Have you guys used cold calling?

[bcm]

What do you think of Cold Calling businesses out of the phone book, asking if they have a web site, and when they do not let them know about your latest deal?

Any success? Any horror stories?

Where do you guys find most of your work? Free Lance sites? Direct Mailing? Word of mouth?

Thanks.

[buntine]

From my experience, most of your work will come from Word of Mouth advertising (the cheapest and most effective). Steer clear of cold-calling, its an evasion and usually results in a low success rate.

Advertising in a local newspaper or business directory should pay off.

Regards.

[Intensity]

Cold calling has it advantages if you have right kind of blood for it. With carefully selected leads you should be able to get one of the best conversion rates compared to other "paid" advertisement methods.

I was recommended to buy "Stephan Schiffman's: Telesales (2nd edition book) which I just ordered. Amazon ratings :)

I want to sooner or later get into the habit to call 8 good leads per day which should only take approx 30 mins out of my day.

It generates sales and gets you up and about. It makes you a better sales person in person when you meet up. It is all about finding out what works and without having to use bodylanguage and eye contact and the such it is easy to concentrate on the logic of sales when you are on the phone.

my 2 cents. :P

[bcm]

Yea I mean to me it seems like it would be a pretty decent low (almost no) cost advertising method.

I am thinking low cost web sites would be much easier to sell over the phone, I am going to mostly be pitching a $250 "Quick Site Solution"..However each of these sites I am also attaching a monthly hosting fee, thus it really seems like over the months (and hopefully years) if I can even find 2 of these a week, each attaching a hosting account it can really generate some decent revenue.

Where abouts do you find these "Good Leads" you speak of? I am just thinking about picking up the phone book and starting with industries in which companies would be most benefical of having a web site.

Thanks a lot.

[Intensity]

Superpages is a way to go. Which should be better than the yellow pages since it lets you view the website. Redesign would also generate revenue.

PS: Don't be pitching the price. Give the cs a price range depending on the project size. Otherwise you are going to find yourself trying to look over a pile of paperwork.

Then you would have wished that you had a fire place to burn all the work away.

[icedigits]

How about going to the actual business physical location? I am talking about little businesses. I don't think it is a good idea to drop by a business like IBM and say "hey, you want a site?!"

[Intensity]

Time consuming.

Walking out there is like trying to find business without leads.

First of all. Takes toooo long. Being there done that. The place might already have a website or Owner is not there and much more. Maybe good if you are visiting the area anyways and dropping by a couple of stores, that would be fine.

Call, inquiry, then set up an appointment.

[icedigits]

You are right. It takes time and usually the ownwer is not there.
However, I live downtown and it is all business there and it takes me 5min to reach them :)
For example I walked into this store for indian furniture, clothing and so on. I took their business card and there was no URL on it. I asked if they have a web site and the lady said "NO, but would you like to make us one?". Isn't that nice :)?
I was lucky. However, my only worry is that it might seem rude to just walk into someone's store and offer to make them a web site. Is that rude?
Also how would you aproach someone if you see that they have a bad web site? Would you do it by email or a phone call? What would you say. Here in Toronto we have something like the yellow pages that are printed and distributed as hard copies. However, these yellow pages are for businesses with web site. Something like yahoo on paper. Whoever had sign in for this book must value their online presence. Logically if they have a bad web site and they can see that they would be willing to get a better one. So I am thinking of getting all businesses with bad from this book and contacting them. What do you think?
Thanks

[Intensity]

I am moving to Toronto !!!!

I would recommend communicating with the customer in person or over the phone. Email is too passive and could easily land in the Junk Mail box. They way I would approach a horrible website creation is:

1. Determine if the customer is actually pleased with it. (He might think that he/she is sitting on a Gold mine)

2. Ask if the website has a good conversion rate? How much business is it generating.

3. Offer a more pleasant website and additional benenfits that you think the customer might find of interest.


If you want you check out my Freelance guide. It is still a mess and in the process of organizing the material some more and adding a bunch.
Freelancer tips (http://freelancer.intensedeveopment.net/)

[icedigits]

Hehehe,too cold here! Computers are freezing :)
Thansk for the advice.
I once talk to a guy who was doing marketing for hosting. He told me that there are forums that you pay monthly subscription and in there you have projects that are being sold to developers.
I never fallowed on this but it could be possible. Have you ever seen anything like this?
Thanks

[Intensity]

LoL. Instead of having cooling fans you probably have a heating pad.

