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Cold Calling From Scratch

This system has made it into many countries and has proven to me that no matter where we are from, we have thoughts and emotions which can be changed to help us all succeed.


Cold Calling Team Meetings

Read actual success and motivational meetings delivered in a Cold Calling Sales company in the book written about how to achieve success Streets to Success

Cold Calling Telemarketing Lead Generation - The Street Kid Who Made MillionsLead Generation



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Telephone Sales, Lead Generation and Appointment Setting
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What is Cold Calling

Cold calling is the frontline of direct marketing. What is Cold Calling? Cold Calling is the art of approaching unsuspecting prospects with the intention to take them through a series of steps within The Buying Cycle.

Cold calling is generally performed over the telephone however cold canvassing refers to a number of similar sales processes this includes over the telephone contact. Many use the word Cold due to the unexpected contact however this is not a great representation of the process as it implies a negative scenario from the beginning. The phrase Cold Call was first referenced to direct marketing in 1966. Help Cold Call will demonstrate and provide you with the tools and resources required to make such front line, first-contact and commonly feared Cold Call a very friendly warm and profit measurable part of the sales process.

Cold Calling Changed My Life

As a teenager I thought phone marketing jobs were for people who did not get an education or who were unskilled. My first job was as a 'bus boy' at a local restaurant working late shifts for a mere four dollars per hour. I worked until 4am regularly and found that my age determined my rate of pay. I worked harder than employees twice my age and yet they were paid twice what I was.

For most of my teenage years I lived on the streets, cold and starving.

When I was in my late teens, I had no future, no home, no family and no role models. I wanted to change my life and decided to swallow my pride and do anything to get started. The Job agency who were assigned to me sent me to apply for a commission only telemarketing job. I was successful getting the job but in reality everyone was.

I quickly realized that many of my colleagues were academically unskilled however they possessed a skill worth more than any schooling could ever offer.

At first it was difficult, who would have thought that someone like I who had been faced with life and death situations on the street could be suddenly so anxious about Cold Calling Prospects who would never see or meet me.

I was selling magic show tickets for a Lions Club in Sydney, Telemarketing prospects for underprivileged kids, great cause but so are the other 25000 charities making the same calls to the same businesses every day. Only one out of 20 people came back after their first week.

I learnt the most important thing about selling. I looked around while my new colleagues were Cold Calling Prospects and it sounded like they were describing my childhood. I realized that I just had to paint a picture, find and press the right buttons. In less than three weeks I was making the largest cold sales the charity had ever seen. Sponsorships of 100 to 200 kids and it continued on for the entire time I worked there.

I continued my unskilled skillful cold calling career throughout many industries including; insurance, motor cars, thoroughbred racing, communications focused I.T., office stationary, web sites and many more. I made a lot of people a lot of money but I always seemed to have less.

How to Cold Call

Cold Calling, Lead Generation and Prospect Building

I decided to go out and do something for myself, I had learned how to cold call from the best and how not to cold call from the worst. I made calls for less than four weeks in my bedroom before I was forced to employ telemarketing staff to assist me with cold calling appointment setting. Growth was something I had not planned for. I thought life without a boss would be enough but the lead generation industry would not allow it.

In less than 12 months I employed 90 cold calling staff in a 1000 square feet building whilst turning over two million dollars per year. I had spent around two hundred thousand dollars on equipment, the increase and achievement of Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Key Result Areas (KRA) in the Call Center the cold calling paid for the additional equipment inside 12 months.

I had suggested a Lead Generation idea to my last manager whilst working for one of the largest phone companies in Australia. It turned out to be exactly what the industry needed. He had looked at me as though I had no right to have an idea nor one that was any good. For the next two years my company was responsible for taking a large amount of market share from them. It still gives me joy to know that he still works in the same job and I have completed several long term campaigns with that very company as a preferred supplier using the very ideas I took to him more than five years earlier.

Why Cold Calling?

Lead Generation and Appointment Settingare two ways of not only increasing activity but also a very efficient way of implementing Company Branding, Extending Market Segments, Launching New Product Ranges and Increasing Customer Loyalty through frequent contact. It does not have to be all about pressure sales or taking complaints, there are many ways of utilizing Cold Calling to increase business in all areas.

