Cold calling for my startup and how I learned to embrace the challenge
hackernoon.comI hate getting cold calls. So I avoid doing it to other people.
Yes that makes me less of a salesman. So be it.
Tangent: In India you can report unsolicited sales calls to a central (government) authority, where you can sign up to get on a "Do Not Disturb" list, and get any sales caller who ignores this fined, and eventually get his number disconnected etc.
The system isn't perfect, and there are some impressive hacks to bypass it, but the situation now is much better than before these regulations existed. Where one used to get multiple spammers a day, now weeks and months can go by before getting one (who I promptly report). My number must be on some shared "cranky idiot who hates cold callers" list, I almost never get these calls now.
A minister was interrupted in parliament while presenting the annual national budget (iirc) by someone who wanted to sell him a credit card(!), which led to this regulation.
And it is a godsend. Cold callers should all burn in hellfire (imo)
Are you an entrepreneur? Have you built a business? When things are done to extreme sure.. the slimy salesman or the spammy robo-calls are a nuisance.
Take a list of the world's 400 billionaires and ask them who has NOT Cold-Called?
My guess is its less than 10. Or to put it another may, most successful people Cold-called, their "heros" or experts in their field or successful people in town etc.
So I disagree the way you put cold-calling.
If you want to start a business, I strongly suggest you to change you attitude towards Sales. Unfortunately, Engineers have this unjustified hate towards Sales, not every sales pitch or call is unethical or pushy.
Given that 20% of the people on the billionaires list were already on there by inhereting the money, I'd be willing to take that bet.
Yes, all cold calling is horrible and unethical. Whether or not it works is besides the point.
This is an interesting perspective. I agree that some types of cold-calling are terrible, like if you sell credit cards and just randomly call anyone who might want a credit card. This is untargeted, and if everyone who sold general-purpose goods did it, we'd all be inundated.
In the B2B context, things seem a little different, especially for startups who have products that are not known. If you work in a particular field and someone calls you to tell you about their new product that is relevant to your company and your specific role, that seems much less terrible than the untargeted calling described above. And in some cases, you may actually be glad that you were called. I don't think it's fair to say that "all cold calling is horrible and unethical", since it can be done in very targeted ways. And small startups in particular (who are here on HN) often try to cold-call in as targeted a way as possible—because when you're spending CEO time on the phone, you're very sensitive to wasting anyone's time.
At the end of the day, it comes down to balancing the benefits to people who are glad you called and the detriment to people whose time you wasted. If you're not targeted, you're likely a net negative to society. If you're very targeted (as many small startups are), there's a much greater chance you're a net positive.
I like getting contacted about things that don't stink. Some things don't sell themselves.
Horrible and unethical? Goodness.
You can be an entrepreneur and still hate receiving cold calls.
Just like you can be a dentist and hate getting tooth fillings.
Or you can be a surgeon, and hate having surgery.
Another one that seems increasingly prominent in the tech/web space is cold email newsletter subscriptions.
I occasionally receive emails from lists specific to trendy-looking SaaS/PaaS products that I've never even heard of. Just the same the emails will start rolling in telling me that my wait was up and their launch is just beginning and "come grab a promo-price for one month" if I sign on for a year, etc.
When I first received anything like that, I thought maybe I'd just forgotten that I'd seen it and asked for updates— but no. After seeing more upon more, I realized that I was just getting spammed. Except none of it gets filtered out, because they don't carry the markings of what I'll lazily classify as 'traditional' spam.
What's the most effective response in this situation? Officially opting out and then marking the "I never signed up for this list" button? I've wondered what threshold an emailer has to hit before MailChimp or whomever will give them the boot. Perhaps it's just better to mark as spam in Gmail or in your mail client so that their future email will be more likely to be marked as spam (for you and for everyone else).
I've also wondered if there was a way to connect email spammers to each other. Like send an email to two spammers who had both emailed me and try to engage them with each other. I haven't figured out an elegant/useful way to do this yet.
