Cold Calling Related To Blogging Solutions
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I think that it's important to reflect on cold calling for a blog
product like 21Publish's solution. As a vendor, I do a certain amount
of it (in additional to cold emailing) so that I can stay in touch with
the market and understand how the business really works and what people
really need. It can be frustrating when people don't respond, but it's
extremely easy to understand why they don't. Being on the other side of
the coin, I don't generally like to receive cold calls, but it has to
do with the fact that I always feel like I'm being sold to. If I do
decline a vendor, I try my best to respond (I can't always do that) and provide the vendor with a concrete reason why I am declining.
My personal approach to outbound cold calling is to try to make friends (with integrty and pure intentions). Yet there is a tricky balance between 1) educating someone about what you and/or your company does and 2) simply helping them. Recognize that by interrupting someone, one needs to add value and not waste people's time. A potential vendor must watch very carefully for those indicators. If you are the vendor, once you see that you are wasting someone's time, change gears or get out of the way. If you've wasted the person's time, guilt or something worse is your penalty.
I think the focus of cold calling at 21Publish is to help evangelize a little a bit about professional and organizational blogging in general. Better yet, we should help people better understand how blogging is working in their sector. Blogging is still new to many people in professional environments so there should be some value to add in discussions. As one gets higher on the food chain figure out what a prospect's real business issues are related to deployment, website, organizational issues, online community building, etc. Softly educate about the firm and the product. Lay out options (even if it means *not* the 21Publish product).
While we'd ultimately like to get an online demo and in-depth discussion going with people interested in group blogging or blog communities, my group's intention is to help. Never did I use the word "sell" above. If the product doesn't sell itself, then we at 21Publish have to do a better job of marketing it, packaging it, pricing it, and doing R&D.
So changing gears a bit, if you are someone that receives a cold call or email from 21Publish, please recognize that this is the way my employees and I are trying to engage you. We are sincerely trying to add value and not sell to you. As an example, even after lengthly discussions with us and you decide to use our free solution, we're still very happy too.
My personal approach to outbound cold calling is to try to make friends (with integrty and pure intentions). Yet there is a tricky balance between 1) educating someone about what you and/or your company does and 2) simply helping them. Recognize that by interrupting someone, one needs to add value and not waste people's time. A potential vendor must watch very carefully for those indicators. If you are the vendor, once you see that you are wasting someone's time, change gears or get out of the way. If you've wasted the person's time, guilt or something worse is your penalty.
I think the focus of cold calling at 21Publish is to help evangelize a little a bit about professional and organizational blogging in general. Better yet, we should help people better understand how blogging is working in their sector. Blogging is still new to many people in professional environments so there should be some value to add in discussions. As one gets higher on the food chain figure out what a prospect's real business issues are related to deployment, website, organizational issues, online community building, etc. Softly educate about the firm and the product. Lay out options (even if it means *not* the 21Publish product).
While we'd ultimately like to get an online demo and in-depth discussion going with people interested in group blogging or blog communities, my group's intention is to help. Never did I use the word "sell" above. If the product doesn't sell itself, then we at 21Publish have to do a better job of marketing it, packaging it, pricing it, and doing R&D.
So changing gears a bit, if you are someone that receives a cold call or email from 21Publish, please recognize that this is the way my employees and I are trying to engage you. We are sincerely trying to add value and not sell to you. As an example, even after lengthly discussions with us and you decide to use our free solution, we're still very happy too.
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