# General Business Category > Marketing Forum >  Cold Calling Agents/Telesales marketers

## Mark Atkinson

Hi guys,

Just wanted some quick estimates on what you think I could end up paying per targeted lead should I have somebody cold-calling for me?

This is a time consuming process and right now time is something I don't really have much of. 

I would probably be willing to pay around R200 per *quality* lead.

I'm just looking for something to supplement my other marketing activities, such as my Adwords campaign (which is *not* cheap).  I believe there is still merit in cold-calling applicable businesses. 

Perhaps I should employ an assistant to do all these things for me!  :Stick Out Tongue:

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## Perform Computers

Mark, would this person be cold-calling on your premises, or would they be using their own phone line?

I had a woman once asking R1000 per meeting setup. She calls at her own expense, and sets up meetings. However, it's up to you to close.

But R1000, damn steep.

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Mark Atkinson (15-Jul-11)

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## watermetersupplier

sometimes cold calling works. Phone a company and tell phone answer-er what you really wanna do. Don't make non-stop introduction. You gotta check out if they really are in need of your stuff. You can persist if they physically have.  Quit it if they objectively don't need any. Then follow up the potential customer. To acquaint them with your items. Make them believe you can offer items of their need at competitive price. Do it step by step, you can achieve more. By the way, i once worked for a telemarketing company.

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Mark Atkinson (15-Jul-11), Nienke (01-Aug-11)

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## IanF

Mark
This Lady is the cold calling queen in the USA Wendy

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Mark Atkinson (15-Jul-11), Nienke (01-Aug-11)

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## Mark Atkinson

@Andrew - Thanks. I did read your thread about that. R1000 is way beyond what I can afford to pay per lead. The problem is that many of our customers are once off sales, as opposed to repeat business. It may be 2 or 3 years before a contact looks for a redesign of something.  For repeat business, perhaps R1k a lead is worth it.

@Ian - Thanks, interesting site. The problem, however, is not how to cold call - but finding the time in which to do it!  :Wink:  I think I may hold back on this until we're employing a decent assistant/PA.  That way, I can direct her to Wendy's site to learn more and we can have cold calling in-house.  :Smile:  I am going to spend a bit of time on the site reading what she's got to say, though. Looks promising.

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## Justloadit

Maybe set aside to do say 3 cold calls a day. This way you do not have to spend too much time, and also you get over the negative vibes you get from cold calling. Slowly you get into the grove and do this automatically, and before you know it, you may get a good lead every week. Hit miss ratio is about 3% on a cold call to a sale.

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Mark Atkinson (15-Jul-11), Nienke (01-Aug-11)

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## Blurock

I have always been against cold calling and prefer networking and prospecting. It is more focused and effective as you target a specific market whereas a shotgun approach may irritate people to the extent that they run away when you are in the area. (refer timeshare, credit cards, insurance and MLM). 

Do you intend employing a telemarketer or just pay a referral fee for introductions? The fee should be worthwhile to the introducer, but also cost effective to sustain your business. Reward existing clients, friends and family for word of mouth referrals.

Cold calling statistics proves that it is the most ineffective form of marketing, as success rates may be as low as 0.1%. The average is about 7% if you have a good system. So, do you have a mailing list that you can prospect from? Have you defined your target market? Who will you be calling on? Do you have a follow up system?

 I recently came across some other discouraging data about cold calls:  "...you have to speak to 100 people in order to generate 3 buying customers. And in our organization I track numbers and it takes about 10 Calls to actually reach and have a presentation with a live person." So how many of those 10 presentations will be converted to a sale?

 Research indicates that an executive will only be receptive to talking with you after seeing your message at least nine times, and since only one out of three messages will reach on average, it takes twenty-seven attempts to gain a qualified appointment with a prospect. No salesperson ever makes twenty-seven attempts to reach a prospect, and therefore no sale takes place. This is just more evidence that salespeople absolutely MUST get away from cold calling and integrate a solid marketing system into their overall strategy. Tools such as e-mail newsletters to prospects and automated autoresponders are absolutely essential to gain an edge over the competition.

I love numbers because numbers don't lie. When someone tells me that cold calling works, I agree that it does indeed work... about 0.01% of the time.
With acknowledgement to Frank Rambauskas.

You can read more at Website: http://www.frankrumbauskas.com

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Mark Atkinson (16-Jul-11)

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## Blurock

I should maybe also define my perception of cold calling. Cold calling is when you do not know what you are doing. You then take the phone book or similar data and set out to irritate people who are trying to earn a living by wasting their time trying to sell them some useless information. (Satisfaction - the Rolling Stones)  :Rant1:

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Mark Atkinson (16-Jul-11)

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## Justloadit

When you in a new place with no friends or referrals, this is the only option. And let me tell you it sucks, been there done that, but was fortunate to get 1 sale out of the 15 calls I made that day. I then packed up and left.

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## Perform Computers

> I should maybe also define my perception of cold calling. Cold calling is when you do not know what you are doing. You then take the phone book or similar data and set out to irritate people who are trying to earn a living by wasting their time trying to sell them some useless information. (Satisfaction - the Rolling Stones)


I disagree with you on this one. I've done plenty of cold calling. Walk-in's. Not randomly opening the phone book. I target SME's. Not large companies. One of my most lucrative clients have come from this method, walk-in's. Cold calling is horrible, and if you don't know what you're doing then yes, you are wasting people's time.

