Edmonton Business Consultant | Stages Of Cold Call Prospect Development

If you don’t reach out monthly, you know, you’re, you’re almost, it’s a waste of time. Yeah. We’ll just not even go. Yeah, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re progressing. You know, the relationship can actually start regressing. So you, you got them all the way up to your, the point where they’re looking for that social proof and your variety of the social proof, and then you get busy and you stop reaching out that relationship where we’re regress back in a couple of months. To who are you again?

Yeah, I can see why I can be, because it’s not,

hi, thanks for tuning in for another episode of ask [inaudible] CPA. Today we’re talking about the stages of cold call prospect development. I Have Matt Hamon, sunesis financial here, special guests with us here today. Thanks, Matt for joining us. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about synthesis.

Your Edmonton Business Consultant, so this, this is a full spectrum financial advisory firm. We do everything from financial planning through insurance to portfolio management and private market investments if you’re into alternatives.

Excellent. Right on. So the, you know, talking in both the, you know, the cold call prospect Velon today, the quote that we have here today is from Peter Drucker wrote 39 business books and he says, nothing happens until someone sells something. That’s pretty good rule of business. I think. So the statistic that we’re looking at today is, you know, 50% of all Canadian small businesses go out of business within five years and 42% of those entrepreneurs will stay that their failure to attract enough customers was one of their primary reasons that they did not succeed at business. And that makes the failure to attract customers as the number one reason that businesses go out of business. So the story that we have here is, you know, business owners, they’re, they’re trying to bootstrap their business. You know, they don’t have either the time or the money that’s required to implement automated marketing systems that, you know, might be something to look at later on down the road. But for now they don’t have that time or money. And they tell us they’ve been trying to reach out to customers and by phone and they’re not having any success. So Matt, what are the questions that you think these business owners should be asking?

Well, cold calling can be tough and falling up on prospects can be tough. So how many times on average do people have to call or see an ad before they take action?

Yeah, so even if this was just an ad you’re running on Facebook or Google or anything, the average person has to see this ad 4.3 times before they’re going to take any action whatsoever. So you know an ad that’s running conventional, you don’t, the, the analytics tell us that it’s 4.3 times before anyone’s really going to take any action on this ad. And if your calling is it different by phone? Not really. In fact, it might even take more efforts. So you know the people who reach out and they call once, you know that one phone call and then they come back and say, oh, didn’t work. Cold calling didn’t work well it didn’t work because we didn’t put enough effort. And so, you know, just like any sort of conventional advertising or if we do cold calling, you’re going to have to reach out more than once. One time is just not right

going to work. And that first time are they going to wonder who are you? Like why are you calling me?

That’s usually the first reaction. Usually phone call, number one when you reach out to someone and say, who the heck is this guy? You know, you are not cocacola, you are not Pepsi or some small business that no one’s heard of before. And so your prospect has never heard of you. So their first reaction is who are you? That’s what they’re going to say the first time. Edmonton Business Consultant, and that’s going to be your first objective is to actually try to educate them on, you know, who you know, who you are. And then what’s the second call that a, that second call that’s really going to happen is they’re probably going to be annoyed. So here is number. This is the part that people don’t like is you know, number one, they’re wandering out who you are and now they found out who you are. You know, the second one is, is they’re likely going to be annoyed at you.

Um, what do you do in that situation? You really want to try and add some value. You want to give them something for nothing. Generally you want to give them a piece of advice that’s going to help them. This is something that they don’t have to pay for. And if it’s not a piece of advice and their business, it can be a gift basket and you can send them a Tim Horton’s gift card, um, or just can be a, you know, a well written email, something that they can use in their business. It could be something completely unrelated. I mean, Edmonton Business Consultant, you, you could show something that’s working in another, uh, another, Edmonton Business Consultant, another practice in their industry. So to generate curiosity. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You want to, you want to give this something. Is that a value? Really? So now they know who you are and to get them over that hump of them liking you, you want to give them something

value. Okay. But once they’re curious, how do you get them to trust you? How do you get them to become engaged with you?

Well that’s, that’s kind of that next step. So usually they’re going to go from annoyed to curious and really want to break down those little steps. So the first thing that, who are you and the next one, they’re going to be it. And the next one is, now they’re curious. So now you’ve got them past that point. And who is this person calling me? And now they’re curious. And now we’re looking at, this could be three phone calls in. So at that point, it’s that third phone call that they’re actually being, uh, you know, they’re actually have that curiosity to wonder, hey, what you’re doing really

at that point. So then after you start to build trust, you’ve got to get them to, like, you got to get them to want to meet with you or to, to, to be in business with you.

Probably even, you know, back up one step before, like once I become curious, there’s going to be one more natural reaction that they’re going to have in there is now that they’re curious, you know, they know who you are and they know what you’re do. They’re actually going to doubt what you do. So, uh, you know, they go from curiosity doing annoyance or so they go from who are you to, you know, to annoyance to, you know, becoming curious. And now it’s dealt naturally. It’s going to be doubt and you’re probably gonna have to provide some sort of proof and it’s probably going to be some sort of social proof. So whether that’s, you know, another testimonial from one of your clients or a white paper showing the analytics or you know, your Google reviews who reviews

Google reviews say, cause you’ve got 30 seconds generally for a cold call that at most, how are you going to, how are you going to build trust or, or provide value in that short of a time.

