Day 4) 30 Percent Return on Cold Calls!

I made just 10 calls yesterday (Thursday), but of the 10, three have become hot prospects! Therefore, I consider the day a huge success.

In addition, the universe-answers-she-who-hustles prospect of Monday, Day 1, is now a client! (Contract received and signed!)

Tally so far:

• Number of Days Cold Called: 4
• Cold Calls Made: 80
• New Clients Procured as a Direct Result of Cold Calling: 1
• Clients Procured as an In-Direct Result of Cold Calling: 2
• Hot Prospects from Cold Calling: 4*
• Hot Prospects Indirectly from Cold Calling: 0 (moved prospect to client tally).*

*These numbers will go up and down as I prospects become clients.

So, after just four days of cold calling, I have three -- count 'em! -- new clients!

I'm going to have to cut back on the number of cold calls I make each day. I need to make them all at once, without doing anything else. If I don't, they don't get made. But the quality of my calls is improving, so much so that, well: I HAVE THREE HOT PROSPECTS JUST FROM YESTERDAY!

These quality calls take time. So does the follow up: sending samples and links to my website. E-mail correspondence. And so on. Yet I still have to complete work from current clients (which also seems to be increasing...). So 25 calls a day won't be doable, I believe. I'm going to aim for 10-15, depending on how they go, as well as for the amount of client work on my plate.

The main reason I believe the three out of 10 calls yesterday became clients: because as we chat I make it a point to:

1. Ask questions.
2. Find something in common and bring it up. (For example, a prospect's phone number yesterday was in my old home town's area code, so I bring up the connection and go from there: Why did I move? How long have they been there? Have they ever been to such and such place? And isn't traffic just unbearable?)
3. Keep it professional, but not serious. Tease them about something. Compliment something about their website. Commiserate about how busy they must be. 

In other words, make a connection.

So much marketing today is about "relationship building." Twitter, Facebook, blogging. Which is fine. But they can take a damn long time when it comes to building something even remotely resembling something of a "relationship."

But I think many people today are starved for actual, real-time conversation.

Hence why I think cold calling  is a great and quick way to make a connection and speed up the relationship-building process.

Of course, you have to get a sense if the prospect is in anything near a talkative mood. You'll learn to sense this very quickly as you call because as you ask questions, not only will the prospect answer your query, her or she will add on to the conversation.

For example:

Me: Do you ever need landing pages or squeeze pages for your clients' websites?
Prospect: Occasionally.

(sound of crickets).

Conversely:

Me: Do you ever need landing pages or squeeze pages for your clients' websites?
Prospect. Occasionally. In fact, is that something you offer? How long have you been writing landing pages? Could you send me a sample?
Me: I'd be happy to. What's your e-mail address?
Prospect: It's so hard to find a good landing page writer. What type of clients have you written pages for?"

THAT prospect is someone with whom to converse. To josh with. To offer solutions for. Keep 'em talking! You'll soon enough learn when he or she is "talked out" and it's time to wrap up the conversation.

So quality trumps quantity of cold calls in my book. So I'm scaling back: 10-15 calls a day!

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I've considerable client work to perform today and I doubt I'll get many cold calls in. It's also Good Friday and many folks are off today.

 Next post I think I'll write a bit about time management when it comes to cold calling, something I'm finding I need to improve....