You're probably right about marking them spam. Often I'm just trying to be quick so I unsubscribe, check this "never signed up" option if it exists, and carry on.
It would be fun to toy with them, but really I just wonder how they think others will look favourably upon their business when they try to make a sale that way. Maybe not everybody feels the same way, but it just seems cheap. Then again, my cell provider just initiated texting me advertisements randomly so I guess if it can be done, it will be done...
If you cold-call me, I will spend the first few minutes feeding you false information. I will deliberately drag out the process, and at about 12min into the call, I will confess that I've been faking everything. At this point, I will attempt to tilt you so that you lose your temper and start cursing at me. On a really good day, you'll be so angry that your manager will have to come onto the call. I will feed them a few minutes of fake information, then attempt to tilt them as well. On the best days, you and your manager will sit around a reverse phone book and dox me, looking to find ways to intimidate or control me while I laugh and attempt to keep you on the line. My record is 52min, lasting over multiple phone calls, ending in a dramatic reading of a maths paper over the phone to a speakerphone consisting of three levels of management.
I want your business to fail if you cold-call.
Lol. You do realize that you are wasting your time, not mine?
My business succeeds BECAUSE of cold calls. So your drop in the ocean matters not.
How many cold calls can you make per day?
What if they're 52 minutes long?
One useful tip I got from a friend in sales: open the call with an offer to set up a call at a more convenient time. It seems strange to immediately ask for another call, but it is really helpful in showing that you're friendly/flexible, and you recognize that the person you're calling is busy.
About 30% of the time, the person was happy to chat in the moment (they had chosen to answer a call from an unknown number, after all). And the rest of the time, you benefit from setting up a time that is more convenient for them. Some of the time you end up never having the later call—but it seems this happens where there wasn't a great fit to begin with, so it actually saves you time talking to an unlikely lead.
This is a great technique.
1. Ask if they have 30 seconds to chat.
2. If they say no, ask for another time that works better. People are polite, so many will not say no. Schedule this time immediately and have them confirm on the calendar right away.
3. If they say yes, immediately start asking them empathetic questions that demonstrate knowledge of their problems, followed by, "Does any of this resonate with you?"
Being honest, what I would do: schedule a time for the call back and make sure to not pick up the phone at that time.
Cold calls like will likely get forwarded to our internal extension that relays to "Lenny". The longest we've had someone on the line talking to the bot is currently at 8:37 on the leaderboard. :D
I don't understand this. Say you're not interested and move on. Being a dick to someone trying to earn a living says a lot about your character. And I promise, the sales rep doesn't care. Their job is dials and talk time. Your bot is helping them reach their daily quota.
So you're already promising you don't care about the person you're trying to sell to? Hooooo boy, where do I sign up for your product!?
To respond to your first statement, telemarketers don't take no, or not interested for an answer.
You contradict yourself, first you say I'm being a dick, but then you say you don't care. So which is it?
Cold calling people you have no previous relationship with is a dick move. Lenny just helps some people return the favor.
419 scammers are "just trying to earn a living" too.
I call people I don't know all the time because I have something valuable to offer and want to share that with them. It's no different than any form of advertising....its just more direct. Put another way, if I could call you today and offer you a service or product that solved a big problem you have for a fair renumeration you would be thankful.
Other forms of advertising don't make my office phone ring while I'm in the middle of something, or make my home phone ring while I'm eating dinner to ambush me. Cold calling makes e-mail spammers look polite by comparison.
Also, despite the fact that I despise and block everything the internet ad industry throws at me, that industry arguably provides something in return for the trouble of putting up with their bullshit. Cold calling provides me with absolutely nothing beyond a rude interruption of my day at best.
I don't care what you're offering, because I subconsciously tag anything associated with cold calling as a scam and file it in the same mental folder as that "free cruise" I "won".
Is it a whitepaper? I bet it's a whitepaper that I absolutely can NOT live without.
Unless you're purposely hiding yourself from the internet(I don't want to deal with you anyhow). Then why can't I just discover you on Google for my target?
