Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Cold Calling

We have been a bit quiet here on the blog front this week. As the bug fixing is almost complete  on the website (hurrah), we have thrown all of our energy into signing up tour operators in time for our launch in January.

Cold calling has never been something that has appealed hugely to me, but I can't deny that it has been very good for both of us to step out of our comfort zones. I can't tell you how daunting it was picking up the phone on Monday to speak to the first people on the list. For this I completely blame modern technology. I never use the phone anymore - all my social arrangements are arranged by text and most of my business work is done via email.  So speaking on the phone is something I only really do as a last resort these days.......  However, it has been a positive experience so far and has allowed us to get closer to the people that we will be working with and dare I say it, I think we are both secretly enjoying it. 

So far, we have had a positive approach from 80% of the people who we have called, the question is, how do you convert people from being enthusiastic on the phone to actually signing up on your site? I believe in the world of sales this would be classified as 'closing the deal.' Any tips gratefully appreciated. In the meantime, I'm sure you will hear the screams of joy when we have our first sign up....

1 comment:

Jared Salter said...

Sounds like our goals for the week are aligned again. I come home from WTM with a long list of interested people and now I'm trying to 'close the deal' as you say. I don't think there are any secrets other than persistance (but not the annoying kind of persistance).