Going this route gives me a lead time of two weeks on average over everyone that's still in my space, pretty sure I put almost everyone under. If I call you today, you won't hear from any of my competition for a week or two.

 

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[Jon L]

99 percent of people that write books or coach never did what they're claiming they did.

Only reason any of us is here is because MJ did what he said he did first and then wrote a book. He doesn't coach or consult that I am aware of and I've been around here for a long long time.

So ... I was going through SalesGenie some more and got more and more annoyed by the quality of the leads. Half the websites of companies I clicked on didn't work, most of the rest were not companies I wanted to talk to. I don't like the idea of paying $1500 for a service I'm going to be annoyed with for the next year.

Then, thinking about what @458 said, I realized that ALL users of a particular software product would be exactly the kind of companies I want to talk to. This software is pricey, and you wouldn't sign up for it unless you were an established Managed IT Services provider. A quick google search turned up 55 companies I can call. I'm sure that another google search or two would turn up quite a few more. There are 100,000 users of this particular package.

 

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[Primeperiwinkle]

@458 is a cold calling genius tour de force. Maybe he could chime in?

 

[Jon L]

I can’t help you with cold calling advice as I don’t do any. Is @458 our resident cold calling guy?

I like chatting to people for an hour, and chat equally to potential end clients, and to people who have a lot of clients I could help.

I prefer to spend my quality phone/Zoom/Skype time building good relationships rather than cold calling.

I’ve found that when I chat to someone for an hour then, even if they don’t turn into a client (which most don’t), they will often refer me on for years to come.



There’s some good recorded webinars that I listened to in Facebook groups of people building Facebook agencies. Some of their strategies for cold emailing and calling were very good.

From memory, one guy outsources to work-from-home mums/dads to cold call businesses marching certain criteria purely to setup an appointment with him.

Could you do the same so you only get on the phone to people who have been somewhat screened already?

I actually really want to get good at cold calling. Crazy as that sounds. I recently cold-emailed the author of a cold calling book. The guy got back to me and complimented me on my email. We exchanged a few emails and he invited me to keep in touch with him. ... needless to say, that got me pretty fired up about the whole thing.

 

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[Dan_Cardone]

I have a thread in the INSIDERS forum about cold calling you may like.

 

[Jon L]

It doesn't sound like you're that bad at it, to be honest.

Cold calling is a wicked numbers game. I think in @458 's thread, he was saying his guys hammer the phone with 200 dials a day.

Maybe if you outsourced the opening cold calls and just closed the hot leads after a handoff it'd change the game?

Thanks...I'm good at the actual calls now, but I need to figure out how to be more efficient, I think. ... What I'm really wanting to know from people is what I can improve on, and how I would compare to someone that's really good at it.

Sales is one of those things that is so important to a business that I want to be good at it myself before I outsource it. I've gone the outsourcing path before, and that hasn't gone as well as I'd hoped.

 

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[458]

Responding to this is a bit awkward for me. I get what you're saying, but the way that you say it leaves me with emotions that are not properly discussed over a public chat forum.

The more that I think about it, what I'm looking for is a coach that can walk me through the detail of what I'm trying to do ... a large part of that is how to deal with the emotional side of sales.

See, now we're getting somewhere..

Can you define exactly what you mean by emotional side? Gate keepers grilling you? Getting slammed by guys named Bob?

I'll be honest though, I am a natural born closer, I'll be the first to admit that. If you find the pain of getting slammed increases proportionally with the increase in dials then cold calling may not be for you..

Do 5,000 calls and then report back what it felt like to get slammed on 5,001. That will tell you whether this is for you or not.

 

[Jon L]

You answered zero of my questions.. what are your goals, what is your budget, what is the lead potential per day. If you don't know, now you know where to start.

Goal is to sell 4 systems like what I mentioned above per month
budget: $500/month
Not sure what lead potential per day means. Out of 100 cold calls & emails, I sold $25k worth of projects.

 

[458]

Goal is to sell 4 systems like what I mentioned above per month
budget: $500/month
Not sure what lead potential per day means. Out of 100 cold calls & emails, I sold $25k worth of projects.

Ok then make 400 cold calls, 20 calls per day. Magic!

 

[Primeperiwinkle]

I just need you ppl to know that I was PARTICULARLY kind to a cold caller today and even outlined why their strategy was inherently flawed.

The guy was not amused.

 

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[Jon L]

Awesome strategy. Fishing with nets. Every single yes you get from a cold call leads lots of yes's in perpetuity. It's like almost a perfect system.

Do they get a kickbackor are they just happy to point their clients in the right direction?

I give them 5% of revenue from the client for the first year the client is with me. I have one IT firm that doesn't want any money. The rest are fine appreciate it.

 

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[broswoodwork]

I give them 5% of revenue from the client for the first year the client is with me. I have one IT firm that doesn't want any money. The rest are fine appreciate it.

Pretty impressive. You're literally selling them money they didn't have to work for.

Swing back through on the no's from time to time to let them know how much money they missed out on since your last call. You'll probably have all 200 converted in a few years time.

