For your service, do you reach out to potential customers without any referral or lead? If you do, how well does it work? Do you have any advice?
Ask HN: Do you cold call?
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Re: Ask HN: Do you cold call?
#2We do but it doesn't work the same depending on the country.
For example, in France (where we were originally based) and Europe, it's pretty effective if we call the company we target and ask for the right person (thank you Linkedin).
Though, we recently moved in the US and the first calls we made didn't really work. Some people were even pissed that we called them from nowhere and where wondering how we got their phone numbers.
Possibly relevant: We work in mobile advertising
Re: Ask HN: Do you cold call?
#3I've been wondering about this myself. In a typical, successful B2B cold call, how does the conversation actually go?
Re: Ask HN: Do you cold call?
#4Yes, best thing to do is research the hell of them before you make any call or email. Some great articles that I've shared with my team:
http://www.startupmoon.com/how-i-got-meetings-at-twitter-lin... http://life-longlearner.com/how-to-cold-email-prospects/ http://okdork.com/2013/04/18/cold_email/
Re: Ask HN: Do you cold call?
#5I've been wondering about this myself. In a typical, successful B2B cold call, how does the conversation actually go?
"Hi I'm from YOURCOMPANY and I saw you wrote/spoke on/commented about RELEVANTTOPICORTHEME and thought you may be interested in learning more about YOURCOMPANY. I'd love to set up a demo to show you how it can help you with PROBLEM. What day is better for you, Tuesday or Wednesday?"
Re: Ask HN: Do you cold call?
#6I've been wondering about this myself. In a typical, successful B2B cold call, how does the conversation actually go?
The calls are straight forward and direct. If you have not qualified the prospect already, then you must do this in the first 15 seconds.
The basic steps are 1.) Identify yourself 2.) Very short intro to why you're calling 3.) Ask a qualifying question 4.) If prospect is not qualified, end call 5.) If qualified, then start a dialog to see if they have the problem you solve
Re: Ask HN: Do you cold call?
#7The modern cold call is a cold email. Although I've done straight cold calls and had a small team in the Philippines, a lot of businesses do not like calls (esp. Restaurants and service businesses). There is a great book on cold emails called Predictable Revenue[0]. link: http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices...
Edited now that I am on computer to add more detail:
Some of the key points in the book are: -Split sales team into two parts, one group that only sends out opening emails, one set that closes the leads/sets up meetings. Once a meeting is set, the opener passes the prospect onto the closer. -the first email should be three sentences introducing who you are, what you do (can put clients you work with) and what you are looking for (appointment or referral)
I get pitched by a lot of companies, and one company had used this exact pitch on me and out of hundreds they were one of the few to get me to take an appointment call. Months later when I read this book, I recognized their tactic and went back and read the email and it was 100% based on what came out of this book.
[0] edit: misspelled title
Re: Ask HN: Do you cold call?
#8if your not going to make at least $100/mo ($2000 CLTV) it's probably not going to be cost effective.
Re: Ask HN: Do you cold call?
#9We're in the extremely early stages our our B2B SaaS business - and cold calling has been extremely effective so far. We've gotten great feedback and battle-tested our hypothesis on "real customers".
Indeed, cold calling will not be a big part of our strategy going forward - but it's a great way to feel out the market.
Re: Ask HN: Do you cold call?
#10We're in the extremely early stages our our B2B SaaS business - and cold calling has been extremely effective so far. We've gotten great feedback and battle-tested our hypothesis on "real customers". Indeed, cold calling will not be a big part of our strategy going forward - but it's a great way to feel out the market.
Why will it not be part of the strategy? Too costly in terms of time based on profit you get out of it? Or there wouldn't be profit if you scaled this up with extra support?