Have fun bidding at those websites. It is somewhat of a circus with everone bidding so low, but it is good to make some good cash and to build up your portfolio.

GeoLance (http://www.geolance.com/)
Design outpost (http://www.designoutpost.com/forums/)
Elance (http://www.elance.com/c/rfp/main/rfpmkt.pl?catId=10184&type=seller&)
Lanceus (http://www.lanceus.com/)
Developreneurs (http://www.developreneurs.com/)
Freelance.com (http://www.freelance.com/__C125675B0014F649.nsf)

[icedigits]

Hey, thanks,
These sites look interesting.

[winged1]

Cold calling is a must, and the yellow pages can prequalify as you pretty well know who does not have a website. Another source is local tradeshows, especially if you have interest in the industry. Yet another approach is to select a retail sector, say for example hobby shops, create several templates that may interest them and take a week and hit all the hobby shops in town. What makes this really work is that everyone of the owners is interested in each other and you basically become part of 'the loop'.

[OculisMedia]

Cold calling does work, but it's all a numbers game. The more people you call, the more sales you'll get. When I started my business, I used cold calling as a cost effective way to build my customer base.

The bottom line is that if you can talk to someone on the phone and let them know what you are doing, you are eventually going to sell a project. How many projects you sell depends on how good you are at talking to people, and you only get good at talking to people, by calling.

When I started cold calling, I called 80-160 cold leads a day. After about 6-8 months, this finally turned into about 2-4 sales a week on average. I won't kid you, this is a ton of work, and it's very tiring, but when you do get a sale, it's a great feeling.

Presently I no longer use cold calling, I was able to build up a large customer base, and have more work than I've ever thought I would have. All my sales are generated though word of mouth, and some minor advertising that I do here and there.

Micah Johnson
OculisMedia.com (http://www.oculismedia.com)

[damoleeds]

Lots of valid points in this thread, but having worked for a few small non IT businesses, cold calling (for websites or toilet roll) is a nuisance, and generally ignored, same for emails.

Generally the only cold calls that got treated were the ones that rang up, detailed their services, didn't try selling their product at that time and politely asked if they could email/post you a brochure and if they called about your existing website, they offered to give it an appraisal saying where you felt they could improve it.

However, one company did that, we got the appraisal and then just updated the website ourselves as we knew it needed doing anyway LOL!

Good luck anyway.

Damo.

[Intensity]

Here is a good article:

Maybe it's time to take a different approach. Maybe we need to seriously analyze our sales thinking so we can identify why we're not making more sales. Take a look at the table below and think about your current selling mindset. How would your selling behaviors change if you changed your sales thinking?

- Traditional Sales Mindset: Always deliver a strong sales pitch.
- New Sales Mindset: Stop the sales pitch -- and start a conversation.

- Traditional Sales Mindset: Your central objective is always to close the sale.
- New Sales Mindset: Your central goal is always to discover whether you and your potential client are a good fit.

- Traditional Sales Mindset: When you lose a sale, it's usually at the end of the sales process.
- New Sales Mindset: When you lose a sale, it's usually right at the beginning of the sales process.

- Traditional Sales Mindset: Rejection is a normal part of selling.
- New Sales Mindset: Sales pressure is the only cause of rejection. Rejection should never happen.

- Traditional Sales Mindset: Keep chasing every potential client until you get a yes or a no.
- New Sales Mindset: Never chase a potential client -- you'll only trigger more sales pressure.

- Traditional Sales Mindset: When a prospect offers objections, challenge and/or counter them.
- New Sales Mindset: When a potential client offers objections, uncover the truth behind them.

- Traditional Sales Mindset: If a potential client challenges the value of your product or service, you must defend yourself and explain the value.
- New Sales Mindset: Never defend yourself or what you have to offer -- it only creates more sales pressure.

Let's take a closer look at these central concepts so you can begin to open up your current sales thinking and become more effective in your selling activities:

Stop the sales pitch -- and start a conversation.


You can find the whole article here:
http://marketing.about.com/od/salestraining/a/stopselling.htm