Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount really helped me. I was in a very similar situation as you. After I read that book, it gave me the process/tools and inspired me to make 50+ cold calls a day in about 1-2 hours.
Another way to think of it is this: for each call you make, you are earning $X dollars. If your average sale nets $5k and it takes 250 calls to make that sale, then every time you pick up the phone you are making $20.
You need to do customer development, check out books like "The Mom Test" and "Lean Customer Development". But before your prospective customers will want to talk to you you need to get some credibility. Try to create some content that solves problems that they are aware of, then you'll be able to talk with them.
Dang that sounds painful. I had other pains from excessive piano playing, etc, that plagued my mental well being for years. Turns out it’s likely mental hahah. I read this book closely and my pain is mostly gone. Some come by, but I just remember certain key topics in the book and it slowly goes away. A bunch of programmers recommend this: The Mindbody Prescription:... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FA5SJS?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
Keep it simple as you can. My suggestion is star to talk with your customer following the The Mom Test rules.
The Mom Test in a nutshell is:
It’s called The Mom Test because it leads to questions that even your mom can’t lie to you about.
Book some videocalls with 5-10 of your customers and ask them about how they use your product in their life or if they use it for a specific use case ask questions around the use case. For example if the use case is: saving money for my next vacations, some questions could be:
While you are talking with them you star to notice patterns and identify needs or pains, it is a good staring point to level up your product discovery to specific topics.
Product discovery is apply a lot of differents technies and tools to discover how to build the right product, but in the end all of them look to give you an undestanding of your customer, so talk with them is the basic for that.
IMO focus on the supply side first is great. To approach the sellers I would choose 1 or 2 platforms as sources of possible users, maybe FB Marketplace and Heyauto.
Then I would search for around 100 sellers on the platforms to contact them. For example, I would contact sellers by FB Messenger with the excuse of learning more about the business of selling used cars with a cold message like this: Hey Bob, i have seen you have a lot of expertise in selling used car and I want to learn more about it for my [insert any excuse here(podcast, homework, etc)]. Could we chat a few minutes about it?
You will need to reach 100 sellers to get 25 calls (a great conversion rate) and try not to sell anything, remember your goal is learn.
Learn more about the types of questions you should ask in the book, The Mom Test
Read this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0060YIBLK/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_CC3C63AKJYE4N73R1SPG
They're not paying me, it's just helped me alot.
Author is a Cia or FBI (can't recall) interrogator, but his whole technique is be friendly and likeable so they trust you and volunteer information vs like torture etc.
Book is written really simply and straightforward like an army field manual. Tells you direct techniques to appear friendly and likeable in a conversation. How to get people comfortable with your presence etc.
When I actively read it the first time, I just tried the advice out talking to gas station attendants and the like, just to see. Within 10 minutes the guy broke down and told me about his divorce, his anxieties over custody battle, just really told me wayy too much. (Has worked for several people not just the one guy but oof.)
Really helped me and a bunch of friends I've lent it to. One friend called it "the closest thing I've read to a real like skill book from skyrim".
(Context: I am diagnosed ADHD and suspect undiagnosed ASD, so I have to manually navigate conversations, can't do it by feel. This book helped ALOT)
Hope it helps 🤙
Influencer Fast Track - From Zero to Influencer in the next 6 Months!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D43N9ZQ
FREE on June 19th
> YOU = INFLUENCER!! - Have a passion project you want to share with world? - Something amazing you always wanted to do, but don't know how to reach an audience?
>Trying to grow a following for your Blog, Youtube Channel, Podcast, Social Platform or eComm business?
>Then let this little book walk you through SassyZenGirl's Proven 7-STEP FORMULA to go from ZERO (followers) to INFLUENCER STATUS in just a few months!
Trauma. Transformation, Testimony!: A Recovery Memoir
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B4BH8Z4B
FREE until June 22nd
> Many people suffer from trauma that is often brought on through life events such as substance misuse or living in poverty. For Leslie Ann Wertz, the odds were against her from the start and she found herself an addict with a long and difficult road ahead of her.
>That she managed to find her way out of the spiral of despair is testament to the hope she had and the spiritual healing she underwent, to emerge from hopelessness and reforge her life to live it the way she always knew she could.
>In her book, Trauma, Transformation, Testimony: A Recovery Memoir, she explores how her life went from the very depths of despondency to one of achievement.
I can give you some tips to start. :)
From an idea to a viable business, you need to focus on refining your idea with good feedback. Asking the right question is key. If you read "The Mom Test" you will know what I'm talking about.
Your job, in the beginning, should be generating good conversation and identifying your ideal customers. This way you have enough information to help you refine your idea into something that people want/need.
If you are worried about people copying your idea which seems to be an issue I see a lot. Make your product unique to your own experience/expertise or give yourself a time frame (ex. 3 months) so you can move fast with a plan in place.
Please let me know if this is helpful.
