Cold calling to increase your monthly subscriptions

Cold calling to increase your monthly subscriptions

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.



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Thanks!

Razzy