Cold calling....

[thecoach]

Not sure if this is the right spot for this, but I am wondering what peoples thoughts are on cold calling...is it fastlane or slowlane?

I've been lurking around on Frank Rumbauskas's website and a few other similar ones lately and I'm very curious if any of these programs are really worth it to buy into? Has anyone tried any of these 'quit cold calling' techniques? Anyone know of any good resources to learn more about self-marketing type things so you don't have to cold call?

Personally, I hate cold calling. This is purely a will thing and not a skill thing. I have worked jobs that were cold call type jobs and I've been very successful at them, but I just hate doing it. To me it's an act of desperation it. It says to people "My business is so slow that instead of meeting with people, I'm randomly calling people to see if someone bites and I have nothing better to do wit my time to call 30 people, just to get one appointment." Cold calling is the one thing that I've always said I would never do in my business. And by cold calling I mean, anyone that has not expressed interest in your work prior to you calling, so using things like fish bowling in places to collect business cards is still cold calling to me....collecting random business cards is no better than flipping open a page in the phone book.

Have any of you had success without cold calling? How did you do it? I've also been tossing around the idea of just hiring someone to do my cold calling (and all my phoning for that matter) so I can focus on strictly meeting with clients, but I'm wondering if it's even worthwhile to pay someone to talk to answering machines and people that aren't even in the market for what I offer. I want to move my business to the next level and build my business at a more rapid pace, but I'm not sure which route to take.

Follow up question: If cold calling is effective for you, how have you made it effective? I've recently read a book that is against objection handling (why badger someone into saying yes for 20 minutes, only to have them no show for the appointment anyways is the message it had. If they say no, move on and call them back in few months when you get through the phone book, if you don't piss them off, they likely won't remember you even called in 8-10 months)

 

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[Jorge]

I haven't practiced cold calling before. But a few months ago I read "33 secrets for successful phone sales" by Jeff and Mark Slutsky, it was really interesting although a bit outdated...I got a few ideas out of it.

 

[kimberland]

I've done cold calling before
(telemarketing which is more like freeze on contact calling).

It can be useful
for seed customers/clients
depending on the product
(high end products, not so much).

I was cold calling for a charity
so the purpose was
to not only get donations
but to spread the word about the charity.

But aren't you selling a professional service/product?
If that is the case,
I would lean more into tapping into professional organizations,
perhaps as a guest speaker.
Gets your name not only in front of attendees
but in front of the mailing list.

After building a core clientel,
I would prefer to focus on existing customers
and asking them for referrals
(the key is to ask).
I believe that is Frank's system,
growing the referral and resale base.

 

[thecoach]

Thanks for the reply. It is financial services (insurance/investments) that I'm selling, so I suppose it would be more for high end product. I've just started organizing some seminars for the general public and for workplaces, but just haven't implemented it yet. I'm also working on a regular spot on an 'ask the experts' type column in our local newspaper as well. I've just switched companies and am 'inheriting' a block of roughly 5,000 clients to work with so I think I'll focus mainly on cross-selling them.