Australia on Disc – $595 anyone bought it?

[CloudStorming]

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Hi, I am starting a new business venture which will involve B2B direct sales and I am trying to find some intelligence on businesses so that it is faster for me to canvas and also to enter data into a CRM to track them.

Business lists are useful, I am wondering if anyone has purchased this a Australia on Disc product or can suggest other similar products.

I am also interested in any system which would integrate with Google Maps or can scrape data from Google Local. With API changes over the years, many scrapers built over the past few years don’t work anymore.

Cheers

[GuestMember]

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Not used a database but welcome to FS forums Cloudstorming!

[LucasArthur]

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Hi Cloudstorming,

Me neither on using a database for cold calling in this way.. In the old days, we used to use the top 500 companies list, which included gatekeepers, from IBISworld. They can be expensive although provide excellent lists and reports (but not suitable for all budgets).

Wishing you all the best and hope someone can assist, i have never heard of any real positive experiences with these types of cold call lists or great results (if any) to boot.. So would be interested to hear of your imminent successes.

Cheers

Jason Ramage | Lucas Arthur Pty Ltd | E: [email protected]   P: 61 3 8324 0344    M: 61 412 244 888

[Gizmo]

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Hello,

Not done this myself but I have heard that data can be quite dirty.

I know people have had more success from getting a free lancer to compile the data for you and asking them to compile data based on demographics you think you will have better results.

Good luck with your new business.

[Accolution]

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Hi Cloudstorming,

I was in the data business for over 15 years, selling top quality data at a price and had to compete against all those low cost providers.

Those type of discs are full of old either scraped or stolen data – you get what you pay for. Expect nothing and you will be satisfied.

My advice has always been to narrow your market by geography and industry and buy good quality data. As a new business are you really going to market to every company in Australia? If you are, then price shouldn’t be an issue.

Expect a good database to be 90% accurate. The largest data provider is DNB.

Good luck.
Dan.

[bb1]

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Just remember if buying lists of any nature, if you plan to use email marketing, have they got permission to be emailed, or are you going to become a spammer by not meeting the spam rules.

[Gizmo]

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[USER=53375]@bb1[/USER]
Correct unless the emails are publicly available such as
sales@
info@
support@
emails you typically find on web pages then you may email them.

[bb1]

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Gizmo, post: 224419, member: 43147 wrote:

[USER=53375]@bb1[/USER]
Correct unless the emails are publicly available such as
sales@
info@
support@
emails you typically find on web pages then you may email them.

But than only if there is “”a strong link between what you’re promoting and the recipient’s business.””.

So a sales@, etc email doesn’t give you blanket permission to spam.

[CloudStorming]

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Thanks for all the replies! Nice to get some feedback.

To clarify, I don’t intend to email anyone as I believe that contravenes the Spam Act of 2003.

What I actually plan to do is go door to door. This old method of doing business, in Australia seems to have been left to energy providers and Foxtel sales reps.

However I believe it is an effective way of doing B2B sales as unlike residences, most businesses have their doors already open. A combination of business event networking and pressing the flesh door to door I hope will result in a steady stream of leads and sales.

I also want to get out from behind this computer and get some exercise as I am having some neck pain and need to walk it out to feel better.

I know that I can offer valuable services to the right sort of business owners who are neglecting the digital side of their physical business.

I found another database here: https://www.idata24.net/Victoria-Business-Database

It is only $75 so I will probably end up taking a punt, due to the low price, even if the data is from 2014, and the company is Indian and many things would be out of date. For me, businesses that have closed are not that big a deal, I can just walk to the next place or talk to the new business at that address, which actually ties into one of my services.

This $75 list actually has many more URLs, which are important for me, but that is from the sample data, and they are not missing ANY URLs, so I think they are being dodgy in cherry picking the sample data which was complete with emails and URLs. I found another list for $150 I think, and it was missing lots of URLs.

All I really need is the Victorian list, I think 300,000 are enough businesses to keep me walking around for a couple of years if I do it alone, haha.

I am comparing some different software but I already found one that worked by importing the data from the sample and putting it right into my phone, so I can check off the status of each business as I go along, change their status from not contacted to delivered flyer while closed, delivered introductory letter by hand, stopped by gatekeeper, not interested, warm lead, hot lead, sold, etc.

There does not seem to be many CRM packages integrated with Google Maps, maybe Pipeline CRM but not many more. I might need to setup some Zapier integration with the door to door app, because I want to use Nimble.

I bought a kindle book for $1 written by an extremely successful salesperson for IBM and then World Book: http://www.amazon.com.au/Says-Cant-Eskimos-Door-Door-ebook/dp/B00FXYEGO4

however it is more just stories and not practical stuff. I will keep looking for more cold calling or door to door sales books.

[getcontented.com.au]

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I’ve been quite interested in building some CRM software for quite a while now. I built some about 20 years ago for a business I worked in that was deemed amazing at the time by a crowd that tried to sell the business owner on some CRM software… I’ve since had quite a few better ideas.

Not really sure why I’m mentioning this as it has nothing to do with my current business of website design, content management and development (other than the next version of our software will have the capacity to do all kinds of interesting things that would make for compelling uses for things such as door to door CRM and tracking, but customising specifically to what users want).

I think software customisation has been out of the general user’s hands for far too long.

Anyway I wish you luck!

[Author]

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