Most home based business opportunity owners will be faced with cold calling problems similar to a recent forum posting to which I responded.

Seems this guy was doing the majority of cold calling by calling names in the phone book and was having problems with the lack of business being generated by this method.

He was only able to connect with 25% and had virtually no response to voice mail messages he left.

Making telephone cold calls takes not only preserverance, but skill.  If you use cold calling (especially of businesses) in your business, here are some of the top books on cold calling by phone.  I'd also suggest you sign up for Art Sobzcak's free newsletter - it has great information.

My reply can be applied to anyone with a home based business opportunity or, in fact, any business.  Here are some of the suggestions I offered:

While one of the major cold calling problems is that 80# phone, this guy didn't have the problem calling 200-400 people a day, except for the poor response.

From your experience, is there a specific type of company company that you a have a lot of experience helping? For instance, companies with 20 or fewer employees is pretty broad. Why not think about specializing in a certain niche within that site, which will allow you to eventually "own" that area.

For instance, using realtors as an example. You might have a realtor who specializes in selling to golfers or empty nesters, or specializes in listings for estates or divorcing couples. By branding yourself, you become known as the "go to" person for people in that niche.

What type of message are you leaving on their voice mail? To be honest, you will never get everyone to respond. However, if you create curiosity, they'll be more likely to call you back. I make a lot of calls out of my local area and, surprisingly, I have the most success just saying, "Hi ____, this is Debbi in Orlando. Gosh, I'm so sorry I missed you. I'll try to catch you later or you can call me at _______."

I would not worry about putting people into ACT until they become an actual prospect. It's just not a good use of your time. Perhaps highlight those places you called and left a messge and move on.

What is your USP? I have a friend in the IT business and they help save companies money by using open source solutions.

Can you offer a report about "The 10 Questions To Ask About...." or "10 Things to Avoid..."? If you can also turn that into about a 30 minute presentation, you can get speaking engagements at many association meetings - they are always looking for speakers. (Just be sure they are targeted to your market.)

Can you donate your time to supply a solution to a small charity? You might be able to get a story in your local paper about it.

Does your town have adult education, like Leisure Learning? Teach a class.

Who is already calling on your potential customer? (non-competitive, of course). Can you work out some type of JV or referral situation with them? Here's a great resource for learning how to work with local people to build your business.

I would suggest that you not be totally dependent on cold-calling to promote your business. As the other post said, you want to network with people in the community and get your name around.