Cold calling - opinions please?
- Thread starter MGDigital
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Chris Kaday
Gosh really? Must have been wasting my time all these years making money from it then.
Chris Kaday
Business coach and mentor
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I did cold calling in uk.it totally failed bcos you cannot call all the people who are in need of your products/service.
People just get annoyed with cold calling as they think these people are wasting their time.
The best and cheapest way of marketing in uk is distributing /leaflet.
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well i dont knw about others but according to my experience it is very bad and useless.People think that people who make them call are nothing.They talk in a bad way.
other thing how many people you can call in a day 50,100 or 1000.I think even if its 50 its enough.u will get tired.
So its not worthy.
Its my personal experience.
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Chris Kaday
I had 200 callers doing it successfully for several hundred pounds a day for blue chip companies many of whom were spending hundreds of thousands with us - so it works.
Chris Kaday
Business coach and mentor
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Let me make it clear the advice which you are giving is for big business with good funds and I am giving advice about cold calling to new ones.
The company which can pay 200 callers is not a small company.
Give logical reasons do not try to force your advise.
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What are effectively saying is that YOU are bad at it, not the tool itself. It does work for thousands of businesses in this country, not all justlike Mailers don't work for all. But your statement that it useless is without knowledge of the industry and lack of experience I wager.
Michael
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Chris Kaday
I have advised many on here on how to cold call successfully and they are not big businesses. Also my current clients are small companies and some have telephone teams I have established or sometimes the owner calls himself. One client had a record month last month largely due to the cold calling by the telephone team of three. This is as logical as I can get chum and no one is forcing anything on anyone.
Chris Kaday
Business coach and mentor
Chris Kaday
Business coach and mentor
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It might be good for the old and reputed companies but not for new business.For example if you are calling from Asda.people know what asda is.they will talk to you.but for new company its impossible.
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Chris Kaday
What nonesence. If I had a new B2B starting this week the first thing I would do would be to pick up the phone or in some cases go knocking on doors. They will soon hear of me then!
Chris Kaday
Business coach and mentor
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The question is why they hear from you.your business is new.They are already doing business with big companies.Why they listen to you.what special you have which other big companies dont have.They are so big that they have manufacturing industries in china.They can buy products cheaper from suppliers in bulk.
Where do you stand.You go to doors and people will listen.After that they buy from you.
What a nonsense joke.
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I see this a lot in these forums. People generalise based on their own market sector and then make a blanket statement. What you say may well be true for your market but that doesn't necessarly make it a universal truth.
If I'm an engineer who has just invented a revolutionary new rotor technology specifically targeted at improving performance and reducing maintenance on military helicopters then leafleting the homes in my neighbourhood is unlikely to be my best marketing approach, I suspect that cold calling into the MOD and trying to identify the right people to talk to would be a better approach.
The person who started this thread is a web designer. I somehow doubt that distributing leaflets would be a good way for him to find customers either.
It is also not always about how much of your target market you can contact. If there are 1,000 potential customers in your primary market then would you rather contact all of them with a marketing approach that gives you a 0.5% conversion rate or would you prefer to contact 200 of them on a 5% convertion rate? The former yields 5 customers and the later yields 10.
- Julian
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SeanandTheBrush
As a marketing expert I often advise many SME's against the use of cold calling. It can be productive for a high earning one person or small family business. I have clients that have used cold calling to the advantage and done very well from it.
Instead of cold calling alone I would always say look at another 10 ways you could reach your market. For any business there is at least 100 ways to take your product to market. One way I use is giving prospects 2 hours of my time FREE of any charges. I also back what I do with a 3 month plasticine guarantee. That means if they hire me and they don't get the results at any time in the last the months, they get a full refund of my last three months charges.
You could design a homepage and place on a domain extension of your site showing your prospects what you can do for them. I hate a well designed website. I would sooner see a badly designed website that sells. I would not rank amazon or eaby as the worlds best designed websites... they do what they need to.
I will email you directly with one or two ideas I have.
If any one else has a marketing question or needs to turn a business around, why not get in touch with me.
Instead of cold calling alone I would always say look at another 10 ways you could reach your market. For any business there is at least 100 ways to take your product to market. One way I use is giving prospects 2 hours of my time FREE of any charges. I also back what I do with a 3 month plasticine guarantee. That means if they hire me and they don't get the results at any time in the last the months, they get a full refund of my last three months charges.
