From Fired to Cold Calling

[AlexLegault]

I figured it was time to give a little update for you guys that have been following me from my last thread (link below)

RANT - This Is How Fast Your Boss Can Drop You

So long story short, I met with a business owner of a digital marketing/web design start up. We met for an interview and it was awesome. He hired me and I basically do web design/traffic generation consulting.

To do that though I need to get meetings by cold calling/emailing small business owners and to tell them about how their website could be improved in order to make more sales.

It's been an awesome learning experience so far, but also really tough.

I cold call roughly 30 people a day (start 5 days ago) and got 4 meetings so far.

This is the script I've been using and it's been decent. I basically got it from someone else and adjusted it a little bit.

"Hello, can I speak to ____ please?

Hi ____, my name is Alex I’m calling from Clickwave.

The reason I’m calling is because I want to set an appointment with you.

I was just on your website and I noticed few things we can help you improve if you’re looking to get more clients or make more sales.

Do you have time to jump on a quick call next week?"

That's pretty much it.

This gig is commission only so I'll have to start closing people if I want to pay the bills. I have some money left over but if I start running too low I'll have to get a part time job.

Anyone else have experience with cold calling?

 

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[Solrac]

By far the best book I've read on making cold calls is Cold Calling Techniques by Stephan Schiffman.

If you're getting appointments it might be a good idea to A/B test some scripts just to see if you can get a slightly better conversion rate. In fact you should always be trying new things, but give it a good sample size (at least 100 dials or maybe a week in your case).

I'd recommend bringing up pain points if you're a small shop. One thing is saying "Hi I'm XYZ with Salesforce." Another thing is saying "I can help you make more sales" whilst having little to no credibility (yet). Assuming here, but nonetheless a good thing to think about. I know you kinda bring this up, but I would try and get a bit more granular on every call, personalize it more if you can.

Also, specify the date & time that you would want to have the appointment. You're helping them not have to think about giving you an answer. "Well I mean I'm pretty busy all of next week..." vs "I am pretty busy next week but I do in fact have an opening at the 2PM slot on Wednesday next week that you suggested." Obviously the latter might not be a real conversation, it's pretty robotic, but hopefully you get my point.

See if you can record some of these calls & listen to them to find what you could have done better. Matter of fact, do this for every call, even the ones that work.

And if I were you & I wanted a sales job, I'd lean more towards the salary + commission side of things. But whatever works for you. I know plenty of commission only salespeople that make a killing.

Hope this helps.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Congratulations Alex on finding a new gig right away. Even if it's pure commission only, it's not micromanaged by a meanie. And it's in a field that's interesting and useful to you. This sounds so much happier for you.

I last did cold calls for a company many, many years ago. I've thought it might be important for me to get back to that now, so I just got a book on it... Schiffman's! The very one recommended by Solrac while I went to go look up the guy's name! I totally agree with the praise for this book and for everything in Solrac's post!

I'm also going through some of Ari Galper's free sample stuff, which I like a lot. He suggests adding in your introduction line, "We haven't talked before." That puts people at ease that they haven't forgotten about someone they already met. He is the master of using "That's not a problem" as the answer to just about any potential problem. I think Schiffman's material alone is gold, and if you combine it with Galper's you're at platinum.

Usually I prefer to learn by reading, but for the call stuff, audio examples are so valuable.

Where do you get the list that you're calling? Do you actually have something to say about the web site for each of them, before you call them?

What are you doing with the cold emails?

What's your plan to handle the appointments, once you get them?

Can you reveal the commission structure you get?