Um, I mean, if you can stay up behavior, you check us out on Google. We have, you know, we have over 40 Google reviews. Something really quick, really simple. Hey, I’m going to send you over another testimonial from someone over in your, in your industry, you know, hopefully, uh, he knows that, that that gets you on board really. So it’s really that you’re going to have to overcome that dealt, that’s the, that’s the next, the next part. Really

awesome. So how do you, what are some other touch points that you can do after they start to become comfortable with you? If they start to trust and, and like you,

you gently giving them information, right? So it’s, it’s generally you, it’s not always an ass. It’s gotta be, you have to give something of value. You know, Gary Vaynerchuk says it well, it’s the Jab, Jab, Jab, right hook. Um, so if all you do is right hook, right hook, right hook, and you’re never, you’re never going to land anything. So I think that’s what a lot of people try and doing cold calls and try and knock it all out at once. That’s right. You want to get that, the, the appointment, then the sale right over the phone the first time. And they don’t realize that they don’t have no idea who you are and they’re going to go through these natural forms of emotions. So, Edmonton Business Consultant, you know, then you have to get them to like and trust you. So it’s providing that social proof, you know, just being a personable person. If there’s any sort of rapport building that you can get, if you can find out any information about them, uh, business owners, a lot of talk about themselves, if you’re doing any sort of BDB and people in general. So, uh, if you can find out a point of common interest, you know, that’s really gonna help, you know, bridge the gap and help them start to, uh, trust in like you really.

So when do you cut the cord? Let’s say if there’s multiple, no responses, what, what should you expect in that situation? Should you expect that hundred percent pushing forward?

Hundred percent you’re going to expect it. And not only just expect it, treat it as if it didn’t happen. It’s not like I tried to reach out to you four times. You didn’t get back to me. It’s like, no, it just, it just didn’t happen. It was like, Hey, I’m just reaching out for you. It’s almost as if the, the no response didn’t happen at all. That’s really the way that you pursuing on that. So do you leave voice mails 100% all the time? All the time. Yeah. Leave voicemails. In fact, a lot of times following up by more than one forward communication each and every time a, so a voicemail and an email, voicemail and a Facebook message or voicemail and fax because you’ll be the only one who sends it back. Um, if you really want to get to cut through the noise, uh, that can be the, that can be the way you’ll be.

The only fax machine though. The probably didn’t know if it had ink in it still. So, um, it’s one of the creditors people’s when, when do you stop? Edmonton Business Consultant, I think you need to keep going. So now they actually like you and they trust you. You’re gonna realize you actually have to keep rolling at this point in order for them to actually, you know, do business with you or refer to you. Edmonton Business Consultant, so at, at this point, it’s not just about them, you know, understanding who you and becoming comfortable and you know, eliminating that dealt once they do like and trust you. If you stop, you’ve probably still not got any business. So you really have to continue to reach out after they like and trust you. So, you know, there’s the old saying and it sounds kind of harsh and it’s, you know, you continue to reach out until they buy die or tribe is really, you know, what, what it turns out to be great.

But that’s a, you know, kind of the one of the ways, but you really have to continue to reach out after. And how often do you reach out? Like every week, multiple times during the week. Every other week. Yeah. Yeah. Great question. So you really want a weekly as probably that ideal schedule that can be very difficult than a lot of entrepreneurs’ lives. But do you know that weekly is probably the one where if you really want to push the ball down the field as quickly as possible, weekly is probably the way to do it. But I would suggest to you that monthly is probably the bare minimum. So if you don’t reach out monthly, you know, you’re, you’re almost, yeah, yeah. You’re, you’re, you’re, you’re regressing, you know, the relationship can actually start regressing. So you, you got them all the way up to the point where they’re looking for that social proof in your variety and the social proof and then you get busy and you stop reaching out that relationship where we’re regress back in a couple of months to who are you again?

Yeah. Um, so it really, it, it, it does have to be a regular and I would suggest somewhere in between weekly and monthly is probably the sweet spot for how many, how many people do you suggest reaching out to? It depends on your time. So it really does depend on your time, but you have to be realistic on, if I put this list, this is a cold prospecting list that I’m going to put together, I don’t want more people on that list, then I can reach out to every single month. In most businesses I would suggest that you need at least a hundred if you don’t have at least a hundred. It’s not really going to be an effective strategy at all. Like he just not going to have enough data points. Edmonton Business Consultant, but at the same time you would rather a list of a hundred that you can reach out to each and every month.

Then a list of 1200 that you can reach, you have to once per year. Edmonton Business Consultant, so you, you have to look at that and you should be really discerning when you assemble that list. You know, who am I putting on this list? You know, where’s my time blocks actually reach out to these people? Can I reach out to them weekly? If not, am I going to reach out to them at least monthly? And is it reasonable before I put 500 people on that list, do I have time to make 500 phone calls each and every month? Because a lot of times you’d be better off putting fewer people on that list, but reaching out to them more frequently because you’re just going to have to get them through all of those stages. You know, the rate from, you know, they want to the first phone call who you are, and then the next phone call, they’re annoyed with you and, and, and we just keep moving them down through the process. So, uh, that’s really the key. That was helpful. Yeah. So I think that’s what we have here today. Thanks so much for joining us. As always, the police at the light can subscribe buttons. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below and we’ll address your comments and possibly use it for content for future video. Thanks very much.