You could design a homepage and place on a domain extension of your site showing your prospects what you can do for them. I hate a well designed website. I would sooner see a badly designed website that sells. I would not rank amazon or eaby as the worlds best designed websites... they do what they need to.
I will email you directly with one or two ideas I have.
If any one else has a marketing question or needs to turn a business around, why not get in touch with me.
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SeanandTheBrush
As a marketing expert can I just say...
Yes you are right in what you are saying. However, we must remember that cold calling is one arm of a good marketing mix. I know of businesses that swear by cold calling but still do other things as well as cold calling.
Every one experiences life in different ways. That's why a radio ad will work better on some people than the TV ads, press or email. I would always say to any client to think about what they buy and why.
What has been your most recent purchase that was out of the ordinary?
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steve67
this discussion seams to be heating up nicely..i have been involved in telemarketing for over 12 years , and in my experience telemarketing works on all levels. currently i am involved making appointments for small firms of accountants ,I.F.As and design company but in the past i have called for an international firm dealing with audit and risk assesment , websites, software designers and various others. I have always booked leads whatever target market i am calling , but in ,my view people like chris and myself get a bad name due to bad training of our counterparts in the industry , ie ..an 18 year old in a call centre ,stuttering his way through a script with no idea of what he/she is actually supposed to be selling ! The other reason is that some people dont take no for an answer ( i agree this can be good in SOME areas ) but i think that most people who have told you no 10 times and are trying to get you off the phone are trying to tell you something.I am polite, friendly and proffesional whoever i am calling for m so if some of you guys have had a bad experience of cold calling or telemarketing then i am sorry for you, but we are not all to be tarred with same brush. A couple of tips ;
1 . Keep your call short , friendly and to the point..no 2 page scripts are needed !
2 . Know your target mareket, ie, no good calling americans selling salad products..
3 . Do not be put off by rejection , just smile and move on to the next call
4 .If you empoy a telemarketing company , ask their views on how they go about their calling..
Anyway, live long and prosper ..
Steve Larnder
The Appointment Makers ( the original and best ) 0117 9553863
1 . Keep your call short , friendly and to the point..no 2 page scripts are needed !
2 . Know your target mareket, ie, no good calling americans selling salad products..
3 . Do not be put off by rejection , just smile and move on to the next call
4 .If you empoy a telemarketing company , ask their views on how they go about their calling..
Anyway, live long and prosper ..
Steve Larnder
The Appointment Makers ( the original and best ) 0117 9553863
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SeanandTheBrush
Good Call there steve67. There are ways of growing a client base that are far more cost effective than cold calling. Take starting an alliance for example. If you called eight to twelve businesses with a view to helping each other. Each month you get together for dinner or a drink in a bar. You discuss any issues and help each other. The idea od an allaince is to share customer contact information. You don't exchange data, instead you will send your mailing over to an allaince memeber and they will introduce you to there client base.
The power of an introduction means 50% of the work has been done. A small business alliance blows any figure on cold calling out of the window. No money ever changes hands, your client base grows due to the number of positive leads you generate. Add any contact to your permision marketing plan and your turnover will go through the roof. So will your profit too.
If you sit and cold call at best you will do two calls in 5 minutes. Lets say you are working with clean data, you may get 5 to 8 responses per day. I have seen over 100 customers come back through one business allaince programme. If you have 12 business in your allaince and only achive 50 customers from a direct mailing or emailing marketing you would be saving MONEY!
Just think about it. If you need to know more I will forward you a PDF I have created on how it is done.
The power of an introduction means 50% of the work has been done. A small business alliance blows any figure on cold calling out of the window. No money ever changes hands, your client base grows due to the number of positive leads you generate. Add any contact to your permision marketing plan and your turnover will go through the roof. So will your profit too.
If you sit and cold call at best you will do two calls in 5 minutes. Lets say you are working with clean data, you may get 5 to 8 responses per day. I have seen over 100 customers come back through one business allaince programme. If you have 12 business in your allaince and only achive 50 customers from a direct mailing or emailing marketing you would be saving MONEY!
Just think about it. If you need to know more I will forward you a PDF I have created on how it is done.
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and what about when people have signed up to your mailing list with the promise that their data is not sold or shared with anyone else?
I would be pretty annoyed if I was on someone's mailing list (with my permission) who then shared it with someone. So you'd have to state 'adding your details to our mailing list will results in your data being shared with 12 members in my alliance'.
