FAQ
Every question I get asked, answered in one place
29 questions across hiring, process, pricing, merchant cash advance and FMCSA compliance. Tap any question to open it.
Hiring & working together
What does a full-stack SDR actually do?
A full-stack SDR owns the whole top of your funnel instead of one slice of it. For my clients that means: building and verifying the prospect list, writing and testing the call opener, dialling 120–180 numbers a day, handling objections live, qualifying against your real criteria, booking the meeting into your calendar, logging every disposition in your CRM, running the 8–12 touch follow-up sequence on the maybes, and sending you a Friday report with connect rate, conversation rate, appointments set and show rate. You get one person accountable for the number, not four tools and a spreadsheet.
How long before I see results?
First conversations happen on day one. First qualified appointments usually land in days 3–7 once the list is clean and the opener has been tested against 200–300 live dials. First closed deals typically appear in weeks 2–4 for short-cycle offers like MCA or DOT compliance services, and weeks 4–8 for longer B2B cycles. The campaign stabilises around week 4–6, when follow-up sequences from weeks 1–3 start compounding. Anyone promising closed revenue in week one is guessing.
What is your cold calling process?
Five steps: (1) list building and verification so we're not burning dials on disconnected numbers; (2) CRM and pipeline setup with the dispositions we'll actually report on; (3) live calling with a tested opener, not a rigid script; (4) multi-touch follow-up — call, voicemail, SMS and email across 10–14 days; (5) weekly reporting and iteration on the opener, list segment and call window. The services page breaks each step down.
Can I try it risk-free?
Not free — but low risk. I run a 7–14 day paid trial with defined KPIs agreed before the first dial: dials per day, connect rate, appointments set. If the numbers aren't there at the end of the trial, we stop and you've spent a couple of hundred dollars finding out, not a quarter. Through Upwork the hours are tracked with screenshots and work diary, so you can see exactly what was done.
Do I need to already have a CRM?
No. If you have HubSpot, Salesforce or Go High Level I'll work inside it and clean up whatever state it's in. If you don't have one, I'll set up a free HubSpot pipeline in the first 48 hours with the stages, properties and dispositions that make weekly reporting possible. What I won't do is run a campaign out of a spreadsheet with no history — that's how follow-up revenue quietly disappears.
Do I need to provide the contact list?
You can, and if it's good we'll use it. Most lists I inherit are 20–40% dead numbers. I build lists myself from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, public registries (including the FMCSA carrier census for trucking campaigns), and web research, then verify before dialling. Clean list, verified numbers, correct decision-maker title — that's usually worth more than a new script.
Where are you based and does that matter for US calling?
Chattogram, Bangladesh, working US business hours across EST, CST, MST and PST. It matters in two ways worth being straight about: my rate is a fraction of a US-based SDR salary, and I've spent three years on the phone with American owners, operations managers and CDL drivers, so the accent and market context are not a barrier. Ask for a recorded sample call before you hire me — I'll send one.
What makes you different from a generic cold calling agency?
Two things. First, niche depth: I can talk to a trucking owner-operator about a new entrant safety audit or Clearinghouse query and to a restaurant owner about factor rates and holdback without a script, because I've run those campaigns. Second, you're hiring a person, not a seat at a call centre — same voice on every call, direct WhatsApp access, and every metric visible to you.
Services & process
What does a cold caller do day to day?
A working day is roughly: 30 minutes cleaning and segmenting the list, 5–6 hours of live dialling in the windows where your buyers actually answer, and an hour on follow-up, CRM hygiene and notes. Across that, 120–180 dials, 15–30 real conversations, and however many appointments the market gives that day. The unglamorous half — dispositions, callback scheduling, list hygiene — is what makes weeks three and four productive.
How is cold calling different from telemarketing?
Telemarketing usually means high-volume scripted calls aiming to sell or transfer on the same call, often B2C. B2B cold calling aims to start a qualified conversation and book a meeting — the sale happens later, with someone else, usually you. A cold caller is measured on qualified appointments and show rate; a telemarketer is measured on transfers or sales. I do both, but the method changes completely.
How many appointments can you set per week?
It depends on offer, list quality and market. Honest ranges from campaigns I've run: 12–20 per week for MCA with a warm-ish list, 8–15 per week for DOT compliance services, 5–12 per week for higher-ticket B2B services with narrow ICPs. Anyone quoting you a number before seeing your list and offer is quoting you a marketing figure.
Do I need to provide the contact list?
No, though I'll use yours if it's good. I build lists from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, public registries — including FMCSA carrier census data for trucking campaigns — and web research, then verify before dialling. If you hand me a list, expect me to tell you honestly what percentage of it is dead.
What industries do you specialise in?
Deepest: merchant cash advance and alternative business funding, and trucking / motor carrier compliance services. Also experienced: solar, janitorial services, water treatment, and general B2B services. If you're in a technical or regulated niche I don't know, I'll say so and quote extra ramp time rather than pretend.
