In this short video, Evan Carmichael answers a viewer’s question about struggling with cold calling and reaching decision‑makers. He admits cold calling isn’t his strength and suggests that salespeople should focus on tactics that match their abilities. He outlines three low‑cost, inbound‑focused alternatives that have worked for him: (1) SEO and content marketing to attract prospects who are already searching for solutions; (2) forming win‑win partnerships with non‑competing businesses that already serve the target audience; and (3) building media credibility by regularly pitching press releases and using services like PRLeads to become a quoted expert in major publications. Evan emphasizes the importance of identifying personal strengths and weaknesses, adapting sales strategies accordingly, and invites viewers to engage with the video.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael, and in today's video I wanted to answer a question from one of our readers, Sanjida, who is a salesperson for a London-based technology company and is having a hard time doing cold calling and getting through to the decision maker. Either always gets the voicemail or gets the gatekeeper receptionist. And is wondering what my advice would be. So to be honest, I don't have a lot of success or experience with cold calling. I've always found that to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to figure out what you're really good at and what you're not so good at. And I found out pretty early on that cold calling was not one of my strengths. But to help you out, I thought I would share some of my experience and how I've successfully done sales, and hopefully you can learn from that. So I've always found that I have a much greater chance of being able to sell somebody when they already know a little bit about me and they're confident calling me or emailing me or finding a way to contact me about what I have to offer. And I've done that through 3 separate ways, and all of them are free or pretty low cost, which is magic words for an entrepreneur. The first is through SEO, or search engine optimization. So that's where you create content on your website that is tailored towards your target audience. They type in keywords into a search engine and they come up and find your site. And I always found this a great way to be able to get new prospects finding out about my website and calling me. It's great because they have a specific problem, they're doing research, they're trying to find a solution, your website comes up, and so they're, they're going to contact you and they have a good chance of wanting to buy from you. Where I found with cold calling, it's really hit or miss and it's a big numbers game. So I'd rather have my website do the selling for me. So you just have to figure out what are the keywords that you need to rank for and how can you create useful content around that that will start driving in traffic for you. If you have questions on that, I can create a whole new video just on that series. The second way that I found really useful to bring in new customers is to form partnerships. So find out who else your target customers are buying from and see if there's a way you can partner up with them. Hopefully they're not your competition, but people who have maybe complementary products or services to what you offer. And usually it's pretty easy to get in touch with partners and see if there's a way to form some kind of relationship. So you want to make it win-win where you're hopefully talking about them and they're talking about you. And it could be a great way to be able to get in touch with new potential prospects. And when they're introduced to you through a trusted partner, again, it's a lot easier to make that sale, uh, compared to just calling somebody that you don't know. The last way that I've had a lot of success with in terms of generating sales is to be an expert with the media. So the media are always looking for experts to talk about industry trends and comment on stories that are happening. And when I first got started, I would create a new press release every week. I made my own list of reporters who I wanted to target and would send them information every week to show that I'm an expert on entrepreneurship. And you want to give them really value-add story ideas, not just a press release about how great you are, but talk about something that's happening, a trend, and give your own insights to it. I also more recently used a service called PRLeads that reporters submit their stories to, and you can become an expert and offer your advice, and gotten into New York Times and Forbes and Wall Street Journal. And when people see that, they read those publications, they then find your website or find your phone number and get in touch with you and are more likely to want to buy from you. They're curious, they want more information. So I've had good success with those tactics if I'm doing SEO, if I'm doing partnerships, or if I'm doing media. I haven't had a lot of luck with cold calling. Cold calling can work, it just hasn't been really successful for me. So I encourage you to try to find out what your strengths and weaknesses are and adapt your strategies around that. You'll be a lot more successful. I hope you enjoyed the video. I hope that answered some of your questions. If you liked the video, please give it a thumbs up. I'd also love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you want to leave a comment below the video. And stay tuned for the next episode. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
