B2B Cold Calling

[Prose]

Has anyone here tried just picking up the phone and calling various businesses?

I'm considering cold calling as a strategy for my business, but I've never done any sales over the phone before.

I'm completely new to this and honestly don't know where to start. Would love to hear from those who have experience in this area.
Any tips or insights on how to get started would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Boy]

Once upon a time, I worked in a boiler room.

Short answer: cold calling fucking sucks but is the fastest way to get a client and grow your business.

Long answer: cold calling fucking sucks but is the fastest way to get a client and grow your business because you're going to get immediate feedback on your offer and quickly figure out how and what to say.

You can prep and prep and rewrite a script repeatedly, but until you're in the trenches, you don't know what works. You'll get some questions you never considered and freeze up, and all the rapport you built up is lost. But next time you get that question, you'll crush it with a confident, refined response.

The hardest part when I was doing it was taking things personally. But the thing is, most people don't remember you. Once you get over that, then you can have some fun. Someone's rude? Be ignorantly nice. Or cuss them out; it doesn't matter.

Combine it with a cold email, and you'll be golden. Short and sweet.

Hey X,

I just wanted to throw on your radar [your offer]. If you're interested, [check out the website/I can send more information/I can explain more on a call].

Thanks,
You

Whatever you do, don't ask marketing people for sales advice. Ask salespeople. Marketing people will talk about what they don't like. Salespeople will tell you what works. Go read threads on /r/sales.

 

[Steve Brownlie]

This gives you a pretty good feel for the good and bad of it - despite obv being on a sales/hype channel.

 

[Prose]

This gives you a pretty good feel for the good and bad of it - despite obv being on a sales/hype channel.

Update after two months:

So, I watched that video again. At first, I was pretty pumped. Being new to this, I thought the guy was a pro. But now, after learning more about prospecting and trying it out myself, I see his calls are just bad.

1. He's not straight up about it being a sales call.
He only mentions it's a sales call after asking his first sales-related question. To me, that's like asking for a permission AFTER you've already groped a woman. What's the point? It's too late for that.

2. His first line just confuses people.
People on the call can't tell what he wants. Is he a client, or is he selling something? Most people who pick up the phone have no clue.

3. He's trying to sell to the wrong people.
He keeps pitching to gatekeepers. He should be talking to the directors, not the gatekeepers. Gatekeepers are there to keep him out.

4. He doesn't ask enough questions.
The call's all about him – what he's offering, how great it is. But he never digs into what the person on the other end might need. Like, have they tried something similar? Are they doing it on their own? Any luck with that?

5. He says emails are a waste of time but wants to set up long meetings.
He's against sending emails but is all for setting up 30-minute chats with people who don't seem interested. That doesn't make sense. Don't just set up meetings to have meetings.

6. He gets desperate when someone's about to hang up.
Begging for "just 30 more seconds" when someone's done with the call? Come on. The point is to help the prospects discover that they might need you. You don't ever want to sound like you need them. Don't sound like a desperate salesman.

7. Stop saying you'll work for free.
He's like, "If we don't get you new clients, you don't pay." Why even go there? The person never said money was the issue. We're here to make money, not give away our time for free. Most prospects understand that.

 

[Prose]

don't ask marketing people for sales advice. Ask salespeople. Marketing people will talk about what they don't like

I've been taking these two-hour walks every day, during which I listen to YouTube. Recently, I've become really interested in videos of people making cold calls for their SMMA businesses.

These SMMA owners I've been listening to sound the same to me:

• "Please, give me a chance to prove myself."
• "You don't have to pay me anything."
• "Can we please have a meeting next week?"
• "You might learn something from me for free..."

They seem almost obsessed with the idea that their services are free at the beginning. I understand the concept of free trials, like the ones Netflix offers, where the hope is that you'll forget to cancel. But SMMA is a different. You have to spend your time and actually do something.

This has led me to consider that you might be right. Perhaps marketers are not suited for sales. They make it so difficult for themselves to actually get paid. I can't name another profession where people would be so excited to work for free.

 

[Steve Brownlie]

This has led me to consider that you might be right. Perhaps marketers are not suited for sales. They make it so difficult for themselves to actually get paid. I can't name another profession where people would be so excited to work for free.

The trick is that it isn't really free - I mean I don't know which ones you specifically listened to - but the old SMMA offer was always you pay $XXXX but if I don't get you ZZ leads by Y date it's free. But you know the conversion rate you get for your target niche per <$XXXX of spend on social + your appointment bookers so you know you won't ever have to refund. The 'free' gimmick is just to get them to talk/take the second full call where you close. That's the way folks I know who've done SMMA do it anyway - and it's what I always assumed these folks do too - but some of them ofc are just doing calls to fake it/show off on YT/don't really make money anymore from SMMA but from selling Go High Level etc and their courses... of course!

 

[DanielS]

Something else to keep in mind is that most of the people publishing content to YouTube want to grow their YouTube audience, and the biggest audience is always the newbie audience. Newbies don't have case studies, confidence, etc. so that's why they'll typically go with the "free trial" offer. So, the content creator has to simulate what they'd suggest a newbie to do in their videos, ie. the "free trial" desperate offer.

What's funny is when you contrast this with people who work with clients who have actually achieved success, you'll notice that they do the complete opposite and are actively looking for reasons to disqualify potential clients so their don't have a headache on their hands if there are red flags present. It's a scarcity vs. abundance and confidence thing at the end of the day.