Or are you selling me something that I had no idea I needed?
I will guarantee that for anyone who calls me unsolicited to sell something, I will do everything in my power never to buy your products.
> "Being a dick to someone trying to earn a living says a lot about your character."
Wow, you hit the nail right on the head. Being a dick to someone trying to earn a living does say a lot about your character.
Cold calling someone is being a dick to someone trying to earn a living. Period.
Cold calling is wildly effective. It just takes making more than 2 calls a week. I tell my team "get 100 on the phone without selling something and I'll give you $100" been doing that for years and have never paid a rep the $100.
Eh... I'm not sure about "wildly effective." A few years ago I started a business and cold called for several hours each day for the first four months. I didn't make a single sale, and I'm told I have an excellent phone presence.
What succeeded for me was SEO, direct mail, and email campaigns. I still had to do sales pitches, but I was working off warm leads from people that actually wanted to hear from me.
I'm not saying cold calling doesn't work. I'm saying it's an inefficient use of time. Yes, some people will buy, but there are far more efficient ways of reaching potential clients.
It probably depends a lot on your type of product.
It sounds you tried different scripts, tones, outcome frames, pacing/leading, pausing, emphasising key words, right people on the phone etc..?
Somebody liked the sound of your voice, however the sales numbers suggest something isn't lining up. Read your script out loud and record it with iPhone. You can pretty much sell anything cold calling enough people.
Could be the product you are selling, but sounds like there could more efficient ways to proceed if you ever start cold calling again.
It wasn't wildly effective for you, over four months, for your product/service to the specific people you called at the price you offered. A valid data point for sure, but far from empirical.
No true cold caller.
Really depends on what your offering is. If everyone else is also cold calling for your service, it's probably not going to work. If very few people are cold calling / cold e-mailing with your very valuable service that solves an urgent need, then it will be highly effective.
Cold outreach with a lot of effort/expense put into it is also a different beast from the typical cold call.
What's your experience with people actually enjoying it or at least not hating it and finding such people? I have done cold calling myself but found it very exhausting to the point that I just couldn't do it anymore.
Everyone hates cold calling. Everyone. Some people like the challenge and the reward of getting a total stranger to spend money. But no one actually like a cold calling.
But there are a lot of things we do professionally that we don't enjoy. Expense reports are a huge time sink and I hate doing them. But I hate not getting reimbursed even more.
If you are trying to hire salespeople who can cold call well then I suggest looking for people that are highly organized, process driven, friendly and good storytellers. During the interview try and pay attention to how many times they say "uh" "like" and "you know." Ask them their favorite experience from last summer and see if the way they tell the story is interesting. Try to get them to tell you if they have student loans, a mortgage, a family...anything that indicates a greater immediate financial need. Challenge something they said and see if they defend themselves (competitiveness). The best salesperson I know is crazy as a shithouse rat and rather unreliable...until I tell him I met a guy that's better at sales than he is. Then he gets to work and does things that will blow your mind (cold call to 5 figure deal in 2 weeks). The second best cold caller I know told me in the interview "I hate cold calls. But I love Chanel."
It takes a personality type but it isn't difficult work at all. Most people are just scared and/or don't spend enough time on the work.
> Try to get them to tell you if they have student loans, a mortgage, a family...anything that indicates a greater immediate financial need.
Uh... Might not want to do that actually.
I didn't say to ask. I said to try and get them to tell you. Big difference.
And people say they hate cold callers! Why could this be??
A lot of people will be very happy to talk to you if you are not a complete a...h.... and offer something that interests them.
State management and selling something you find to be beneficiary to client helps.
I Haven't done it for ages but damn making a sale is a great feeling :) Kinda makes me want to google start ups looking for sales people based on commission. Would be fun to experiment stuff I've learned since those days.
I have a few friends that do this - fully staffed businesses for outsourced sales for startups. I do it myself on the side. We work only on commission and make a killing. So many startups are founded by people that want nothing to do with selling. They gladly pay the fees.
