Cold calling Vs Face to Face?

[lunga ngcobo]

Hi all.

I'm currently in a process of executing my website. The website is web service.

The hardest part of launching this website is getting clients to list their businesses on my website. Business owners are tired of anonymous calls and will sometimes drop the phone while i try to tell them about my website. I know this is the biggest challenge to starting an advertising websites.

I need to know if it is a good idea to approach business owners face to face? is that idea a silly idea coz it will take a lot of travelling and lots of money spent?

Guys please give more idea as to how i should go about getting businesses to sign up for my website??

 

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[Atu]

Phone contact versus face to face is the wrong question. Instead you should ask yourself the following:

1. What kind of value are you giving to those businessman?
2. Are you sure they absolutely need your service?
3. Is there any other place they can get same kind of service?
4. How do you communicate the value you are giving to those businessman?
5. Your website is concentrating on the needs of your customers, or on your needs?

And best wishes

 

[lunga ngcobo]

Phone contact versus face to face is the wrong question. Instead you should ask yourself the following:

1. What kind of value are you giving to those businessman?
2. Are you sure they absolutely need your service?
3. Is there any other place they can get same kind of service?
4. How do you communicate the value you are giving to those businessman?
5. Your website is concentrating on the needs of your customers, or on your needs?

And best wishes

yes my web service is of need and value. i find difficult explaining how my website works when i am over the phone. there is a lot to explain and i think approaching these businesses face to face would give me a good chance of clearly explaining my service. is it a silly idea to take a tour around the country to get businesses to sign up or is there and easier way i could do it??

 

[SteveO]

It seems that you should arrange a few to see what the success rate is. It sounds like you believe in your service but it is difficult to convey that message to others. You are doing the right thing by focusing on the sales approach. Perhaps more time on figuring out how to simplify and deliver the message might help.

 

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[Monica Rose]

Hi!
This is something that I have a lot of experience with in my business. My husband and I are the owner/operators and we have no employees or salespersons yet, so we've had to do all the selling ourselves, especially for the first couple of years, until we grew enough to get referral business and improved our website to the point where people would find us and call or email.

We sell textiles (towels and linens) mostly to hotels, and it is an interesting business as it's highly competitive, but also mostly run by a few larger players, who often underserve the customers because they become complacent on things like customer service, lead time on delivering orders, etc. This leaves room for us to come in, address the pain points for our (hopeful) customers, and win them over.

I'd ask you to clarify what are the pain points for your potential customers, when you are developing your pitch. This will help you know which questions to ask. Don't forget, people love to talk about themselves and their challenges, so ask questions, listen!!! Write down their answers. Then, when you're doing your pitch, you can directly address how you (and your product/service) can help them.

Both the husband and I are more comfortable meeting a prospect in person vs over the phone, so we will usually try to use an initial cold call to arrange a meeting whenever possible. We've been quite successful with this, because we both are genuine people who enjoy what we do, and care about our customers. This generally comes across well when we get the chance to meet a customer, and understand their needs and their operation. Basically we are doing relationship based sales, where we learn about the customer and help them find solutions to whatever issues they are having. There are times of course when we don't have the right product for them, but sometimes it's ok not to make a sale right away. If you make a good impression on someone there can be long term benefits that you don't see until later. I've had meetings that went well, but we weren't able to start working together right away for X,Y,Z reason, and 1-2 years later they call with a large and highly profitable project they want to work with you on because they remember you favourably. Also this approach is appropriate for our business model where a single customer with a large annual linen budget (50,000 - 100,000) can net us an average of $1,000+/monthly if we win their business. For smaller customers, the return wouldn't be worth it as travel is expensive.

I got a little off-topic there but my point was that yes, it can be really worthwhile to meet in person, but there are drawbacks as well. For the first few years of being in business, we did a TON of sales travel, and used it as an excuse to go to places that we wanted to visit anyway. We did have some big successes from it, but the downside is that it is a very expensive way to get in front of prospects with no guaranteed results. Also sometimes it would take months to even a year to earn their business (it's just the nature of our industry) but the upfront money we invested in travel was already gone. Meaning it sometimes took a while to see a return on investment. As a bootstrapped entrepreneur, this matters.

What we try to do now, and what I would recommend for you, is to use travel to get in front of people that you have already established a positive dialogue with over the phone. This way you are not spending needlessly, and will have a better chance of converting a prospect into a customer when you meet. It is much harder to warm someone up over the phone, but it's good practice and a hell of a lot more cost efficient. It will force you to better understand your customers and their needs, as well as your product and how it can help them, which will only help you overall as a salesperson for your company.

Here are a few resources you might enjoy, if you'd like to learn more about relationship based selling, which is what I personally recommend. See this link for an explanation The Ultimate Guide to Relationship Selling

1) There's a great book called the Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Browne. You can get the Ebook on Amazon Kindle app. It's a gem, and well worth the $7 or so it costs. This book explains how it is an individual's nature to work towards their own self-interest. So, to make a deal, both parties are trading something of theirs (time, money) for something they value more. Trying to get someone to work against their own self interest is a failed strategy, so to sell more, you have to help people get more of what they want and need.

2) This book by Sidney C. Walker, was extremely helpful and enjoyable, and I'd recommend the audiobook version Amazon.com: How I Conquered Call Reluctance, Fear of Self-Promotion, & Increased My Prospecting! eBook: Sidney C. Walker: Kindle Store One of my favorite takeaways from the book was his idea that when prospecting whether in person or over the phone, you are looking for gold, not trying to turn rocks into gold. If someone doesn't like you or your product, that's ok, because there are people out there who will. You don't have to convert every prospect, but the more you put yourself out there the more you will uncover people who your product or service is perfect for.

