Guest Post: The Send first/Phone first dilemma

I don't know of anyone (probably because my contact list is light on masochists) who actually likes cold calling.

On the other hand, I'm reluctant to rule it out as a marketing technique because I keep hearing stories of how well it works, if done well. Marketing Mentee Jennifer Neal, Managing Partner of K9 Design Co., recently devised a great hack for cold calling that not only eases things considerably, but is showing great results.

I'll let her tell the rest...

For those of you who are daunted by the thought of calling a prospective lead or contact please read this.

Although I am not opposed to "cold calling" I don't love it and I can usually find 20 other "more important" things to do before I finally psych myself up to start them only to realize it's 4:55 p.m.

Over the last month, Ilise and I have worked together to write a letter that accompanies a sample publication that we are particularly proud of. This letter and the sample will go out -- 10 per week -- to a very targeted list that we are attempting to do business with. The snail mail cost is $2.65 per package plus the fancy envelope that we chose to send it out in. That's $26.50 per week.

The results have blown even me away. I cannot believe how easy it makes it for me to call them now. My first 2 calls were off-the-charts-great with referrals to other leads and purchasers of my services. Even though I still get the odd crunchy voice and many voice mails, we now we have something to talk about. Several of the contacts have been so happy to know that specialists like us exist and immediately have told me about upcoming opportunities they want us involved in.

It took us some difficult business soul searching to finally bite the bullet and decide to niche in one particular area but once we did and started to market ourselves that way - the possibilities seem to be endless. I can't imagine being a jack-of-all-design trades now.

So please take my advice and do 2 things:

1. Target your business and I mean target your business -- it makes marketing so much easier and matter of fact. (I am a convert!)
2. Create what I call a "cold calling crutch" and get something out to your targets before you call them -- it makes the calls easier. We all deserve for this to be easy.

Take the time and do this - you'll be so happy you did. At first I felt it was a cop out to have this "crutch" but now I think it is just brilliant! It's my new marketing thing.

Comments

[Jasmine Holmes]

I am currently developing my mail out promotion and preparing to start a cold call campaign. I had wondered whether I should send the piece first or call first. After reading about Jennifer's success, I am going to send my mailing first. I was very nervous about approaching prospects out of the blue and I will definitely feel more comfortable having paved the way with my mailer. This posting absolutely helped solve a major dilemma that I have been facing. Hopefully, my efforts will be as well received as Jennifer's.

[MrPositioning.com (Stanley Bronstein)]

I look at it this way.

It's EXACTLY the same experience I learned when I started dating and I was afraid to call the best looking girls.

It's real simple. You call them. The worst thing they can do is say no, AND they might say YES! If you don't call, they will never say yes.

The trick is to make that initial call as good as possible. You have to give the person on the other end a reason to want to speak with you. AND, you probably have a max of 10 or 15 seconds to do it.

If you can overcome the initial fear of calling and can come up with a proposition that gives the person on the other end a reason to want to speak with you, you'll be a winner at cold calling.

The biggest help I've found in mastering my to-do list is proper prioritizing.

We MUST learn how to prevent the minor things in our lives from taking over the major things in our lives. In other words, that which is truly important should never be at the mercy of that which is truly not so important.

That's not an easy thing to do.

When I recently toured the country and interviewed over 80 successful people for my soon to be released third book, one common trait I found was that almost all of them were able to properly prioritize matters in there lives. Somewhere along the way, they had learned how to make sure the truly important things were not at the mercy of the unimportant things.

That's not an easy thing to do, but being aware of its necessity is the first step toward getting it done. Now that you're aware, get it done ...

Take care.

[Jackson Foster]

I’ve wrestled with this topic for a long time; do I send something first or just call? The problem is in order to send something you’ve got to have a name. In order to get the name you may have to call the company (I’ve found many a name, however, at the company’s website). Now you can get a contact name when you call without actually talking to the person to whom you want to mail something. So, should you just go ahead in this case and let them connect you, or do you just get their name and mail something? You may find after talking to them they're not the right person, and you just saved yourself some samples and postage.

It can be a lot of time gathering names so that they’re current and that they are indeed the correct person that works with creatives. So targeting seems like the answer considering the time invested; you want to have real buyers that will hopefully reward the work you’ve spent targeting and
contacting them.

It’s very difficult approaching cold contacts. Let’s be real, we all want to have a comfort zone with whom we work, and the prospect of working with a new company can be daunting. Do they pay their bills? Are they reputable? Do they view creative professionals as valuable resources for communications, or do they see us as ’’desktop publishers”?

So I can see how marketing experts talk about quantifying leads, etc. One thing that may help with cold calling, as far as outlook, is that I’m learning to figure out if I want to work with THEM, as much as learning if they want to work with ME. I don’t want to work with just anyone that will give me a project. I want QUALITY projects and clients, not just anyone who comes down the pike--I've done that too much. That outlook has added a lot of confidence when I contact new companies and people.

[Colleen Wainwright]

Jasmine - Excellent! Please let us know how it goes, and how the experience differed (if it did) from others.

Stanley - There's a reason "Just Do It" has such resonance in our culture. Of course, as yo know, "simple" does not equal "easy." I think these hacks are about getting us comfortable to do something that may be simple (straightforward) but that isn't easy for us.

Jackson - Yeah, I think real cold calling must be a nightmare. Just thinking of the real estate guys in David Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross makes me break out in a cold sweat. Definitely, qualified leads--as much as you can qualify them--are better than 100% cold. Unless you have nerves of steel!

[Jennifer]

I was reading all of the comments to this post and I couldn't agree more. They remind me of an article written by Albert E.N. Gray who wrote:

“The common denominator of success --- the secret of success of every man who has ever been successful --- lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures
don't like to do.”

This isn't easy stuff for a lot of us. Let's face it, the guy at the cocktail party that looks like he effortlessly mingles and navigates a room is just as nervous as you most times - he's just practised it more.

[Ilise Benun]

I just want to point out that the reason sending first is working for Jennifer at K9 is because:

1. She has a beautifully designed sample to mail that lands with a thud and is memorable and

2. She has a list of qualified prospects.

If she didn't have both of those tools, I would have recommended that she call first.

There is no "right" answer to this dilemma.