[bdshaw]

It's pretty amazing that I get at least two weekly calls from either lenders or ISO's each week.
That's really bad prospecting.
what's more many of the callers hang up when I explain why I'm not interested in borrowing their money; some, just hang up when they hear the name of the company.
People can't you teach your sales staff even rudimentary manners?
If the number below is on your contact list please remove it and perhaps get yourself organized so your sales staff stops wasting their time and annoy me to the point of keeping a record of who called.

Bob Shaw
734-929-3800
rshaw@advancecredit.com

[channin19]

It won't stop anytime soon. I get 3-4 call a day. It's amazing.

[ridextreme]

It's pretty amazing that I get at least two weekly calls from either lenders or ISO's each week.
That's really bad prospecting.
what's more many of the callers hang up when I explain why I'm not interested in borrowing their money; some, just hang up when they hear the name of the company.
People can't you teach your sales staff even rudimentary manners?
If the number below is on your contact list please remove it and perhaps get yourself organized so your sales staff stops wasting their time and annoy me to the point of keeping a record of who called.

Bob Shaw
734-929-3800
rshaw@advancecredit.com

lol you must be a new broker because this is a new number for you. It used to belong to a fitness center, hence all the phone calls (google the number).

http://businessfinder.mlive.com/7602...y-Ann-Arbor-MI

[fundgorilla]

[QUOTE=ridextreme;22572]lol you must be a new broker because this is a new number for you. It used to belong to a fitness center, hence all the phone calls (google the number).


We get calls too...not just because of our number. I fell sorry for the people doing that.

[bdshaw]

same number for about 20 years.

[skideeppow]

I also get calls. You would think they would look at the name of the business and figure it out.

[Lenders.Marketing]

I also get calls. You would think they would look at the name of the business and figure it out.

We love those calls because we end up providing them with phone numbers of actual Business Owners seeking loans.

[jotucker1983]

It's pretty amazing that I get at least two weekly calls from either lenders or ISO's each week.
That's really bad prospecting.
what's more many of the callers hang up when I explain why I'm not interested in borrowing their money; some, just hang up when they hear the name of the company.
People can't you teach your sales staff even rudimentary manners?
If the number below is on your contact list please remove it and perhaps get yourself organized so your sales staff stops wasting their time and annoy me to the point of keeping a record of who called.

Bob Shaw
734-929-3800
rshaw@advancecredit.com

Your telephone number also comes up as Cre Workout Company, so a lot of the people calling you might think that you are in the Health and Fitness Industry:

http://www.merchantcircle.com/busine...y.734-929-3800

I totally agree with you guys that it's bad prospecting procedures to not properly filter your telephone call list to "segmented and targeted prospective clients," but instead to just blast out random calls to a random list. However, can we also be honest here and admit that within the MCA/Merchant Processing Industry, this is how companies have been training their sales reps to prospect for a very long time. For example:

- "Johnny, park your car down the street and randomly walk into a merchant's business. Try to see who the owner is, break the ice, whip out your presentation binder and try to get his statement."

- "Johnny, open up the Yellow Pages and randomly start dialing."

- "Johnny, go to InfoUSA and randomly pick a list of industries and randomly start dialing them."

This is how our industry teaches our reps to prospect, which is in a generic/random fashion instead of actually doing some type of research on the prospective client before you call them to see if they might even be in the market for what you have to offer.

Our industry teaches our reps that if a business owner has a heartbeat and an "Open For Business" sign, then they are a prospect and they "need" our service, so it's just up to the masterful and skilled Sales Rep to make them "see it". This is bad training and I have always thought this was bad training, which is why (and not to talk bad about any of my Partners) when any of my Processing Partners wants to do a "Sales Training Webinar" I kindly decline because I already know what "strategies" they are going to recommend.

So to you guys complaining about receiving the random/untargeted sales calls, this is unfortunately what merchants have been receiving for years. This is why getting access to a merchant these days (even when you have a quality proposal) is very difficult.

It would be great if the calls were of quality to a merchant in relation to something actually going on with the merchant right now that could provide some help/insight/additional information. But most of the calls are just canned, repetitive and show absolutely no individualized research on the merchant's business in particular.

[skideeppow]

So I just get a dial 1 campaign call, "you have been approved a working capital loan."
I dial one, and it rings and rings. No answer.
There is a wasted lead.

[Chambo]

I love the monthly letters I get from Intuit, telling me I am pre-approved for $25-50K with On Deck

[ridextreme]

So I just get a dial 1 campaign call, "you have been approved a working capital loan."
I dial one, and it rings and rings. No answer.
There is a wasted lead.

we can usually see the caller ID on the press 1 call, they saw a Funding Company and ignored it lol

[Quickfunder]

NLF and MCC call me at least twice a week.

[Franklin]

It would be great if the calls were of quality to a merchant in relation to something actually going on with the merchant right now that could provide some help/insight/additional information. But most of the calls are just canned, repetitive and show absolutely no individualized research on the merchant's business in particular.

You're right about that John. I do Press 1's and my team continuously gets interested, qualified merchants looking for capital, who actually fund, with minimal anger/irate-ness, and pretty high opt-in percentages. A few times we called a funder by accident, and they actually gave us props for our system. It takes just a little more than slapping up a few working capital lines then all of a sudden you're JP Morgan.

[Sean Cash]

These press 1s have to get under control. Is anyone actually turning them into funded deals? I am getting 2-3 calls PER DAY now asking if I want a business loan. I remember when I used to be a rep on press 1 campaigns, I never turned a single one into an application. I hated being the salesman and I hate being the recipient now just as much.

One I got today came from an area code that doesn't even exist. I googled the number and everyone is complaining about the funder online, who is pretty well known =\

Others won't even tell me what their company name is. They work for "business funding" or other generic names and they refuse to say where they're located. All this does is hurt the industry and invite FTC investigations.

[J.Celifarco]

Preach!

[SuperFunds]

I'm surprised by this, our office turns these into funded deals all the time. I think it all depends on the lists you are calling, if it is crappy data then of course it won't convert.

[Fundpro]

Ashley calls me 5x a day. While it is a function of the data put into dialer there should be a minimal amount of scrubbing.
Like Sean I hated being the salesman. Just always felt that merchant came into conversation with a negative mind set.
That being said I still use and some of my guys have gotten quality deals off it so like Super said it really depends on data.

[Franklin]

Ashley calls me 5x a day. While it is a function of the data put into dialer there should be a minimal amount of scrubbing.
Like Sean I hated being the salesman. Just always felt that merchant came into conversation with a negative mind set.
That being said I still use and some of my guys have gotten quality deals off it so like Super said it really depends on data.

That's funny, I know the company behind 'Ashley". She was very effective at one point but I think she's saturated in the industry, everyone knows her name.

[skideeppow]

Heard Ashley is super hot.

[FUNd]

So I just get a dial 1 campaign call, "you have been approved a working capital loan."
I dial one, and it rings and rings. No answer.
There is a wasted lead.

OMG...."press 1"....are merchants really still falling for that one?