Jealous of expensive hosts.....

[computerclone]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by computerclone
[B]I couldnt help but reply to this one since I was one of those guys making my 100+ dials a day in sales to get new customers for Verio....

1. They have had as much as 100 outbound sales people cold calling potential web hosting customers... Can anybody add..

They have a channel for everybody...The rates your talking about are for retail customers...

As I said I was a sales rep..... Most of my customers were new people to the net... First Timers.. I had to explain that they will also need a hosting account to go with there domain name...Most thought that was it...lol And believe me they used the support....I would get all kinds of calls.. There are alot of reasons why they are expensive..but think about it....Network, Support, Investors....Investors,,,, Investors....Sales.....

Wouldnt you want to get top dollar for your services... You might say I had low self worth....lol I was a slow starter in Sales at Verio..But after I got over whining about how high the price was... I spent more time giving good service and making dam good money...And you know what They do have a pretty good thing going... They arent perfect but who is......

So now that I'm not working for them I am starting my own...I am looking at Verio....and others...for a dedicated server...I learned a whole lot from them and will be happy to share with anybody...



And Also...make a note...Who Do You Think IS HOSTING THIS SITE>>>>>LOL

[Eladesor]

That?s both interesting and enlightening about Verio, and explains a lot. But it?s still a bit ?which came first? The chicken or the egg? for the many others ? before you can have a large sales team you need either customers or large investment capital. If you acquire a reasonable amount of customers, you then gain income, from income comes sales reps and other staff. Of course the down side of this is, more staff means higher costs thus the need to sustain a higher income, just to balance the books.

It would be interesting to know which came first for them ? the chicken or the egg?
Another interesting thought is ? where did they get the sales leads? Cold calling??.

Personally I am absolutely hopeless at sales; my tolerance level is about -100. I get so frustrated that I just want to hit them over the heads with my lap top?. Not a good way to impress a potential customer So any ?tips? the group want to share with me (except seeking counselling) would be most welcome.

Eladesor.

[Frosty]

Interesting.....geez Verio had that many sales people calling?

But i thought most people are like me........if i had some business (hosting company) calling me at home harrassing for business i`d curse and slam the phone off the hook and tell them where to put the phone.

[Jaiem]

Very interesting.

NTL, I still don't see how you can sell web hosting via cold calling. It isn't like selling subscriptions to Sports Illustrated.

Obviously you need a very qualified list of leads. But even still, I just can't envision too many people signing up with a host over the phone on the initial cold call. And even of those who do sign up, how many are still with the host 6 months later?

It's a method I've heard alot about but I want to see it in action before I try it.

[Tommy]

During the boom phase, design companies were selling websites and hosting as a package over the phone. I'm sure many still try but I guess the typical business has maybe been on the receiving end of these calls once too often by now. Infact, there are too many sales calls via the phone here in the UK at the mo so if anyone tried to sell me something I didn't know about or didn't care I would say what I say to the rest of them, a polite no thanks.

[Curtis Stevens]

I would like to say that you get what you pay for. You can't hardly get anything for $10, so why should a customer expect you to wait on them hand and foot for $10 a day??? You can pay that much in just TAXES on your phone bill!

Web hosting is expensive. Yeah, bandwidth, hard drives are getting cheaper, etc., but there are fees that you CAN'T avoid. You have to figure in what the bandwidth will cost you for each client, IP address, support, etc. I think the people that are looking for everything for $10 will SUCK support dry faster than you can say go away.

Also, you can advertise on these directories with ease, as lots of people know what you get for $10 and don't plan on spending less than that, say $15 or $20 +. Look at Tophosts.com Most of their advertisers are the more expensive big boys (We were on there last month). It is harder with all of the cheap people, but there are more and more people learning and getting burned by the cheaper guys.

Computerclone,

Did Verio ever get you to make calls to people that already have a web site and try to get them to switch? How many sales did you make on a call ratio? I have thought about calling the admin contact for selective web sites and do cold calling that way, as there are tons of unhappy people out there?

Thanks

[Jaiem]

Curtis,

A lot of admin contact is just the site owner, not necessarily the site designer or maintainer. So they may not know much about hosting or even how to move the site. And if they're affiliated with a designer chances are they are using the designer's hosting service.

[Curtis Stevens]

Yeah, and most of the time the site owner knows what they need to know to talk about them. If they don't know how to transfer their site, just tell them how easy it!

Curtis

[Jaiem]

My point is that a lot of site owners don't necessarily have access to the site code or have the domain control panel password if they have been using a web designer. And a lot of designers take it personally when a client wants to move. I can understand them not wanting to loose business but that's also reality. And I wouldn't want to get between a design and a former client. Been there, done that. It wasn't pretty.


On a related topic, speaking of the cost of hosting, I was recently talking with a potential customer about moving his site to our hosting services. Currently the guy is with a host who is well known for poor support and frequent outages. Infact, the guy admits his site is routinely down 3-4 times a month for several hours! And it can take days to get a response from his tech support! NTL, he doesn't want to leave because he's paying so [relatively] little. IOW, he doesn't want to pay an extra $5/mo for true 24/7 support and reliable service! Unbelievable.

[Eladesor]

he doesn't want to pay an extra $5/mo for true 24/7 support and reliable service!

At the risk of repeating myself - You get what you put up with, and if you put up with it, you'll get it!'

jaiem: What's $5 for peace of mind? I'm with you on this one.

Eladesor.

[vito]

I'm just setting up as a reseller. I find this thread very interesting. IMHO, I would prefer not to compete for the customers that look for rock-bottom prices. There are several reasons why:

1. They will drop you and your $9.95 hosting like a rock the moment they get an offer for $$8.95. Generally speaking, bargain shoppers will not show as much loyalty.

2. These customers will tend to over-use your customer support services (making for lots of work for little return).

3. Selling customer support, uptime and hosting package features will tend to give your hosting company a more substantial reputation on which to build....Quality vs. quantity.

4. Just generally, I'd rather have fewer customers with a higher monthly profit/customer than the other way around.

Just my 2 cents worth...

[John ssuk]

I think in this industry you truly get what you pay for especially when it comes bandwidth, flexibilty and tech support.

I work for a company that solely deals with business customers and they are raking the money in, they charge for almost eveything, and everything is charged at a permium. Yet companies are willing to pay the cost. Infact alot that moved to them came from cheaper hosting companies that where just not providing the support a company needs.

Very few of the cheap hosting companies can provide constant 24 hour tech support with no line ques, almost instant reply to tech support emails and willingness to provide flexible custom hosting.

Business hosting is truly where the money is i assure you.