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SeanandTheBrush
As a marketing expert, can I just say...
You could call it cold calling. However, your not doing it on mass. You could even cut out the cold calling altogether and apply your alliance proposal at networking events. I like to do things face to face so I have formed great alliances in the past at networking events.
I find cold calling a dated medium for contacting customers. I would only suggest it if your profit per customer was high. Then you would get a great ROI.
Although I do understand what your saying, contacting businesses to from an alliance over the telephone is still cold calling. Even if it is only a small amount.
Sean and The Brush
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SeanandTheBrush
As a marketing expert can I just say...
I can see your an intelligent person. I would hope you would not share those client details. Please read what I have written, I am talking about permission marketing. If you have requested your that your details not be shared then I would hope your wishes are respected.
I did say permission marketing!
Sean and The Brush
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As an overall Business Expert, (and I'll just say it the once and hope you remember that I am a Business Expert from hereonin
) that you actually said"You don't exchange data, instead you will send your mailing over to an allaince memeber and they will introduce you to there client base."
and then said
"Add any contact to your permision marketing plan and your turnover will go through the roof"
So you weren't quite clear there, but I would say that being a business expert..... did I tell you I wa a business expert by the way?
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steve67
so...it was you that hung up on me !!! Seriously , i still believe that if you have a good telemarketer or team than they can be worth their weight in gold..i have generated hundreds of thousands of pounds of business from cold calling over the years...can you get that from leaflet drops ?
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I don't doubt c-c does work, but it must take incredibly patient, polite, desperate or incredibly stupid people to allow the call to progress past the "Hi, I'm..."
<click>
I suppose it's just one of those things that just doesn't sit right with me, either inbound or outbound.
Kate Beckinsale's nice though.
<click>
I suppose it's just one of those things that just doesn't sit right with me, either inbound or outbound. Kate Beckinsale's nice though.
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steve67
To Be honest , i probably only get between 1 or 2 % of the calls that i make that turn out to be people that hang up or tell me too ...er ...go forth !!! Most people i speak to geberally listen to what i have to say because i get most of my pitch out in about 30 seconds...i try to be polite, professional and occasionly humourous..nothing breaks the ice like a smile but it is not suitable for every client...
but it is not suitable for every client...
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There is no difference between spam and cold-calling. Cold-calling by telephone is the equivalent of sending unsolicited emails.
Am fed up of these low lives ringing me throughout the day distracting me from my work. Often they'll call again even when you tell them you're not interested. Often they'll use devious means to try to flog their services.
These telephone spammers spend all day harrassing people on the phone, and I would never do that no matter how many dollars I could stuff into my pockets as a result.
No doubt there may be the odd bright spark carrying out the telephone spamming, but most of them are doing it because they are not intelligent enough to get better jobs. One can judge that from the standard of English of one or two of the telephone spammers.
Am fed up of these low lives ringing me throughout the day distracting me from my work. Often they'll call again even when you tell them you're not interested. Often they'll use devious means to try to flog their services.
These telephone spammers spend all day harrassing people on the phone, and I would never do that no matter how many dollars I could stuff into my pockets as a result.
No doubt there may be the odd bright spark carrying out the telephone spamming, but most of them are doing it because they are not intelligent enough to get better jobs. One can judge that from the standard of English of one or two of the telephone spammers.
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SeanandTheBrush
I agree. Cold calling is nothing more than a waste of time in the vast number of cases. I would say if you have loads of time and no business coming in then cold calling may be your only option. I would say if you must cold call, and only if you must, keep a good clean database. There is nothing worse than having a company call you 3 times a week and you consistently tell them you ave no interest in what they are offering.
If you must cold call listen to the person your calling. If they say they not interested it mean just that. Keep a database and black list them as DNC (Do Not Call).
As for email marketing I see nothing wrong with a good email campaign. There are laws there to protect email spamming. If the company you get the emails from is using a bulk handling service then you should report them. I only get the emails I want. I report the others as I don't do it my self.
But you have mad a valid point there Azam. I would always say Permission based marketing works the best!
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SeanandTheBrush
To Be honest , i probably only get between 1 or 2 % of the calls that i make that turn out to be people that hang up or tell me too ...er ...go forth !!! Most people i speak to geberally listen to what i have to say because i get most of my pitch out in about 30 seconds...i try to be polite, professional and occasionly humourous..nothing breaks the ice like a smile
It's good to be honest,
Yes but I am not interested in the ones that tell you to frock off... what is your conversion rate.
