Comments on: The secret to painless cold calling

By: Ed Gandia, Editor

Ed Gandia, Editor — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:14:29 +0000

Bane – When done wrong, I’ve seen cold calling be as ineffective (and downright demotivating) when used to promote your own services as when used to promote a company’s services. Just because you’re calling about your own services doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get better results. It’s all about the right list, the right script, the right approach, and a smart call to action.

By: Bane Williams

Bane Williams — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:00:48 +0000

Hi guys, I just wanted to counterpoint Michael Temple’s post above for people who might be reading the comments section after the post (as I often do).

Ultimately, Michael was doing heavy cold calling from a BUSINESS – this means he was working a sales pitch, but the moment a business name is dropped, people often attribute it with an undesirable sales pitch.

This article is for Freelancer’s, not business workers. A freelancer calling up often receives better results than someone on behalf of a company. How often do people hang up the phone as soon as they’ve heard ‘my name is blah and I’m calling on behalf of company blah’? Many do.

Unfortunately Michael’s experience is not in the right context for this article.

By: Ed Gandia, Editor

Ed Gandia, Editor — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:22:12 +0000

Thanks, Jeff! Glad you found them helpful. Good luck!

By: Day 28: Cold Calling to Find Clients – Yikes! | The Savvy Freelancer

Day 28: Cold Calling to Find Clients – Yikes! | The Savvy Freelancer — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:59:05 +0000

[...] 3. The Secret to Painless Cold Calling – The simple approach to cold calling, if the idea of “selling” your services makes you nauseous. Includes a script, too. [...]

By: Jeff Samoray

Jeff Samoray — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:45:03 +0000

Thanks, Ed, for these suggestions. I will incorporate these into my business plan going into 2010.

By: Ed Gandia, Editor

Ed Gandia, Editor — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:10:19 +0000

Hi Jeff! Good question. I would first try the following:

* Tapping both your personal and professional network
* Direct mail campaigns offering a special report, podcast or any type of information that’s perceived as valuable, timely and relevant to your target audience and positions you as an expert in your field.
* Going deeper with existing clients, if you work with only one individual or division of a larger company
* Smart local networking (meaning you go only to events that are rich with potential clients, and you get involved with organizations that cater to your target market)
* Social media (employing Twitter, Facebook and other tools to add value to others and help position you as an expert in your field)

These are much better options than cold calling. But again, if you have NO work and need to get work pronto, add cold calling to the mix until you get where you need to be. Just make sure to add these other elements to your marketing mix now so they can start working and you won’t go hungry again.

Of course, if you enjoy cold calling (some people do), then by all means… do it.

By: Jeff Samoray

Jeff Samoray — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:22:51 +0000

For Ed Gandia:

What are the three to four higher-impact, more pleasant tactics you suggest copywriters use for generating business as opposed to cold calling?

Here’s another question for everyone: Knowing that it’s easier than ever to screen out calls, is cold e-mailing a better option than cold calling? Or do you want to establish a voice-to-voice connection first?

By: Ed Gandia, Editor

Ed Gandia, Editor — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 01:44:29 +0000

If you’re in a situation where you HAVE TO generate some business fast, then cold calling may be a viable option. But in the long-run, the right strategy for most freelancers is to consistently use 3 – 4 higher-impact (and more pleasant) tactics to generate leads.

Of course, if you don’t mind cold-calling (or even like it), go for it! But for the rest of us…

By: Michael Temple

Michael Temple — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 23:13:50 +0000

I am going to take the contrarian position on this. I don’t think it works or at least not well. I agree that you might have some luck from time to time taking the soft sell introduction approach, but that is probably not the norm, at least it never was for me. I used to work for a consulting company years ago where we used heavy cold calling for 6 months straight doing 50-60 calls a week after a mailing and I think we got one new project out of it eventually. I think the other issue you run into is the sheer number of people that screen their calls with voice mail and will never call you back.

Personally I am a huge fan of networking and most of my new work comes from networking and referrals. I also work hard at building up my brand and do some direct response stuff like email, direct mail, and occasional pay to click to augment my pipeline. However cold calls have never been in there and I doubt it ever will be.

By: Dava Stewart

Dava Stewart — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:58:32 +0000

Granted, I am quite new to freelancing and seem to be specializing in a slightly unusual area. I have had much more success in getting business by making calls than any other method. Of course, they aren’t exactly cold calls.

I write email newsletters (among other types of copy) for small businesses. When I think my service might work well for a company, I look for their website and check to see if they already have “sign up for our newsletter” on there somewhere. If they do, I sign up. If they don’t, I call, explain what I do and why it might work for them, and offer to make a sample. Then I call them back to see what they thought of the sample.

It has worked more times than not.