But useless information? I disagree strongly with this Blurock. A good businessman should stay on top of things. So if someone calls you wanting to sell you tupperware, he may be wasting your time THEN, but in 6 months time when your wife needs tupperware or you have a friend who wants to start a business with tupperware, would THAT useless information you got 6 months ago not maybe HELP the person in their current situation?

My point is, certain information might be useless to you, but not to someone else. Cold calling is horrible, everyone hates it. But I take my hat off to the people who do it. 

Which reminds me, it's that time again for me to start doing it again. I think I just got excited & depressed all at once. :/

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## mother

Is the success rate for cold calling really on average 3% and 7% with a good system? Wow, that is much higher than I would ever have imagined. In all my years at the Edgars group and mr Price group, we would always get real excited about anything over 4% return on ad-spend. I know this is not comparing apples to apples, but I'm just thinking, whether we're talking time or money, the success rate of advertising v cold calling seem pretty much the same. I never knew this.

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## Justloadit

The problem with magazine and newspaper advertising is the same as going bird hunting with a pellet gun in a dark room. You shoot to take the bird out which you know is in there, so how much chance have you got?

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## Mark Atkinson

If the success rate is between 3 and 7%, I'd venture to say that's a pretty decent return.  If I'm making one lead from 25 phone calls, that's still pretty good going.  

Seriously speaking, I'd pay around R200 on average for a decent lead.  Whether cold calling delivers at R200 or less per lead remains to be seen. Should be interesting, though.

At the moment we're getting too many leads to deal with considering our schedules. It's actually forced me to pause my Adwords campaign for the time being.  I'm sure it will slow down at some point, though. I will then be trying out various lead generation methods, including cold calling, and will report back on my findings.  :Smile:

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## mother

That's so true Justloadit! And yet thousands of ads still appear daily in print media. In my opinion the only 2 ad-campaigns worth their money are to promote brand awarenes or to advertise a sale. I think the marketing world needs a revolution. I have found in my business as well, any kind of advertising that resembles the norm, is wasted. Consumers today are so well-informed, so pressed for time, so disappointed by most, and so strapped for cash, you need to communicate with them in a way that does not resemble advertising.

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Dave A (21-Jul-11)

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## Mark Atkinson

Just as an addition, this is the problem I find with small business marketing.

I want to try everything. The problem with that is that a small business generally doesn't have the marketing budget to effectively test and gather ROI information on a bunch of marketing methods in a reasonable time space. For example an Adwords campaign, if my budget is limited to R100 a day, and a click is costing me R20, it's going to take a lot longer than one would like to gauge the effectiveness of any changes to your campaign. If you could set a budget of, say, R500 a day, it would be a different story. Unfortunately most small businesses can't afford to do this.  :Frown:

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## Blurock

Would you call on a CEO or business owner to sell tupperware? If I wanted tupperware I could google it and no doubt come up with a whole list of suppliers. Yes it would be useless information and I would be p***ed off if you tried to sell it to me.

If you did your homework though, you would have known that I am married and maybe, just maybe my wife would be interested. Now how do you get an appointment with my wife? THAT is prospecting. Do your homework first. Select your target market and do not waste my time with cold calling. 

There is a distinct difference between COLD calling and prospecting. The one gets results, the other is a shot in the dark.
 :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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AndyD (18-Jul-11), Nienke (01-Aug-11)

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## Mark Atkinson

Hi Blurock,

I think there is a misunderstanding. I have been using the term "cold calling" as a very general term. I guess I should have said prospecting as you are thinking of cold calling in its very literal sense, but I feel that cold calling has become the name for any sort of telephonic marketing these days. 

So to clear that up, yes I'm referring to *prospecting.* Why on earth would I phone people blindly asking if they wanted design work done? We know who our target market is and market to those people accordingly.  :Smile:

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## Perform Computers

> Hi Blurock,
> 
> I think there is a misunderstanding. I have been using the term "cold calling" as a very general term. I guess I should have said prospecting as you are thinking of cold calling in its very literal sense, but I feel that cold calling has become the name for any sort of telephonic marketing these days. 
> 
> So to clear that up, yes I'm referring to *prospecting.* Why on earth would I phone people blindly asking if they wanted design work done? We know who our target market is and market to those people accordingly.


Couldn't agree more.

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## Justloadit

Yes I have meant prospecting as opposed to cold calling, it may be that we are misinterpreting the statement. Especially in my line of work, niche user designed specific product.

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## Blurock

Now that we understand the difference between prospecting and cold calling (brrr shivers down my spine) how do we prospect effectively? Small businesses do not have excess funds for marketing, so how do we get the best return for our buck?

My advice: YOU are the business. Market yourself and you will be marketing your business. Just make sure that you live up to what you stand for. Appearances count, perceptions count, service is important etc etc. 

I like Mark's quote from Socrates: "The way to gain a good reputation, is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear."
 :Clap:

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## johnwarner75

If you did decide to hire somebody external to your office, you would need to give them a email with your co. domain and set up call forwarding. Depending on your line of business it could work?

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