The best way to advertise is to have something people want to buy and a very clear one-line value proposition on how it will change someone's life for the better. Building a Story Brand is one of the most approachable and easily implementable books on creating marketing content, with great examples, and even a step-by-step guide to your home page.
Generally, beyond that, most "free" marketing actually means that you put effort into it. For example, content marketing where you gather a library of helpful resources that attract people, and occasionally advertise your product/service along with it. u/bawlerblog posted a comment in this thread where the offer free content marketing advice (For tech related niches). Even if that's not your niche, there will probably be other people offering a free content-marketing strategy session who are hoping to sell their services that way.
The other thing people do is create a free download to attract people who will sign up to your email list (and who you can then advertise to). The easiest way to create this is to create a free guide/tool/step-by-step exercise PDF that will make someone else's life easier. This adds an extra step in advertising, but it has the benefit of allowing you to offer something for free rather than immediately asking for something.
I'd create a brand messaging framework to reflect back to and re-wireframe your website with new copy. If you can't hire a conversion copywriter + designer, I highly recommend reading Building a StoryBrand. I work in this field and it's totally worth the investment of time and/or money–whichever you prefer. I use this method and so far, all but 1 of my marketing clients made their money back within the first 2 months. Copy is powerful!
Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01617VD3I?ref_=kcr_store_sample
The only book you'll need.
Basically, the gist of it is that you are a monster when it comes to cold calling, initial contacting of prospects. I can call up to 250 prospects in a day. I have known people that reach out to 10 new people per day. They failed, I didn't.
As long as you are not a total social awkward, if you make 100-125 new contacts per day, you will succeed. If you don't, you will either fail or be below average.
There are some industries that are not like this, though. So, if you sell airliners for $50 million per airplane, there are only 300 or whatever airlines in the world, so it is a limited pool of buyers, so that is a long-term relationship game. But, they really can't go anywhere else, as there is only Airbus and Boeing as the only sellers.
But if you are selling regular old "stuff", then it is a numbers game. Send out 200 new emails per day. Make 200 phone calls. Whatever. I like phone calls because I get immediate feedback, I'm on with the owner or decision-maker and not hoping that they will return my email or whatever. If you have a great website and SEO and that gives you hot leads every day, that is great. But what are you going to do if you get 5 leads and it only takes you 2 hours to deal with them? What are you going to do the rest of your day? Prospect. Calls or emails, or something else.
Outbound Sales no Fluff is $3 on Amazon right now - has a great section on how to handle your outbound workflow that has been huge for me
​
https://www.amazon.com/Outbound-Sales-Fluff-millennials-something-ebook/dp/B077Y49KF4
Shift your perspective...it fucking sucks as a human (rejection) and that will never go away (though it should, over time, become easier)...but most cold calling is around 1-5% successful...so look at it like a game...or a gauntlet (I prefer game...as it seems more positive)
​
"I know if I make 100 calls today I should get at least 1 sale"
​
start there...see if you can do better than that...try and beat your previous records...
​
Also...don't waste time...make a cold call, get to the point...if people aren't interested then don't argue with them...thank them and move on. Depending on your product and call list you should be making at least 1 call per 30 seconds or so.
​
100 calls should literally be an hours work. Break it down into sessions and do it a few times per day (1 hour of calling 3x a day for example)
​
Check out the book "Fanatical Prospecting" for a little change of perspective on the idea of cold calling and what goes on around it.
You can use Facebook Groups or an appropriate subreddit.
But before you start interviewing, I recommend you read The Mom Test: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H4G2J1U/ref=pe_385040_118058080_TE_M1DP
It's a great read that will help you ask the right questions. Hope this helps.
10 cold calls/day seems perfectly reasonable, based on the information you provided.
You may benefit from reading Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount.
Given that I am trying to bring the audience to speed quickly on something they would unfamiliar with, I would apply the principles outlined by something like Story Brand.
In the ad I would want to:
Identify how this product addresses a felt need, enables the person to achieve an aspirational perspective of themselves, concluding how your company could guide them and how your product accomplishes that goal. I think of the way apple interacted with the budding portable music player market.
I prefer customer interviews, e.g. The mom test (not affiliated) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01H4G2J1U - you'll be able to capture potential problems that surveys will not.
I have also used Mechanical Turk on a few times but it was mostly a waste (for trying to validate product idea / improve onboarding / identifying new customer segments).
> I'm perceived as an aggressive person when I speak. So Im just worried they might get scared away.
I'd suggest sending someone else over, then. It's essentially a sales pitch being made, for a piece of real estate.
If you suck at sales and need a professional salesperson to do this, and to spare you from being one among many buyers in a bidding war, hire a professional real estate salesperson to pitch it.
If you want to make the sale yourself, maybe spend a few months reading /r/sales or read this book really quick?
This is a great book to get you started on improving your communication skills. It's short and to the point which is great for starting out. It also has real world exercises you can try to get better at conversing with others. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0060YIBLK?ie=UTF8&at=aw-android-pc-us-20&force-full-site=1&ref_=aw_bottom_links