 

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[ZCP]

call 200 companies a day for 10 days ...... then you will know. 2 weeks to change your life.

 

[458]

I needed to hear this like 20 years ago. Not sure I could have done anything with it back then, but you're right.

One question though ... you don't use lead brokers. Do you subscribe to a data service like InfoUSA or DNB?

Hundreds. Public records are at the county level and there are thousands of counties all with their own systems. I go direct on everything, and have cut out the middle man at every level of the lead production process.

 

[Andy Black]

As one of the TropicalMBA podcasts said: our market is an “established cashflow”. What do people already spend money on that indicates they’d hire you?

 

[Andy Black]

1) Calling IT companies that support the computers and networks of other businesses is an easy sell. When I do find someone that's open to working with me, we have a great conversation. We'll often end up talking for an hour or more. Is this the best use of my time, or should I try calling companies that might need my services directly?

I can’t help you with cold calling advice as I don’t do any. Is @458 our resident cold calling guy?

I like chatting to people for an hour, and chat equally to potential end clients, and to people who have a lot of clients I could help.

I prefer to spend my quality phone/Zoom/Skype time building good relationships rather than cold calling.

I’ve found that when I chat to someone for an hour then, even if they don’t turn into a client (which most don’t), they will often refer me on for years to come.



There’s some good recorded webinars that I listened to in Facebook groups of people building Facebook agencies. Some of their strategies for cold emailing and calling were very good.

From memory, one guy outsources to work-from-home mums/dads to cold call businesses marching certain criteria purely to setup an appointment with him.

Could you do the same so you only get on the phone to people who have been somewhat screened already?

 

[broswoodwork]

I actually really want to get good at cold calling.

It doesn't sound like you're that bad at it, to be honest.

Cold calling is a wicked numbers game. I think in @458 's thread, he was saying his guys hammer the phone with 200 dials a day.

Maybe if you outsourced the opening cold calls and just closed the hot leads after a handoff it'd change the game?

 

[broswoodwork]

Thanks...I'm good at the actual calls now, but I need to figure out how to be more efficient, I think. ... What I'm really wanting to know from people is what I can improve on, and how I would compare to someone that's really good at it.

Sales is one of those things that is so important to a business that I want to be good at it myself before I outsource it. I've gone the outsourcing path before, and that hasn't gone as well as I'd hoped.

Back in my recruiting days, our leads were always warm in the sense that contractors had their resumes up on the job boards, clients had advertisements saying they were hiring, we fished tips out of the contractors about where they had interviewed recently, or we rused the tips out of other shops with fake resumes. I'm not sure how applicable any of that can be to selling software... Unless there's some way to tell ahead of time with companies are shopping around for a solution.

You could go with the bird dog route and slip one of your competitor's employees a $100 for letting you know when they're putting in a proposal somewhere. That way you know the client is actively buying before you call.

I'm rambling now. Sorry.

 

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[Jon L]

Goals?
Budget?
New lead ceiling per day? IE. There is 10,000 new leads available in the market place per day.

Depending on your answers I can give you some good direction and course of action.

My target for now is selling software systems in the 10-25k range. Those are easy/quick sells in the world of custom software. The typical company that needs that kind of work are:

1. small mattress store chain that doesn't want to spend $50K for a point of sale (cash register) system.
2. network cabling company that had an old system on an old server that was failing. System was built on old technology. Required a rebuild using new software tools so that it would work on new servers
3. System for a real estate investors that would allow them to speed up their processing of houses
4. System for an oil and gas contractor that allowed them to provide reports to clients detailing exactly what they were doing for them, without requiring project managers to spend a day a week producing the report.

As you can see, this is a wide variety of cases, industries, etc. What they all share is:

1. They were small and then grew. When small, the processes they used worked. When they grew, those same processes became onerous
2. Off the shelf software was either too expensive, or didn't exist for what the client needed. For the oil and gas contractor, they did business a certain way, a way that worked very well for them. Off the shelf software would have required that they change key business practices.
3. They are process oriented, doing the same thing over and over and over.

 

[458]

My target for now is selling software systems in the 10-25k range. Those are easy/quick sells in the world of custom software. The typical company that needs that kind of work are:

1. small mattress store chain that doesn't want to spend $50K for a point of sale (cash register) system.
2. network cabling company that had an old system on an old server that was failing. System was built on old technology. Required a rebuild using new software tools so that it would work on new servers
3. System for a real estate investors that would allow them to speed up their processing of houses
4. System for an oil and gas contractor that allowed them to provide reports to clients detailing exactly what they were doing for them, without requiring project managers to spend a day a week producing the report.

As you can see, this is a wide variety of cases, industries, etc. What they all share is:

1. They were small and then grew. When small, the processes they used worked. When they grew, those same processes became onerous
2. Off the shelf software was either too expensive, or didn't exist for what the client needed. For the oil and gas contractor, they did business a certain way, a way that worked very well for them. Off the shelf software would have required that they change key business practices.
3. They are process oriented, doing the same thing over and over and over.

You answered zero of my questions.. what are your goals, what is your budget, what is the lead potential per day. If you don't know, now you know where to start.

 

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