Recently asked by a professional web developer friend was this question, “How do you measure ROI [in relation to cold-calling]?

It got me to thinking, exactly how do you calculate ROI for a personal marketing avenue like cold calling? Especially when you are trying to perform outside of your occupation… which is web development. Freelancers who are constantly trying to find work often resort to this type of contact-generating, but is it worth it? I think the answer is pretty complex.

You can never really know what your ROI is for this type of marketing until you can look back over a span of time and compare failed calls to successful calls, and then determine if the cost was worth the time you spent. So, first of all, it will definitely take time.

Remember, though… if you are doing your own marketing, you are losing more than just time for each lost call… you are also losing money from development (assuming you are taking time off of existing work to do sales calls). Every hour you spend on the phone is also an hour you are not spending developing, designing, etc. Therefore, your loss per hour is actually double!

In this case, I would suggest partnering with a company who specializes in doing telemarketing to businesses, and will only charge you for closed deals… not just leads. This way, you can be busy about what you are good at, and let someone else worry about their effectiveness in cold-calling.

If you do decide to do your own cold-calling, though, be prepared to invest a significant amount of time (money) up front until you learn how to be effective at this difficult marketing style and turn a true proft from the results. Only then can you really look back and see if the Return on Investment was worth the effort.