IT Company - Does Cold Calling Work?

PeterTheEighth

Hi guys,

Would love some advice if you business heads wouldnt mind. I work for a small company and I was thinking of calling round some of the local businesses to see if I could build a bit more of a local customer base... Most of our customers are miles away, so the idea would be to move away from the difficult / remote customers in favour of customers I could win through cold calling.

So I've read about five books on sales and cold calling and am about to prepare my whole prospecting dialogue (see I even have the lingo :pac: ), but my colleague then burst my bubble. I suggested I was going to do this and he said "Meh, cold calling is no use, most people get their IT services over the Internet".

What do you think, is it worth a shot?

BreadnBuddha

Your colleagues are only partly right. If a company are in need of the service you offer and have any reason to consider moving to your company from their existing provider (whether online or a physical presence onsite), your efforts are certainly worth a shot.

Be careful with how much of your story you try to give on your initial call. The goal should be to get a short face-to-face meeting with the person who will influence or ultimately make the decision to give you some business. If you're totally green to cold calling, try to get them to agree to 3-5 things:

"Have you ever wished your IT service provider could just 'be here' sometimes when something goes wrong, instead of asking you to connect to TeamViewer or Webex or having to schedule a service visit?"

"Well, we're close-by, meaning we can likely be more 'hands on' if a problem arises. Would that make it a bit easier to get on with your business while we take care of the IT stuff?"

"It's always good to be able to really understand a customers business and what causes them headaches. Do you think we could sit down together and have a chat about what your business really needs and how we might be able to help?"

"I've some time later in the week or early next week if that doesn't suit. Could we pick a time now?"

"Is there anything you're struggling with now that you might want me to look into for you in the meantime?"

Get Yes answers to those questions and they'll be pleased to give you the time and to listen to what you have to offer. After that, it's down to the details.

Ignore your colleagues anyway. Nobody gets a sale by sitting on their hands. You have to get out there knocking on doors if you really want local business.

mneylon

More tech savvy people will get services online, but if you're in IT services they probably aren't your target market.
Cold calling can work, but you might have more success with networking eg. local chamber etc., or even print ads in the local newspapers.

bmay529

Good advice here. Connecting with local business is a good idea. Cold calling can work but can also be time consuming and is not easy. Several contacts, as many as 6-8, are not unusual before making a breakthrough and only then if there is a need. Assuming no breakthrough from an initial contact try to establish if they are a "likely" prospect and then plan repeated contacts every few weeks, without being annoying, until there is a breakthrough or you decide to give up on this contact. Most salespeople give up after one or two attempts whereas really successful salespeople see the wider picture.

VincePP

Absolutlely -

The more tech savvy will get services onlijne, but local businesses will have loads of small tech issues hat they will want to trust to someone face to face.

As you arer not selling on the spot, its less cold calling and more "local introduction".

Do a list of the various issues you can do, add your hourly / half day / full day rate and introduce yourselves to local businesses.


Small issues would include

Upgrading to new pc and transferring all files.
Checking anti virus
Advice on new programmes
Creating internal network


We have someone local who did exactly that - possibly I only call him out once a year, but I'd rather pay him €150 (half day rate) and get the work done properly that spend a day myself doing it and possibly getting something wrong.

Similarly we have a local electrician - again I could do the work myself, but would find it tedious and boring

Put it this way - there's absolutley no harm in trying

Ctrl Alt Del

Hi Peter,

I never had a client won after doing cold calls.
This kind of business (IT Services/Consultancy) does not accept cold calls scenario. Imagine yourself accepting a cold call at your office door and handling over your email,files and practical whole business details to some "cold" person.
The trust level is too high,confidentiality and privacy of the end user details cannot justify it.

I found that IT is very successful if is based on "word of mouth" and recommendations. That will remove the trust issue and it will make the "first invoice" to be paid very easy.

In relation to charges,i ask the client whats the budget and /or if possible,the previous IT service provider charges and i will match it.Sometimes, you work for a small charge or minimum profit/returns until you get paid properly but N E V E R EVER don't do it for free ! You will end up been abused and in a worse position than at the beginning.

Also,regarding local face to face versus Logmein/Teamviewr...i ask the end user if he/she prefers a quick and fast reliable solution over remote support or if i can call on-site,but it may take a while to arrive there.So,remote and/ore face-to-face works based on the user acceptance.

Regarding the type of services,you can liaise with people from your office and/or from your network and try to create a single shop,giving all services to end user even if you rely on third party.That is hard to manage and get a profit but it will make the client very happy as they have to deal with only you as the sole provider of the solution,the only one person to contact in case of troubles and / or follow-up calls rather than calling a third party company and knowing all the people in that office !

Also,it is very hard to win a new customer AND very easy to lose it !

Have fun !

Trojan

I'm not a fan of interruption marketing as a concept.

Here's how much it pisses people off:

https://www.reddit.com/r/itslenny/

PeterTheNinth

Hey guys,
My account has been locked out because of some issue with Facebook/boards.ie login.
I just wanted to say thanks for the considered responses.
I'll write a more thorough response when I get a few more minutes.