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Thanks for all these good ideas. > One thing you may not realize is that many small businesses -- vets included -- get spam (charitably called 'outreach') emai

Thanks for all these good ideas. > One thing you may not realize is that many small businesses -- vets included -- get spam (charitably called 'outreach') emails from agencies from all over the world on a nearly daily basis. Because of this, most cold calls and cold emails will be met with an even colder reception. Indeed, multiple clinics told me they are getting up to 3 calls per week regarding such offers. > 100 people is also a tiny list to cold call. I am not really sure that this was the right strategy for you to get clients. Do you mean there would be a better strategy to approach clients when they are so few? Should we try approaching them in person (ie just show up at the clinic)? > They would probably be better served by a Wix/Wordpress/Squarespace setup that has cheap customer service and would just need help for content, design, and some customization. The big plus we can provide is that by having a vet onboard (my gf) we can write out the content for them. So they can tell us "we have a behaviorist and we provide this and that service" and from that we can explain and illustrate what this means, with no additional work on their side. I fully agree about the mock portfolio and focusing on results, we'll definitely do that.

j-c-hewitt 9y ago
For people who rely on cold outreach, you'd expect something like maybe a 1% response rate, and only a portion of those would close. So if you want to stick with cold outreach, you should be contacting lists of 1,000 or more people. If you can offer to show up in person, it can improve your close rate, but I would not go door to door for the initial contact. FWIW I don't think 100% cold outreach is going to be an efficient use of your time at this point. Responding to job ads or going on Upwork to send in proposals will be more efficient if you just want projects or things to put in your portfolio. >The big plus we can provide is that by having a vet onboard (my gf) we can write out the content for them. So they can tell us "we have a behaviorist and we provide this and that service" and from that we can explain and illustrate what this means, with no additional work on their side. The other thing to think about might be how you can provide value to their existing patients and get them to come in more often for appointments and to get highly profitable treatments like flea/tick stuff, fungus creams, and regular shots. It's not just new customers but getting more from their existing customers with less administrative overhead.

j-c-hewitt 9y ago

For people who rely on cold outreach, you'd expect something like maybe a 1% response rate, and only a portion of those would close. So if you want to stick with cold outreach, you should be contacting lists of 1,000 or more people. If you can offer to show up in person, it can improve your close rate, but I would not go door to door for the initial contact. FWIW I don't think 100% cold outreach is going to be an efficient use of your time at this point. Responding to job ads or going on Upwork to send in proposals will be more efficient if you just want projects or things to put in your portfolio. >The big plus we can provide is that by having a vet onboard (my gf) we can write out the content for them. So they can tell us "we have a behaviorist and we provide this and that service" and from that we can explain and illustrate what this means, with no additional work on their side. The other thing to think about might be how you can provide value to their existing patients and get them to come in more often for appointments and to get highly profitable treatments like flea/tick stuff, fungus creams, and regular shots. It's not just new customers but getting more from their existing customers with less administrative overhead.