Let say you sit down on Monday and make x amount of calls.
How many of those calls turn into appointments?
How Many are more information?
Then once you have been on the phone fishing for new customers, how many actually end up spending money with you. It's the customers that spend the pennies and cents that are real customer. I do do potential.
Once we have a clear idea of your figures we will judge how successful cold calling over the phone has been for your business! But to add cold calling on top of your daily activities is unproductive and a waste of any business persons time. Especially when there are dozens of other ways you can bring in business.
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Now that really made me laugh
Especially after the last couple of weeks as I have had all sorts of marketing guru's and sales consultants (those with proper jobs?) advising me and their clients that their mailings with lots of calls to action and delicately crafted emails and letters will work miracles and the telephone call to follow up if even needed at all will just be the icing on the cake. Ha ha ha. Obviously these people were seeking a reduction in my cold calling rates in line with this "theory".
I can only talk from first hand practical experience and that is that 99.9% of any leads I get are completely independant of any mailing literature or email. They simply get deleted or binned or I get told that if the prospect was interested in anything from the mail or letter they would have responded. If my opening pitch is good enough I will get listened to for the majority of the time.
But hey, what am I to know as I am obviously some sort of numpty who can't get a proper job (he he he).
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Hi Chris,
I worked as a rep in a previous life, some 10 years ago before training as an electrical engineer and starting my own firm. We now employ two people, and although im very hands on - on the tools and marketing and running the business we are finding that things are quieting up. We have had a full order book 4 months in advance for the past 8 years, which is unusual for us to see such a rapid decline.
When im out seeing customers i build a good rapor and get repeat business and referrals, just looking at getting back into cold calling - we moved area by 10 miles, 2 years ago and having trouble cracking the locals.
Our usp's....
- Local service
- family run
- flexible service
- established company
- licensed for all domestic, commercial and industrial works
- 6 year guarantee on all electrical works
- member of two industry bodies who assess our work and technical ability to ensure we meet strict safety and business standards.
- 24-hour emergency callout service
- complete inhouse service - from design and consultancy to install and maintain
- we run well stocked vans
i've been holding back for some time on starting cold calling.... when i was a stationery rep, monday and tuesday was always a loss, weds and thurs very productive and friday has that friday feeling so a loss also!
any ideas or advice as to how to break the ice with local businesses?
just a few bits about our marketing campaign
- quarterly mailings to names business owners
- adverts in all local papers
- direct to door leaflet distributions through private contracts, and via local
newspapers
- awareness campaign to go out door to door via royal mail in a few weeks
time to 200,000 houses locally within 35min drive of our office.
- website
- we are going to do some giveaways and advertorials as we head for the
bank holiday season
- clean liveried
any ideas on further marketing/or how to approach cold calling would be appreciated.
Jamie Morgan
esi: electrical
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CKG
It isn't quite so clear cut as that.
I'll give you a real life example. No ******** book read theory or sweeping generalisations.
I cold called our local council switch board to speak to the dude in charge of gas maintenance. I spent about an hour getting passed around the phone system and cut off for various reasons. I eventually got through to the right department. The gaffer wasn't in so I left a message.
Several weeks later the gaffer reterns my call. He just so happens to have a contract for me to quote for - £120Ks worth infact. Result.
As a brucy bonus and directly as a result of my dealings with the council and preparing their tender another tender lands in my lap for a similar value, this time from a local NHS trust.
Almost £1/4m pounds worth of work as a result of a one hour phone call.
If i'd started that particular day with my head up my arse thinking I was a scum bag spammer i'd be a few grand worse off.
Not bad for a shift in attitude.
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SeanandTheBrush
Well done CKG. Bet you are really glad you decided to give calling a go now aswell as your other sales activity
As a marketing expert can I just say...
As with any business activity it all lies in the attitude. Every one has the same chance, the same time, the same opportunities. I have seen business with no database and few resource make giant leaps and double turnover quarter on quarter.
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Hmmm
Not completely sure about that and my reasons are that sometimes you get people who have a completely good but lack the skills to string a sentence together either verbal or written or who might fail to outline benefits or where pricing is out of line with competitors.
Then you also get people who have a good product/service with pricing ok and good messages but don't have the skills or ability to do much with it.
So for me it is more about skills and ability than attitude though agree attitude is important
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