Telemarketing, Cold Calling, Low Cost High Impact Marketing, Lead Calls

My name is John Fulton I am 24. In the last 10 years I have worked at the same martial arts school which I now own and have been the owner since I was 19. I have seen so many marketing techniques and methods over the years. And although some of them are very good, NOTHING is really a guarantee....except for one....read on...... I am motivated and like many of you I have said the following: "I will do WHATEVER it takes to increase my school's numbers".  I have spent THOUSANDS of dollars on ads. I spent $2,400 on a direct mail campaign where the rep insisted that I would get at least 24 info calls. And I don't blame him for thinking that I had great demographics for the mailer...local residents who make more than 35k a year and own their home with kids ages 4-11.  A total of 5000 professionaly designed and very effective and compelling mailers went out in November of 2007. To my amazement I didnt get 1 single phone call. I slept with the phone. I forwarded calls to my cell phone when I wasnt in the school. NOT ONE PHONE CALL. I was devastated. And the solution to that problem is of course to hope for a response with a second and third mailing. No thanks. I spent $2100 on a super coups type of money mailer that went out for four months in a row. Three phone calls. All duds. All this money wasting made me wonder...Is there any kind of marketing that would GUARANTEE results. If you hit the gym and work hard curling your bicepts are guaranteed to get bigger and I love that type of labor results effect. I wondered if there was anything in the martial arts like this. I could perform task X and it would result in more students. Because you better believe that I would do it all the time. Im a hard worker I just need the right thing to do.

WELL I FOUND IT. Telemarketing. We have all heard of it but its almost impossible to be consistent with it. Its embarrassing, humiliating and some of us would rather shove bamboo shoots under our fingernails than sell over the phone to a stranger. It was hard but here is what has happened to me in the last 4 days:

4 Appointments. 2 have shown so far and 1 signed up. The other one says they are going to sign and they have a friend who wants to do it as well.  

I spent two days calling people to get stats. The only reason I did this was because Sensei Nick PROMISED me if I spent 10 hours a week on the phone I would definetly get that 1 sign up per week no matter!!! (Results from labor). My stats are as follows:

1 call per 60 seconds

9 calls per 1 answer

7 answers per appointment

Here is why I had never before unlocked the potential of telemarketing:

It takes 63 of those darn calls to get 1 appointment!! Oh my god the humiliation, embarrassment, anxiety, stress and fear 63 times!!!!! But....I got it. And now I understand. Now I am having fun calling people. I keep saying to myself, I just need to talk to 5 more people to get that appointment, I just need to talk to 4 more people, 3, 2, 1 ext. And I believe we are martial artists and we are supposed to be warriors are we not? We teach courage. This is exactly that.

The last women I booked for an appointment about two hours ago said to me, "Your timing is perfect we were just thinking my son needed something like Karate".

Even though I am new to cold calling I can expect, if I keep going at the rate I have been, to set up at least 1 appointment every day with about 63 minutes of warrior phone time daily. I have set up one appointment a day so far. 24 appointments in a month if you don't work sunday, lets say even half that to be sure... 12 appointments in a month. 75 percent will show which is 9 and 75 percent of that will sign up which is 6. 6 new sign ups a month. Its double that, 12 new sign ups a month if you really do set up one appointment 6 days a week, which I have been. I will check back with everyone of course to let you know how I am doing but so far I have set an appointment up every day and one person has signed with another on the way. I feel it is important to share with people your goals so here is mine, you can hold me to it and I will return a month from now to face the people:

BY THE END OF FEBRUARY I WILL HAVE 10 NEW STUDENTS FROM TELEMARKETING.

Where are the phone numbers coming from? I feel I am good enough to open up the phone book to be honest but my leads have come from 2 sources. Info usa and the leads from my school. Most of us from internal events and other lead generating events have captured through the use of waivers phone numbers. One month I stuck envelopes on my mirror with prizes in them and told them for every buddy pass they brought back they would get to open an envelope and get a (dollar store) prize. I had kids just copying names out of the student directory but whatever they are still leads. Info USA can give you a list of people in your area who are not on the no call list and own their home and making with a combined income of 30k or more a year, it depends on your area what applys to you obviously, with children ages 3- whatever. I have a list within a 5 mile radius. There are hundreds on it. I also find ways to get those student directories, by just asking certain closer parents for them. The success of my campaign is sick because I dont even mail a warm up post card or anything. I am going to start doing that. I will mail out about 150 letters in envelopes with hand written addresses made out to the MOTHER. Then I will follow up and expect even better results. I am currently getting results without the use of a warmer however.

I learned that telemarketing is over a 300 billion dollar industry. If it didn't work big companies wouldnt be doing it. You will get about 10 no's before 1 thank you. But the excitment is great. Its a numbers game and consistency is key. Im going to upload a video of a successful close. To show everyone how its done. Expect this tomorrow.

PLEASE SHARE YOUR TELEMARKETING EXPERIENCES WITH ME!!!!

 If your part of Sensei Nick's consulting you can get a lot of help with telemarketing and cold calling.