Cold calling to increase your monthly subscriptions

TommyCarey Level X³

November 25, 2017, 10:00 am

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I'm not a huge fan of when people cold call me, mainly because I know they got my information without my consent and now they are trying to pitch me something I don't need at all. This is the stereotype of what cold calling is, and the telemarketers who do this give cold calling a bad name. I've done plenty of cold calling in the past, I've even hired assistants to do the cold calling for me, and it works well if done right. There is a fine line between right and wrong when it comes to cold calling, so try to stay on the good side of the line if you do end up trying this out. If you start to get spammy, your phone number could get disconnected due to complaints coming in from the more tech-savvy crowd.

Cold calling has been around ever since there was a telegram.... Yes, the telegram even got spammy messages sent through it from time to time in order to increase a businesses sales lol. The cold calling didn't really take off until we actually had phones and someone decided "Hey, I can just call 1,000 people a day and get them to pay me for something!"

Cold calling works well, if you know what you're doing and execute everything well. You can't be calling the same person 10 times a day, or even once every day, because they will get extremely annoyed at you and eventually start to say some pretty negative things to you over the phone, and even worse, post something bad online about your or your company. You need to do plenty of research prior to getting into any sort of cold calling for profits, if you don't, you will be sorry almost instantly.

What I like to do
The start of my process is abusing LinkedIn, sort of, because they have a ton of business owners on there who have their information publicly viewable to anyone who wants to get in touch with them. Usually, it's just a support line to their company, but sometimes you can find a diamond in the ruff and get a direct number to the CEO or President of the company

What I do is a basic search for a niche that I'm trying to target at the moment. I'll never do a general search for something like "CEO" or "Vice President" because the Industry target will be all over the place. Instead, I search for something like "Plumber" or "Hair Stylist" and cherry pick the ones who actually run the companies they work for.

After I go through LinkedIn for a day or two, I will have a list of phone numbers along with names and businesses that I plan on calling. Since all of the people I'll be calling are in the same industry, I can write up the same pitch for each one and not deviate too much because I won't have to. If I were to do a general search for "CEO" or "Vice President" I would have a ton of different industries popping up and I would have to write up a different pitch for each person I called.

After I write up my pitch, I will read it out loud and think about it for a few minutes. I will try to tweak it so it's short and sweet in order to get enough information in the ears of the person on the other line before they want to hang up on me. My girlfriend hates this part because I usually read off my pitches to her and ask her when she got annoyed. She usually says "I was annoyed when you asked me if you could read me your pitch" but that just means she loves me, I think...

After I have my pitched tweaked to my liking, I'll start the cold calling process. I'll usually get some dead phone numbers, wrong numbers or people instantly hanging up on me. But for the few that stay on the line long enough to hear my entire pitch, they usually show some sort of interest, but might not sign up right away.

As I go through my list I will mark off the dead numbers, wrong numbers, instant hang-ups and the numbers that seemed to show some interest.

Dead Numbers: I will go back to the profile I found the number on and see if I simply wrote down the number wrong or if it really is dead. If it's wrong, I'll fix it and call, but it's usually dead because it was disconnected. I'll then try to find a good number for the company and call it, most of the time you can't find a good number besides the one on the LinkedIn profile, but there are rare chances you can get one and get someone on the other line
Wrong Numbers: With wrong numbers, I will do pretty much the same thing as Dead Numbers. I'll find the right number and give it a call until I find one that is associated with the business I'm trying to contact.
Instant Hang Ups: With these numbers, I usually just consider them a loss and I will delete them from my files. There's no use in calling them over and over to try and sell them something when they instantly hung up on me.
Interested Numbers: These numbers go into their own file and I will send them emails with more information if they didn't want to sign up right then and there. Even though they didn't sign up, they didn't say "No Thanks" which means you can likely sell to them at a later date

After you get through your list and try to connect to the dead numbers and wrong numbers, you will need to start sending out emails. Send a "Thank You" email and explain how you were happy to get in touch with them and you can't wait to help them with a problem they are having. You won't say "I can't wait to help you with your problem!" you will go over your conversation and talk about how your services or products can help them with something, their problem.

After you get some emails out and some sign-ups, you'll notice that cold calling isn't a bunch of spamming phone numbers in order to get a sale. You won't be the spammy type of person, and your new clients will see that. I've gotten some pretty decent sized clients for my SEO and Online Marketing company simply by cold calling and trying to help out websites in the United States. You'd be amazed at how many companies out there will need your help, no matter what you do, and they will pay you well for it

In Conclusion
Never think that cold calling is a negative thing, it actually makes companies a ton of money, so you should try to set up a good game plan when you want to start this. Never just "wing it" when you do decide to start trying this out, that will just get your business burned online when you hit the wrong phone numbers of people who love posting negative reviews online. Remember, people who are angry are more willing to post something online about you over the happy clients you've worked with for 10 years.

Remember to follow me!
https://www.seoclerks.com/user/Razzy

Thanks!