When I did my product I would have paid serious commission to someone who does the "dirty work" of selling and is actually good at it.
Cold calling is not for me. I hate even answering email or inbound communication.
One thing I've realized working on my own is that you can do anything you want. You don't have to do the thing you hate the most to make progress. It will feel draining, feel like more work, and be less productive than focusing on where you are strong.
You've made a living being self-employed and by doing exactly what you want to do?
Is that it?
How do you accomplish that without communicating with others?
Yes. I find projects that do not require much human communication. Some is fine.
You always have to do things you don't like when building a business. I'm just saying don't make something you don't like part of your scaling strategy.
Cold calling me is a guaranteed way to prevent yourself from ever getting my business, and I know I'm not alone in that. My subconscious automatically tags companies that cold call as scams.
I have to say I fall into this bucket.
Most of the cold calls I get are, in fact, scams— so to save myself agony and time-out-of-life, that's the category it goes into for me.
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Two shorts:
Number one:
I regularly get rotating numbers calling from scam credit collection agencies (second-tier, purchased bad loans allegedly). I regularly now get called for somebody who isn't me, and they're always threatening. Though my favourite was receiving a threatening call once about 'urgent business matters' that pertained to me owing a significant amount of money in outstanding debt to the company I currently work for, and hold accounts with. Ridiculous. That's the camp cold calls fall under for me.
Number two, and so much more infuriating:
a major telecom company held a sales campaign in the lobby of my apartment building. For a week! Every day when I arrived home I would be confronted by two or three sales people to try and convince me to change internet providers. And god they were persistent. Even worse, two of the four elevators were down so most of the people in the building were sitting ducks who couldn't very well escape. Couldn't even deal with the doorman to pick up a package without one sidling up to try and sell to me while I was in a conversation.
Just thinking about it grinds me. If I need something, I will look to buy it. If I recognize inefficiency in my day or workflow or whatever—I will pursue a solution. If I am unhappy with how much I'm paying for internet or some other service, I will try to find something better.
What I don't want is to be confronted and put on the spot when I'm not actively seeking to do business.
Cold calling is an extremely effective strategy for us. Most important lesson I learned building our SDR program is that nobody natively likes cold calling so to do it well, it needs to be their only job.
When I had account managers that had to do their own cold calling they greatly underperformed. When I had someone whose only job was to cold call and book demos which were then closed by account managers one person was getting more meetings than all my account managers combined.
Some people don’t like getting cold calls, I personally don’t mind and the number of people that don’t mind statistically out number the ones who do. We have tons of data to support this. I highly recommend evaluating this as a strategy in any B2B customer acquisition program.
> the number of people that don’t mind (cold calls) statistically out number the ones who do. We have tons of data to support this. I highly recommend evaluating this as a strategy in any B2B customer acquisition program.
I don't doubt it's a good strategy, but I doubt most people actually "don't mind". What kind of data do you have to support your claim?
If you replace "don't mind" with "tolerate", I would find it more believable.
Cold calling can be extremely effective if you can make yourself do it. Some years ago I did that for a few weeks to promote a piece of software I wrote and I made a ton of interesting connections. Not just for my product but there are a lot of small business owners who are very willing to discuss business in general and you can gain a lot of business ideas that way. It can be very exhausting though if you don't enjoy talking a lot or take rejection personally.
Are there any good resources on who to call and where to get phone numbers? Obviously it should be potential customers, but should it be the CTO of the company if it is tech product for example? And how do you get their phone number?
My experience is only with small companies and there you can take any phone number and it will be easy to get to the boss. With bigger companies there is a lot of strategy needed to get to someone who can make a decision.
Yes. But you don't need them. You need Google, LinkedIn, a spreadsheet and time. Calling the main line of 99% of companies will get you to the person you are looking for. The other 1% are multibillion dollar companies that aren't going to buy from you.
Actually, multibillion dollar companies make the best customers, because they won't balk at a $400,000 contract, they'll expect it.