  • Is your business struggling to meet sales targets?
  • Is your sales and marketing team spending hours cold calling businesses that are not in the demographic of your Ideal Prospect Profile?
  • Is paying Sales Staff and Marketing Teams absorbing the majority of your turnover?
  • Have you found that your telemarketers and cold calling team are not covering the cost of their wages?
  • Could your Cold Calling Sales Process be improved?
  • Would you like to convert prospects to sales increasing your teams sales success not size

Even the most successful business owners would say Yes.

The need for sales to continually flow is one of the obvious fundamentals in business.

Activity is the most crucial aspect to all performance arenas whether you are in sales, marketing, manufacturing, transport or finance to mention a few. Continuous movement is not only the secret to success but it is the secret to not having your business fails completely.

In many industries that rely heavily on employee performance it is often found that despite KPIs, Targets and all the required Tools that there never-ending reasons why employees are not being active not to mention proactive. Take cold calling for example, I have managed 1000s of telemarketers over the past fifteen years and it never ceases to amaze me that for full time telephone roles only three to five hours per day actually gets spent on the telephone per employee. I will not go into the reasons why here but I do secretly have a chuckle at some of the wild reasons my employees have offered in the past for absence, poor performance and the 15 trips to the bathroom.

What I have found is no matter the excuse for lack of activity the fundamentals have not changed. Prospects are not going to call them nor call you and offer you money to sell them something.

Working closely with a number of long-term employees last year I found that even after many years of not being on the phone myself when I applied the techniques I am sharing on my website my most valuable employees still did not measure up. It took two months of continuously out-performing them on activity, leads, branding and quality before they finally conceded that the techniques I share here where undeniably better than the experience they had developed over the previous four years using their own processes. I look forward to sharing them and wish you all the best.


Telemarketing and Business Resources
Cold Calling - Getting Past the Gatekeeper E-book

This e-book pffers Cold Calling Tips and Techniques while also describing in detail the Sales Process for Lead Generation and The Cold Calling Sales Process for Getting Past the Gatekeeper E-book Download. You can read it online

The most important rule for telephone sales and cold calling is Active Listening . Telemarketing agents do focus on the sighs and tutts and know an objection is coming however, knowing is not enough, you must do something about it. What most of us do is instead of preempting the objection we race through our sales pitch in the hope that something we say may generate an interest.

It is often said that in law, most convictions occur due to the information provided when questioned. Evidence alone is seldom enough. In sales the product is rarely enough, the advantage we have as sale people is that - prospects do not have lawyers telling them to say nothing.

When we make contact customers they give us the ammunition we need to sell however we are often too busy thinking of what we can say next to actually listen to what the customer is telling us. Even if it is only a rapport building opportunity that you have missed, it could be the trust factor that loses you the sale. More rapport, more trust.

Nobody likes to be spoken at, nor sold to. Involve the prospect in the discussion and you will gather the information you need to sell them a solution. With the right questions you will uncover frustrations that you may be able to relieve customers of. The true art of selling is not selling, it is the ability to smoothly carry out a transaction that you have recommended.

We all have needs and wants you, me and our prospects!

Do you know what your prospects needs and wants are? If not just ask them.

Telemarketing and Cold Calling Tips and Techniques suggest that the hardest part of making sales is getting in the door. It takes an entire day to knock on the doors of 30 businesses that you feel may have a need to purchase your product or service.

This style of hard-work type of Lead Generation involves a lot of guess work dependent on what you are selling, no matter how good your Cold Calling Sales Process is.

Ask yourself the following questions.

  • Does the prospect have a need or a want?
  • Do they have a contract with an existing supplier?
  • Do they fit the profile for the product to be suitable?

Walking the street can be fruitful but it can also be a lot of work for little return especially compared to cold calling.

