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    Walking Does Not Work - Kenny Madden Article

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved IT Discussion
    76 Posts 13 Posters 23.5k Views
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    • K
      kennym Vendor
      last edited by

      Some thoughts:

      tThe traditional numbers-focused sales and marketing model has fallen apart. Especially when selling or marketing technology products to savvy, tech folks. They don’t care about our products and services, they care about what those things can do for the businesses they run. The old school strategy of hiring more “feet on the street” or hiring 100’s of inside sales people to cold call 100’s of times a day looking for sales growth or generating volumes of leads is proving wildly inefficient.

      Here are 4 easy tips to help you get above the clutter and noise in less time than it takes to make a cup of coffee…

      Go to the website of the company you’re calling before picking up the phone. You are now in the TOP 10% of sales/marketing people in the US.
      Go to the website and actually read something about the business you’re calling. Congrats you just made the TOP 5% of sales/marketing people in the US.
      Go to the company’s website, read something , tailor a specific message that fits their business OR tell them something they don’t know. TOP 1% (Read: Exceptional credibility. )

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • MattSpellerM
        MattSpeller @Deleted74295
        last edited by

        @Breffni-Potter

        You're looking at this from the perspective of a nice person who wants to make friends and shake hands and do good business. This is not the perspective of someone who cold calls (at least in my experience).

        Deleted74295D K scottalanmillerS 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Deleted74295D
          Deleted74295 Banned @MattSpeller
          last edited by

          @MattSpeller said:

          @Breffni-Potter

          You're looking at this from the perspective of a nice person who wants to make friends and shake hands and do good business.

          Nothing as nice as that...I just want to make money. 🙂

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • K
            kennym Vendor @MattSpeller
            last edited by

            @MattSpeller i suppose i am Matt 🙂

            MattSpellerM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • MattSpellerM
              MattSpeller @Deleted74295
              last edited by

              @Breffni-Potter said:

              Is the 1% who listen to cold calls my target market?

              100% are your target market, it's your job to keep them on the phone, invite them for lunch, offer them deals, occasionally be a jerk, bait and switch, beg, borrow, steal, promise and anything else you can possibly do to get them to be your customer. How far you go with it depends directly on how bad you want their business in my experience.

              The people I anger, Will I not be making my customer base smaller?

              Yeah absolutely. There's also an argument to be made that you're intentionally sorting out the wheat (dumb rich customers) from the chaff (smart fiscally responsible ones). You want the wheat.

              How much does it cost for me to be making those calls? If I take on a sales guy to do it, how much is he costing me for a 1% success rate?

              Well, to start an hour a day of your own time. I suggest getting some real hard core sales training first. There is quite the knack to it.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • scottalanmillerS
                scottalanmiller @MattSpeller
                last edited by

                @MattSpeller said:

                @Breffni-Potter

                You're looking at this from the perspective of a nice person who wants to make friends and shake hands and do good business. This is not the perspective of someone who cold calls (at least in my experience).

                Right, making sales and doing good work is often at odds with each other. No good answers around that. But that's why you rarely see awesome products making tons of money, you see mediocre ones with great sales people.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • aaron-closed accountA
                  aaron-closed account Banned @Dashrender
                  last edited by

                  This post is deleted!
                  K scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • K
                    kennym Vendor @aaron-closed account
                    last edited by

                    @aaron yep. I have found being upfront honest and really straight to the point works well.

                    scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • MattSpellerM
                      MattSpeller @kennym
                      last edited by

                      @kennym said:

                      @MattSpeller i suppose i am Matt 🙂

                      Prepare yourself for 110% top quality absolutely disgusting human being, but good lord the man can sell over the phone.

                      Youtube Video

                      mlnewsM K 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • scottalanmillerS
                        scottalanmiller @kennym
                        last edited by

                        @kennym said:

                        @aaron yep. I have found being upfront honest and really straight to the point works well.

                        More than most things 🙂 Once the buyer gets that used car salesman feeling, it's fight or flight in most cases.

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                        • mlnewsM
                          mlnews @MattSpeller
                          last edited by

                          @MattSpeller said:

                          @kennym said:

                          @MattSpeller i suppose i am Matt 🙂

                          Prepare yourself for 110% top quality absolutely disgusting human being, but good lord the man can sell over the phone.

                          Youtube Video

                          The problem with sales products like this is... they are sold by an expert salesman. The training is probably crap but you'll buy it just because he is so good at sales!