Can I start with a trial?
Yes — a paid 7–14 day trial with KPIs agreed in writing before the first dial. Typical trial KPIs: dials per day, connect rate, conversations per day, and appointments set. If the trial misses, we stop. It's the cheapest possible way for both of us to find out whether this works.
How do you measure success?
Six numbers, reported every Friday: dials, connect rate, conversations, qualified appointments, show rate, and closes. Appointments alone are a vanity metric — an SDR can book meetings nobody attends. Show rate is the number that tells you whether the qualification is real.
What CRM do you recommend?
If you have none and you're under about 10 users, start with the free HubSpot CRM — it's the fastest to configure properly and its sequences are good enough for outbound follow-up. Go High Level makes sense if you want SMS and pipelines in one place, particularly for MCA and local services. Salesforce is right when you already have it or you need genuinely complex reporting. The wrong answer is a spreadsheet.
Merchant cash advance
What is a merchant cash advance?
A merchant cash advance is the purchase of a fixed amount of a business's future receivables at a discount, repaid as a percentage of daily or weekly sales or as a fixed ACH debit. It is legally a purchase of receivables, not a loan, which is why it's priced with a factor rate rather than an interest rate. Full explanation in the MCA guide.
What makes a business viable for MCA?
The common baseline funders look for: 6+ months in business, $10–15K+ in monthly deposits, a consistent deposit pattern rather than one big month, few negative or NSF days, and a manageable number of existing positions. Requirements vary considerably by funder — these are the screening thresholds I use on the phone, not underwriting guarantees.
What does MCA funding cost?
Factor rates commonly run 1.15 to 1.49, meaning you repay $1.15–$1.49 per dollar advanced. Because terms are short — often 3 to 18 months — the annualised cost is high, frequently well above traditional lending. An advance is a cash-flow tool for a specific short-term need, not cheap capital.
How long does MCA approval take?
With three months of clean bank statements in hand, many funders return a decision in 24 to 72 hours and fund within a few business days of signing. The bottleneck is almost never the funder — it's how quickly the merchant produces the statements. That's why I request them on the first call.
What's your MCA close rate?
50–70% on deals that reached a funder after qualification, in the campaigns I've run. That's a close rate on qualified deals, not on dials or on every merchant contacted. Any MCA caller quoting a 50%+ number without that qualifier is describing a different metric.
DOT & FMCSA compliance
What is a new entrant safety audit?
An FMCSA review of a new interstate motor carrier's safety management systems. New entrants enter an 18-month monitoring period, with the audit generally scheduled inside the first 12 months of operation. It examines driver qualification, the drug and alcohol testing programme, hours-of-service records, vehicle maintenance, accident records, and financial responsibility. Details in the audit guide.
What is MCS-150 registration?
The Motor Carrier Identification Report — the form that creates and maintains your USDOT number record. It must be updated at least every two years, on a schedule determined by your USDOT number: the second-to-last digit sets the year, the last digit sets the month. Missing it deactivates the USDOT number and can lead to civil penalties.
What must a driver qualification file contain?
Broadly: the driver's employment application, motor vehicle records, the safety performance history investigation from previous DOT-regulated employers, road test certificate or acceptable equivalent, the medical examiner's certificate and any required documentation, and the annual review of driving record. The precise contents are set out in 49 CFR Part 391 — always verify against current regulation. The DQ file guide works through each item.
How do I set up the Drug & Alcohol Clearinghouse?
Employers register at clearinghouse.fmcsa.dot.gov, designate a consortium/third-party administrator if you use one, and then run a full pre-employment query before a CDL driver performs safety-sensitive functions plus an annual query for every current CDL driver. Drivers must register and give consent for full queries. The Clearinghouse guide covers the workflow.
Do I need a lawyer or a compliance specialist?
Different jobs. A specialist prepares documents, runs gap reviews, tracks deadlines and chases paperwork — that's preventive and it's most of what carriers actually need. A transportation attorney handles enforcement actions, penalty disputes and litigation. Hire the specialist to stay compliant; hire the attorney when something has already gone legally wrong. I do the first, not the second.
Pricing & contracts
How much does it cost to hire a cold caller?
Freelance rates typically run $12–25/hr for an experienced B2B caller; agencies charge $3,000–6,000/month; a US in-house SDR costs roughly $70,000 fully loaded. My rate is $12–25/hr with no setup fee and no minimum term — see the pricing page.
Do you offer a free trial?
No, but I offer a low-risk one: 7–14 days paid, with KPIs agreed in writing before the first dial. Free trials attract clients who aren't serious and produce work nobody values. A couple of hundred dollars buys you real data.
Can I hire you outside Upwork?
Once we've worked together, yes. For a first engagement I'd rather you use Upwork — escrow, tracked hours, work diary and dispute protection all protect you more than they protect me, and that's the point.