Direct answers. Tap to expand.
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.
How much does it cost?
$12–25 per hour depending on scope and how technical the niche is. Compliance and MCA work sit at the top of that range because the ramp is longer. There's no setup fee and no minimum contract length. Full breakdown on the
pricing page.
What's the contract and commitment?
Hourly through Upwork, weekly billing, cancel any time. Most clients start with a 7–14 day paid trial, then move to 20–40 hours a week. I don't do 3-month lock-ins — if the campaign isn't working, a contract shouldn't be what keeps me there.
Do you work in my time zone?
Yes. I work US business hours across EST, CST, MST and PST. For trucking campaigns that usually means starting early, because owner-operators answer between 6am and 9am local time far more reliably than at 2pm.
Will I hear the actual calls?
Yes, where local law and the dialer allow recording, and I'll tell you upfront which states require two-party consent. Reviewing five real calls tells you more about a cold caller than any interview will.