You guys are trying to scam me

[Kung Fu Steve]

I'm afraid to cold call U.S businesses due to my Nigerian accent. I have cold called them before though but didn't get any result

American women love an accent. Maybe you just got the wrong people!

How many calls did you make? Have you tried following up with an email every time?

Call, Email, Call, Email.

I could probably teach a masterclass on cold calling these days. What you think is your liability is actually your asset.

My mentor taught me to "mind read" the audience. Tell them the worst possible thing they could be thinking before they think it/say it out loud.

Why not have fun with it? "Wait! Don't hang up! I'm not a Nigerian Prince! ... my brother is... but I'm a web designer! I know there's never a good time to talk about getting leads and sales from your website... but is now a halfway decent time?"

 

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[Cojo]

How many calls did you make? Have you tried following up with an email every time?

I made about 10 - 15 cold calls a day.

Why not have fun with it? "Wait! Don't hang up! I'm not a Nigerian Prince! ... my brother is... but I'm a web designer! I know there's never a good time to talk about getting leads and sales from your website... but is now a halfway decent time?"

Ahh, okay then

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

I made about 10 - 15 cold calls a day.



Ahh, okay then

My man... I made 200 calls per day, 6 days a week.

I was NOT great at it but I knew if I made 200 calls, I'd get 2 meetings.

10 calls a day is not going to get you anywhere.

 

[Dami-B]

I'm afraid to cold call U.S businesses due to my Nigerian accent. I have cold called them before though but didn't get any result

I'm Nigerian, I sell nocode development services, I have clients across 7 countries, i rely heavily on job marketplaces for client acquisition that focus on nocode.

A lot of the excuses we give regarding location being a major disadvantage are in our heads and just self limiting beliefs.

If you have great internet connection, confidence and valuable skill, you're in business and the world is your market.

I don't even have proper website, but what I do have is a list of happy clients and a portfolio of successful projects that speak volumes to credibility, I think that should be the main focus at first for every service provider regardless of your location, build a list of happy clients who would gladly refer your services, most people are terrible at what they do and yet they want to get paid for it. Build that list even if it means structuring your deals differently.

And yes it comes up, and prospects ask me my location, and if I get a slight hesitation from them or discomfort, IDGAF, off you go!!! Loooove firing my prospects. There's thousands of people out there that'd love to do business with me and those skeptics are a very very very very small minority.

Secondly, one of the things I'm doing currently for client acquisition beyond job marketplaces is to niche down into specific industries, I'm noticing patterns that show service providers being my best clients, so I'm working on something unique for those industries to attract more clients. So maybe try and niche down and see how you could add some unique value to an industry instead of being a web developer to everybody.

Keep going at it

 

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[Raju Zodiac]

I'm afraid to cold call U.S businesses due to my Nigerian accent. I have cold called them before though but didn't get any result

Hey, I can relate to you. I am from India and feel like cold calling U.S. businesses won't work because of my accent and location too. Hoping to get over this soon.

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

Hey, I can relate to you. I am from India and feel like cold calling U.S. businesses won't work because of my accent and location too. Hoping to get over this soon.

I understand your fear, but please hear me: 99% of people don't care that you're from India. (They only get upset that you're a telemarketer )

Most of us business owners on the forum have hired Indian developers and had great, profitable results.

I've done some consulting with a company out here called ITServ. It's ALL Indian. VERY successful businesses in that group.
There's almost a prejudice in the U.S. now that "if someone is NOT Indian, they don't know what they're doing in tech."

It's not your accent that will make people say no, it's the uncertainty that comes through in the tonality of your voice.

Practice confidence in your voice, the tonality of your words, and get a strong script -- you can do this. But if you can't figure out how to create confidence in your voice -- use the written word (email, website portfolios, etc.)

 

[Johnny boy]

My man... I made 200 calls per day, 6 days a week.

I was NOT great at it but I knew if I made 200 calls, I'd get 2 meetings.

10 calls a day is not going to get you anywhere.

I love that movie so much and that’s an understatement

 

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[Raju Zodiac]

I understand your fear, but please hear me: 99% of people don't care that you're from India. (They only get upset that you're a telemarketer )

Most of us business owners on the forum have hired Indian developers and had great, profitable results.

I've done some consulting with a company out here called ITServ. It's ALL Indian. VERY successful businesses in that group.
There's almost a prejudice in the U.S. now that "if someone is NOT Indian, they don't know what they're doing in tech."

It's not your accent that will make people say no, it's the uncertainty that comes through in the tonality of your voice.

Practice confidence in your voice, the tonality of your words, and get a strong script -- you can do this. But if you can't figure out how to create confidence in your voice -- use the written word (email, website portfolios, etc.)

OMG! Thank you so much. This has filled in me with a lot of confidence. Now I can go in knowing that my location won't be a limiting factor. Thank you again!