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How to Cold Call
Cold Calling To Sales

In an average full-time work day in a cold calling or telemarketing position a cold caller can make approximately 250 to 300 cold calls to business prospects. With all cold calling or telemarketing the obstacle cold calling businesses face is finding those prospects that fit the Ideal Prospect Profile that suits the product suite on offer. I made wise strategic decisions in the early days of my business which reaped its rewards only one to two years later. I had invested time, experience and money into a Customer Relationship Management Database geared specifically for cold calling and lead generation. As we collected information, it was recorded and when the time was right - for example Telecommunications Products have an average contract period of two years - my database already knew the month to call, who to speak with, the prospects current situation and my team needed to gain an agreement for a set appointment time from the prospect whilst on a completing a cold call. The clients expectation of the appointment was that a Sales Representative from their Sales Team would meet with the prospect and discuss the clients services.

In the beginning my cold calling team would have to make 100 calls to uncover a prospect that met all of the clients basic needs. Less than two years later my cold calling team dialled less than eight phone numbers before uncovering a prospect that they could move to the next stage of the buying cycle as they met the clients basic profile. The difference in turnover, outlay and profit was substantial, add two zeros to the end of each appointment booked and you will begin to appreciate the significance of Customer Relationship Management and what Cold Calling can actually do for your business aside from the obvious activity it generates. For more information on cold calling tools such as - CRMs go to Telemarketing Tools

In just five years, my contact center had employed over 1100 staff. I have found that without the proper skills and commitment a telemarketing runs the risk of being one of the 19 out of 20 people who do not succeed. Once you have training and an effective sales process in place you must provide the training and tools to your cold calling team. It is very tempting to immediately place new staff on the telephone after one day of training however over a long period of time I found that it was more expensive and very risky to my companys reputation to do this. I found that when I invested in my cold calling team with training, policy and structure my business took off and it was more healthy than it had ever been.

Marketing and Sales can be a lucrative industry however some basic knowledge is important.

Throughout this site you will find many cold calling tools and resources that I will share and others that I recommend. The one book that I highly recommend no matter how well versed in the field or inexperienced is Top Telemarketing Techniques.

Cold Calling - TOP TELEMARKETING TECHNIQUES THAT WORK
Top Telesales Techniques That Work

Top Telemarketing Techniques is an information-packed resource for all sales professionals. It offers expert insight and proven strategies for using the telephone as a powerful and effective sales tool. This book offers valuable information needed to develop, improve upon, and fully utilize your telephone sales skills, allowing you to close more sales over the telephone. Telemarketing is a highly cost-effective and time saving alternative to most other forms of sales and marketing for any organization. Top Telemarketing Techniques offers solutions for utilizing the telephone to close more sales and generate higher revenues. If you are a salesperson, manager, entrepreneur, or business leader, this is the one sales training book you need to begin maximizing your use of the telephone in order to vastly improve sales and customer relations.



If you feel you have mastered the phone and are ready to go deeper into the behavioral science of sales you can further your marketing activities the smart way with - The Complete Guide to Telemarketing Management.



THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO TELEMARKETING MANAGEMENT
telemarketing management

Getting the Most out of Every Phone... is the first chapter of this book - but it is more than just an optimistic beginning. The Complete Guide to Cold Calling describes how to maximize productivity. This all-inclusive source book covers every aspect of running a call center from start-up through day-to-day activity. The author explores all the vital issues a manager confronts, and shows you how to:

  1. Make the most of Cold Calling, its unique advantages. Use the Cold Calling Store to find additional resources
  2. Target and develop ideal prospect profile
  3. Script every stage of a cold call, develop a script, and answer objections.
  4. Fully utilize your human resources through effective hiring, training, compensation, and positive feedback
  5. Design and maintain a profitable call center
  6. Avoid ethical and legal problems connected with fund-raising, calling hours, monitoring employees, and unsolicited cold calls

Filled with dozens of sample scripts, forms, training formats, charts, and case studies, this complete telemarketing and cold calling call center tool kit will help you mobilize your operations - and maximize your profits - in every way.



This is worth looking at if you are an intermediate cold calling or sales professional!!!

For more resources please go to the Cold Calling Store or browse the many free tips throughout this website.


Good luck developing your Cold Calling and Lead Generation Sales Process and happy Cold Calling your prospects.

Do not forget to get your copy of Getting Past The Gatekeeper E-book