A lot of the headaches can be solved during the prospecting process, to be honest. The whole model being preached to newbies is to spam out calls and offer free work. The model that should be used is the opposite - be selective and present value.

 

[Prose]

When I go for walks, I enjoy listening to YouTubers practicing cold calls. It's an effective way to learn what not to do.

This time I stumbled upon a video where the YouTuber did something I liked – he asked the prospect questions. This was a pleasant surprise, as most of these Youtubers tend to focus solely on their features and benefits.

However, he soon took a big misstep. Upon learning that the prospect had received another offer, he immediately proposed to beat the price. Worse yet, after the call, he labeled the prospect a "price shopper," assuming their only interest was in finding the lowest price, without ever confirming if that was the prospect's main concern.

How i book 3-5 meetings a day (web design cold calling)

Here's how I'd approach it differently: Rather than making assumptions, I'd commend the prospect for securing such a competitive offer, clearly stating, "I can't match that. My services are priced higher, and it seems you've found the best deal with the other company."

I don’t think I should undercut the offer the prospect has already received. I believe it represents what they are willing to spend on a whim. The prospect might have expected me to lower my prices to compete, but by congratulating them, I set a different tone.

This could lead them to question, "Why isn't this person willing to compete on price?" They might start to wonder if their seemingly unbeatable offer might actually have hidden drawbacks. Could it be that the competition is cutting corners somewhere?

I refuse to presume that the primary goal for everyone is to secure the cheapest option. That's not how I approach purchasing high-ticket items or services, and I wouldn't expect business owners to select a service provider for their website as if they were buying toilet paper on Amazon.

 

[Prose]

I'm still green to sales. And because I do this on my own and for myself, I don't have a sales manager from whom to learn. I don't have a coach to point out my mistakes. I have to learn the theory on my own by reading books, watching videos, and thinking about sales on my daily walks.

What's the downside of being both green and learning things on your own? Well, I realized that there's a lot of BULLSHIT I have been exposed to by watching these 20 - 30-something wannabe sales gurus on YouTube. There have to be so many harmful methods and techniques that I need to unlearn to improve my game. One of them is talking about MONEY.

I run into prospects who ask about the PRICE of my services when I do cold calling. And guess what? For the longest time, I thought it was a bad thing. These know-it-all YouTubers had told me that I should avoid this subject during the first call. I should never let the prospect know what doing business with me is actually going to cost. It could turn them off and make them run away!

I'm ashamed to say that I really bought into that. I've insulted the intelligence of my prospects with my bullshit answers. These are great questions any sensible person SHOULD ask.

– "How much will it cost?"
– "What's the price?"

I answered these questions with what I like to call smokescreens. More educated people might call them red herrings. Basically, I just made up some bullshit that I hoped would satisfy them or make them forget they ever asked me that question.

Smokescreen

Something said or done in order to hide the truth.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/smokescreen

Here's what a typical answer I gave looked like (thanks a lot, Reddit):

Q: How do you respond when a prospect asks for the price too early in the sales process?:

A: Being honest, that’s a difficult question right now, it could be xyz (low end) or xyz (high end) depending on your needs. If you can give me some time, I can get the details I need to give you a full breakdown.

https://www.reddit.com/r/sales/comments/ciqpcq/how_do_you_respond_when_a_prospect_asks_for_the/

Many salespeople who say this are not honest. They know exactly how much their services are going to cost. What they are trying to do is to trick the prospect to stay on the phone for a little bit longer. Talking about the price this early on could upset the prospect. As @DanielS suggested, they are needy and thus afraid of disqualifying potential clients.

Now here's what I realized on my last walk... a question about the price is an indication of interest (IOI). There's a good chance that the prospect has actually thought about the service before. It's also possible that they have received another offer, or that they are already paying for a similar service.

There has to be some reason why they want to know how much the service is going to cost. And you know what? This might be the best opportunity for me to ASK QUESTIONS about it. Rather than wasting our time by throwing smokescreens and giving the prospect some bullshit answers, I can use it to understand why they're interested.

– "Have you tried similar services before?"
– "Have you been approached by other companies offering similar services?"
– "Have you thought about getting services similar to this... if so, why?"

Now the prospect gets a chance to explain her situation. This is an opportunity for her to share the good, the bad, and the ugly. The prospect might even tell me how much the other companies asked her to pay for similar services, or how much she's currently being charged.

Do I want to know the number, so I can offer the prospect a huge discount? Absolutely not. I want to know the number, so I can tell her that my services would probably cost her more. And I want to see if it's going to turn her off, or if she's cool with it.

Why do my services cost more and not less? Because I want to send a signal that I am better. I'm the improvement. How's the prospect supposed to believe that if I charge less? That makes no sense because it's not how the real world operates. Products and services that are better cost more. We are wary about buying the cheapest.

If I buy the cheapest coffee and then complain about its taste, my friends will laugh and tell me it's my own fault for choosing the cheapest option. They'll say I deserved it and remind me that you get what you pay for, showing no sympathy for not spending more.

 

[Kaj Kandler]

I'd look at the materials of Nathan Gotch. He strikes me as realistic and serious about building an SEO agency.

I think especially his important message is:
- Niche down, become a (local) specialist to narrow down who you target and learn how this group of people functions and what you can do for them
- Proof your worth but showcasing your process and marketing it openly. It takes in his words 20 - 50 touch points for them to buy and he recommends up to 7 follow-ups before calling a lead cold.
- You need a process and follow it to figure out what works and what doesn't.