 

[Isaac Odongo]

Golden thread. Something to chew, digest and get out on the road trip.

 

[KSR]

I'm genuinely surprised this hasn't been brought up yet (not that I've seen).

Draft up a contract and get them to sign it before anything, this will resolve it because:
a) they're covered legally
b) you're covered legally
c) it becomes more than a hobby

Here's a template.

Free Simple Website Contract Template for Download

Enjoy our customizable and free simple website contract template for download. It's easy to read, understand, and edit to fit your needs.

signaturely.com

 

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[eifesu]

A LONG OVERDUE UPDATE
"A better (re)start"
5/15/24

Greetings,

More on what happened last year

It has been actually more than a year since my last thread, and it would be an understatement to say that some things happened.

I have stopped cold calling outreach altogether a little along Summer of 2023 because as you probably will see if you re-read this thread. I clearly was naive and clueless about what leads someone to hand you their money even if you would be able to provide them with value. A clear lack of patience and business sense in general had led me to rush through every single process I have been dipping in.

Guess it takes time to become more patient.

I realized, after missing a very big sale that I was clearly missing something and continuing in the same vein would very likely lead to the same results, ie. often being ghosted by leads that seemed very interested in the web design services that I offered.

The new goal was now to fix the fact that I did not have a portfolio, and proof that I could actually do what I said I could. That would mean getting asking around me if they needed my services and making myself known as someone that could help with web and mobile development.

A new challenge

While I was busy doing absolutely nothing about the situation, a cousin of a close friend was recommended to me for the development of their grocery delivery SaaS in the shape of a mobile application, something that at the time I had dabbled in but could not say I was a master in. I took the gamble, as it was well paid and I knew I could do it and after long months of scope changes and stumbling, managed to design & ship their app for a first test version using React Native.

They were very satisfied with the result and we are now going through the first revision as the beta testers found out a whole dictionary of bugs I have to fix as well as alternatives to the way we were handling certain systems.

What now ?

Ever since around November, I have landed a job as a Full-stack Developer that helps me get some money on the side and allows me to help with the bills whenever I can. I have also landed around 3 paid web projects :

• A website project for a friends' freight company to help them land international clients
• A website for an acquaintance's wood workshop to showcase their furniture
• A (WIP) SaaS in the human resources field

Finishing these led me to recently build a portfolio site and a Dribble page that I have shared to my social circle to let them know in case they might need my services.

What's next ?

The plan now is to leverage my current situation as much as possible. I have been doing outreach to companies on LinkedIn recently (about 1-2 per day) with proposals on how some changes may help their business grow with features that could help them get more visitors & leads for their service or reworking their copy/design to get more out of their website.

Things are looking good, and I believe I am definitely better suited to help now than I was a little while ago. In due time and with sustained daily effort, I will surely make this work.

 

[Kevin88660]

Greetings,

I've been doing quite the amount of lurking in this forum after reading TMF and this led me down the path of venturing into building a web design freelance business and I am running across a problem I find on way of solving.

So far, my prospecting method has been cold calling and I managed to land a handful of appointments where I could get the chance to learn more about their business. For the appointments where the clients were not a good fit nothing bad happened but I encountered a problem twice and this is where I would need advice : TRUST

My offer is to take care of the branding and web design of their company for X dollars with 50% paid upfront.

What happened twice (which is more than enough) would be that after the meeting the prospect would be convinced and more than ready to pay but would have to talk about it to their business partners before making the decision and this is where things go downhill. During the appointments they usually ask if I have an office where I can be found (that I do not have for obvious reasons) and this comes off as a red flag to them and they tend to think that they are getting scammed.

Whenever I would call back for payment and starting work they would say that even though they are ready to pay and agree with the offer they do not want to take the risk of getting ripped off and this is honestly frustrating because I've been missing deals because of this and I have no idea how to look more credible without renting a whole office.

How could I go about this ?

Do your potential clients have offices?

If so why don’t you trust them by delivering the first half of the work first?

 

[eifesu]

Do your potential clients have offices?

If so why don’t you trust them by delivering the first half of the work first?

That is actually in the line of what I was doing before, I wouldn’t quite do the literal half but I would come with a neat draft of what I thought would help them.

I wholly agree that they would feel a lot safer if I did even more work beforehand. I’ll take that in account for future meetings for sure.

 

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[Kevin88660]

That is actually in the line of what I was doing before, I wouldn’t quite do the literal half but I would come with a neat draft of what I thought would help them.

I wholly agree that they would feel a lot safer if I did even more work beforehand. I’ll take that in account for future meetings for sure.

The sales mistake I see is that a lot of people are afraid of providing values to the prospects upfront fearing that they will fail to commit to buy.

It is part of the games that you need to be taken advantaged by bad actors so that you will meet game changing good actors in the system.

It is good to adopt the VC mindset that being sucker for taking many small losses here and there will yield asymmetric return in your life and business.