Razzy

Comments

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JoeMilford

I never realized that there were spam calls on the old telegram, but I guess that makes sense, lol. I must admit that I also do not like getting cold called, and I feel uncomfortable doing it to others. I would rather just send emails or newsletters out because that seems to me to be a bit less intrusive. I think that it is seriously smart to really evaluate your pitch, like you said, before launching into this. You need to make sure that you have a quick delivery before you get hung up on which conveys exactly what your purpose is. I like your use of LinkedIn too--that's also very smart. Stll, for me personally, I think that I will, for now anyway, avoid cold calling folks.

9 years ago

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Pixie06

I have to admit that I do get annoyed when the telemarketers call me. This is not an easy job and they will surely have to deal with many rude people. However, the positive side is that cold calling may help us in getting some customers. It is time consuming to go through the different profiles to find the contact details. Maybe you can hire someone to do that for you. I have never tried to use cold calling for my business. I may try this in the future.

9 years ago

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JoeMilford

See? I have that first initial reaction as well. You are just running the numbers when you do this, but my question is, how many potential customers will you anger or frustrate by cold-calling who you could potentially lose forever? I am tempted, like you, to try the cold-calling thing, but I think that, as a business pursuit, this is a bit of a double-edged sword. I always, at the end of the day, try to treat my potential customers like I would like to be treated myself, so I hate getting cold-called, and I am assuming many others do as well.

9 years ago

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DarthHazard

Personally, this would be one thing that I definitely would not bother to try out. I'm just not a fan of calling people out of the blue especially if they haven't given their number to you specifically. I hate when people cold call me so I wouldn't want to do it to anyone else either because that would be quite hypocritical of me. It's not at all an easy job to be fair, getting all those customers not being too nice to you will be quite tiring.

9 years ago

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kgord

I might do this on an extremely limited basis. Most people just don't want to be bothered. They might agree to buy something just to get rid of you, and then never visit your site again. If I wanted to do something like that, I would likely not be blogging. I would be telemarketing.

9 years ago

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cmoneyspinner

The fact that cold-calling has been around for so long must be proof that it works. However, I would have never thunk to abuse LinkedIn in this manner. LOL.

Hey! But you know what? When you gotta hustle, you gotta hustle! That's a big job you described. I'm surprised you didn't outsource the work.

Thanks for this lesson on how to mine valuable data that is right up under your nose.

9 years ago

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overcast

Recurring subscriptions and the monthly investment is the way to go for the money spending. So I think it'd be reasonable to say that getting recurring clients is necessity. So cold calling is another thing people have to be seriously consider as well. I have seen that people are following up through emails, cold calls and other things. That's something many among us are learning. So I am thinking that the recurring clients and retaining them with keeping in touch.

9 years ago

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Judas2018

I never call potential clients unless invited first. If a client extends their business phone number or cell phone number to me to call them then I will. Just to discuss terms or close a deal. But I won't make it a habit of calling them either every time I need a question answered. I will simply email or contact them via chat service (skype, on site messenger, etc.). But calling a client out of the blue is bad business imo. People these days are very guarded about their contact info and don't want just anyone calling their phone.

9 years ago

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Baburra

Great tips. I never really thought about that before but you're right. Cold calling back in the day would mean that you had to have gotten their information in some weird way so that already raises a red flag but these days people put their information out in public on purpose so it should be much more acceptable in a way. Probably, calling companies would be a bit less abrasive than telemarketers reaching out to ordinary people in households with unsolicited calls.

9 years ago

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vinaya

This This is something I need to consider. I have never done cold calling because I don't want people to call me without asking for consent, thus, I assume that people would not like when I ask for them without their consent. However, as in internet marketer, I need to consider a couple of things:
If you do not speak for yourself, who will?
If you do not tell people what you do, how will they find your services or products?
If you do not market your business how will you find customers?

9 years ago

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AmieBotella

Hmmnn... I have to think hard before doing this. Several years ago, when cellular phones are not yet popular, I did this method to invite people to come to a seminar about networking via landline. Most of the people I talked to were accommodating but I know I wasn't too pushy either. So as a result, no one really came. Therefore I still need to become more persuasive and colder, i suppose. But I don't want to do it again. I think there are other ways to do the marketing.

9 years ago

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jaymish2

I'm also not a fan of cold calling, it's a bit intrusive. Personally I hang up when I get cold calling. It's a bit rude to try and sell things this way. I would be surprised, If anyone got any sales. I think this is suited to people of a particular, demographic. Old people. People who don't have anyone to talk to and are lonely, they get excited when anyone calls them. You can even convince them to buy something. I would prefer you write sales letters and drop them in people's mail boxes it's more respectful, like that. People can then read them when they have time.

9 years ago

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Corzhens

Pardon me but I don’t respond to communications in the internet by people I do not know well. Of course if I am a client of a site then I would admit that I know the staff even if I don’t simply because I know the site. However, I may not read the email if the subject doesn’t look interesting to me. Maybe the cold calling will also be at a great disadvantage if I am the client.

8 years ago

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Seoclerks

Cold calling to increase your monthly subscriptions

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