                          MattSpellerM 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • MattSpellerM
                            MattSpeller @mlnews
                            last edited by

                            @mlnews said:

                            @MattSpeller said:

                            @kennym said:

                            @MattSpeller i suppose i am Matt 🙂

                            Prepare yourself for 110% top quality absolutely disgusting human being, but good lord the man can sell over the phone.

                            The problem with sales products like this is... they are sold by an expert salesman. The training is probably crap but you'll buy it just because he is so good at sales!

                            Absolutely true, but how better to show successful tactics than to watch a master at work 🙂

                            (please FTLOG do not buy anything that sleezy creep is selling, ever, even if he has water and you're on fire)

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • scottalanmillerS
                              scottalanmiller @aaron-closed account
                              last edited by

                              @aaron said:

                              Kenny defines cold calling as "You are calling someone not expecting your call - It's cold mate"

                              Yes, an unsolicited communication is cold calling. Unless I have reached out to you via phone/email, it's a cold call because I am not interested.

                              Scenario #2 happens to me and I entertain it because you reached a superior or someone important, but I am still not buying. If there are phrases like "Not sure if it's appropriate" or words like assumption/traction/goals means it's going into the junk mail bin.

                              I make it easier.... my extension is not public and no one on the team is a direct buyer. So if you want to sell something, you have to get through to someone and then get that someone to convince other people that they aren't just swallowing a sales line. We get just about zero cold calls through to anyone that would consider buying something. Works really well.

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                              • K
                                kennym Vendor @MattSpeller
                                last edited by

                                @MattSpeller Ha. i know i know. 🙂

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • scottalanmillerS
                                  scottalanmiller
                                  last edited by

                                  I've mentioned several times... why cold call when someone could, for example, hop into ML and engage with me here? It's so easy to establish a relationship if you want to actually connect to clients. Pure cold calling seems exceptionally lazy.

                                  K C 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                  • K
                                    kennym Vendor @scottalanmiller
                                    last edited by

                                    Scott Nails it i think. The beauty of a conversation.

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                                    • scottalanmillerS
                                      scottalanmiller
                                      last edited by

                                      I think that the conversation on this one dovetails nicely with the one here:

                                      http://mangolassi.it/topic/8625/what-is-gated-vs-non-gated-content/13

                                      It's email, not phone calls, but spam is spam.

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                                      • C
                                        Carnival Boy @scottalanmiller
                                        last edited by

                                        @scottalanmiller said:

                                        I've mentioned several times... why cold call when someone could, for example, hop into ML and engage with me here? It's so easy to establish a relationship if you want to actually connect to clients. Pure cold calling seems exceptionally lazy.

                                        I'd be interested to know how many clients members here have actually got through ML (or other forums). I'd be surprised if it was very many. I imagine it's more successful for vendors than service providers, but still pretty low. Anyone want to give their experiences?

                                        scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • scottalanmillerS
                                          scottalanmiller @Carnival Boy
                                          last edited by

                                          @Carnival-Boy said:

                                          @scottalanmiller said:

                                          I've mentioned several times... why cold call when someone could, for example, hop into ML and engage with me here? It's so easy to establish a relationship if you want to actually connect to clients. Pure cold calling seems exceptionally lazy.

                                          I'd be interested to know how many clients members here have actually got through ML (or other forums). I'd be surprised if it was very many. I imagine it's more successful for vendors than service providers, but still pretty low. Anyone want to give their experiences?

                                          You mean MSPs getting clients? Not a lot because this is a community for the MSPs more than the clients (because most MSP clients are not IT people themselves but companies without IT that would not be in a community like this.) So the total number as an absolute value is low, but as a percentage of IT pros I think that it is very high.

                                          For vendors (the HPEs, Dells, Webroots, Xen Orchestras and so forth) I think that the value is extremely high. Value meaning rate and absolute number of customers picked up or retained.

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                                          • C
                                            Carnival Boy @Deleted74295
                                            last edited by

                                            @Breffni-Potter said:

                                            Hi @kennym

                                            If cold calling does work, why do so many vendors lose my business when they do it?

                                            I've got a company, I want to generate more sales, how do I do it with cold calling then without

                                            • Turning people off
                                            • Annoying people
                                            • Getting added to a phone black list.

                                            I don't answer my phone any more, but when I did you're probably the kind of caller who I would be receptive to - a senior IT guy not a salesman, and a small business owner. Companies like that have been succesful with me in the past.

                                            What I really hate is firms who outsource their cold calling to specialist marketing firms (which is about 90% of cold calls). If you can't be bothered to talk to me and outsource it, why should I. I've thought about outsourcing my call answering to someone else so two call centre monkeys can have endless conversations with each other.

                                            scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
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