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And of that 20% only 4% answer their phone, or 0.8% of the population.
Cold Calling is powerful
- Thread starter insuranced2d
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And of that 20% only 4% answer their phone, or 0.8% of the population.
- 11,996
Not to be difficult, but more than 4% of people will answer the phone, especially if you're calling more than once. Probably closer to 25%.
Your point is no less valid, the real challenge with telemarketing and cold calling in general isn't that it doesn't work, it's more that you are really limiting the total pool of prospects. For some people, picking up the phone and calling is the only way you can get to them. It also lets you dictate the activities you are doing.
I've got a few projects I'm working on marketing now. I love using cold calling as one of the marketing prongs, but I wouldn't want it to be the only one.
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I have found cold doors to yield far superior contact rates. Still need the data (well, I prefer to have the data). I like knocking doors and having a high % of certainty that I know the person's name.
Did you ever work for Nelson Publishing selling bibles door to door?
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Wow - I just watched that documentary again. I feel it is a must watch for anyone in direct sales, whether door to door, working leads, cold calling. Agency builder would no doubt see many of their recruits in the words and faces of these Bible salesman.
BFAW (now Willis, Corroon & Black) was a good size Nashville agency in the mid 70's. Everyone in sales in the benefits agency had worked for Nelson selling bibles D2D while in college. Those guys were animals. Work hard, play hard. Met up every afternoon at Benigan's for adult beverages.
When I was a carrier rep a lot of my business came from buying drinks at Benigan's when I was in town.
Nelson's "specialty" was a coffee table version about the size of the Criss-Cross directory we used. Thing must have weighed 10 pounds.
When I sold D2D those bibles were everywhere
When I was a carrier rep a lot of my business came from buying drinks at Benigan's when I was in town.
Nelson's "specialty" was a coffee table version about the size of the Criss-Cross directory we used. Thing must have weighed 10 pounds.
When I sold D2D those bibles were everywhere
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Mrmoose
Expert
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Really? Where do you find this?
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I've been selling telemarketing lists for about 10 years. I really started getting into the details about 7 years ago when I started buying up databases and selling them through portals I built or had built. About 20,000 orders at this point, and my consumer database is usually between 200 million and 250 million. There is a big drop in the number of records without phones (not all records have phones), then there is a cut on the DNC, usually between 15% and 25%.
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I was trained by some great folks in the cold door industry, often times us guys forget that buying is very much an emotional decision and fail to use the tools at hand to get folks involved in the process.
Two little items that have helped me out in my sales presentations:
#1 I tell folks, "I'm talking to folks about cancer, heart attack, and unexpected deaths." The emotional images that this creates have a strong opportunity to created interest for you to continue.
#2 The important use of "and XXX how would that make you feel?" Example: "So Mildred, if you knew that your family would have the needed resources to take care of all the cost of your passing, leaving them with no debt, how would that make you feel?" The most important place to put your client in front of you, is an emotional tie in to what your are offering... they need to own it before they pay the first premium.
None of this is new. It's back to the basics. There is no "magic monkey dust".