I hope some of this is helpful for you, and look forward to hearing about your progress

 

[TheCj]

yes my web service is of need and value. i find difficult explaining how my website works when i am over the phone. there is a lot to explain and i think approaching these businesses face to face would give me a good chance of clearly explaining my service. is it a silly idea to take a tour around the country to get businesses to sign up or is there and easier way i could do it??

I'd say you need to work on making it easy and very brief to explain your business. Specifically explaining how what you do helps the person you are talking too. Then later if they want to know more specifics of how you do that you can go more in depth.

• Approach the client. ...
• Discover client needs. ...
• Provide a solution. ...
• Close the sale. ...
• Complete the sale and follow up.

 

[lunga ngcobo]

It seems that you should arrange a few to see what the success rate is. It sounds like you believe in your service but it is difficult to convey that message to others. You are doing the right thing by focusing on the sales approach. Perhaps more time on figuring out how to simplify and deliver the message might help.

Thank you SteveO, you have given a vote of confidence. i will post an update on my progress soon. If i succeed, just know you played a part in it.

 

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[lunga ngcobo]

Hi!
This is something that I have a lot of experience with in my business. My husband and I are the owner/operators and we have no employees or salespersons yet, so we've had to do all the selling ourselves, especially for the first couple of years, until we grew enough to get referral business and improved our website to the point where people would find us and call or email.

We sell textiles (towels and linens) mostly to hotels, and it is an interesting business as it's highly competitive, but also mostly run by a few larger players, who often underserve the customers because they become complacent on things like customer service, lead time on delivering orders, etc. This leaves room for us to come in, address the pain points for our (hopeful) customers, and win them over.

I'd ask you to clarify what are the pain points for your potential customers, when you are developing your pitch. This will help you know which questions to ask. Don't forget, people love to talk about themselves and their challenges, so ask questions, listen!!! Write down their answers. Then, when you're doing your pitch, you can directly address how you (and your product/service) can help them.

Both the husband and I are more comfortable meeting a prospect in person vs over the phone, so we will usually try to use an initial cold call to arrange a meeting whenever possible. We've been quite successful with this, because we both are genuine people who enjoy what we do, and care about our customers. This generally comes across well when we get the chance to meet a customer, and understand their needs and their operation. Basically we are doing relationship based sales, where we learn about the customer and help them find solutions to whatever issues they are having. There are times of course when we don't have the right product for them, but sometimes it's ok not to make a sale right away. If you make a good impression on someone there can be long term benefits that you don't see until later. I've had meetings that went well, but we weren't able to start working together right away for X,Y,Z reason, and 1-2 years later they call with a large and highly profitable project they want to work with you on because they remember you favourably. Also this approach is appropriate for our business model where a single customer with a large annual linen budget (50,000 - 100,000) can net us an average of $1,000+/monthly if we win their business. For smaller customers, the return wouldn't be worth it as travel is expensive.

I got a little off-topic there but my point was that yes, it can be really worthwhile to meet in person, but there are drawbacks as well. For the first few years of being in business, we did a TON of sales travel, and used it as an excuse to go to places that we wanted to visit anyway. We did have some big successes from it, but the downside is that it is a very expensive way to get in front of prospects with no guaranteed results. Also sometimes it would take months to even a year to earn their business (it's just the nature of our industry) but the upfront money we invested in travel was already gone. Meaning it sometimes took a while to see a return on investment. As a bootstrapped entrepreneur, this matters.

What we try to do now, and what I would recommend for you, is to use travel to get in front of people that you have already established a positive dialogue with over the phone. This way you are not spending needlessly, and will have a better chance of converting a prospect into a customer when you meet. It is much harder to warm someone up over the phone, but it's good practice and a hell of a lot more cost efficient. It will force you to better understand your customers and their needs, as well as your product and how it can help them, which will only help you overall as a salesperson for your company.

Here are a few resources you might enjoy, if you'd like to learn more about relationship based selling, which is what I personally recommend. See this link for an explanation The Ultimate Guide to Relationship Selling

1) There's a great book called the Secret of Selling Anything by Harry Browne. You can get the Ebook on Amazon Kindle app. It's a gem, and well worth the $7 or so it costs. This book explains how it is an individual's nature to work towards their own self-interest. So, to make a deal, both parties are trading something of theirs (time, money) for something they value more. Trying to get someone to work against their own self interest is a failed strategy, so to sell more, you have to help people get more of what they want and need.

2) This book by Sidney C. Walker, was extremely helpful and enjoyable, and I'd recommend the audiobook version Amazon.com: How I Conquered Call Reluctance, Fear of Self-Promotion, & Increased My Prospecting! eBook: Sidney C. Walker: Kindle Store One of my favorite takeaways from the book was his idea that when prospecting whether in person or over the phone, you are looking for gold, not trying to turn rocks into gold. If someone doesn't like you or your product, that's ok, because there are people out there who will. You don't have to convert every prospect, but the more you put yourself out there the more you will uncover people who your product or service is perfect for.

I hope some of this is helpful for you, and look forward to hearing about your progress

Thank you Monica for taking the time to reply with such positive feedback. And thank you for the books you have referred. Actually i thought meeting potential clients face to face was a silly idea until you wrote this!! But now i feel more confident than ever.


I will sure update you on my progress and will post a thread every time i make a new move or need help. Thank you once again

 

[lunga ngcobo]

I'd say you need to work on making it easy and very brief to explain your business. Specifically explaining how what you do helps the person you are talking too. Then later if they want to know more specifics of how you do that you can go more in depth.

• Approach the client. ...
• Discover client needs. ...
• Provide a solution. ...
• Close the sale. ...
• Complete the sale and follow up.

Thank you for the feedback, i will apply every step of it CJ..