Cold-Calling for Clients

Having done in-house work for as long as I have been where I am, we are thinking about starting outside site design/development work. Where to start?

Obviously Networking is a major factor in getting work. And Email, though most recipients have domains/sites. But what about cold-calling?

Say you came upon a small local enterprise (that don't know you or have heard of you) within its own business sector with no site as yet. You are going to 'cold-call' them after researching as much as you can about them.

What do you put into the first 15-20 seconds? Very interested to hear peoples' opinions.

Another question: Which is the bigger/more lucrative market? Site Design/Development or Site Re-Design/Re-Development?

Much of my business deals with communicating with clients that have either no website or a very bad website. I think that the most important thing that you tell your clients are the benefits of having a website.

Do a little bit of research in their industry and see how they're clientelle can increase with the use of a website or a better website. I like to target companies that are using geocities and angelfire, and tell these companies the benefits of not having to display the ads of said hosts, and so on.



IMO, original design is a bigger market than redesign, because companies that are disappointed with their current developers, and such may be hesitant to hire someone else that may screw them over. Of course, some companies are hesitant about moving to the web in the first place. Id probably say the market is 60/40 in favor of original design.

I have no figures to back this stuff up, its just from my personal experiences.