What to Say to a Business That Has No Website at All

Open with something you noticed about their business, not with what they are missing. "You've got four hundred reviews and no website — is that on purpose?" works far better than any version of "I noticed you don't have a website", and the difference is not politeness.

The standard structure taught for cold openers — name, company, relevance, permission — is built for a phone call to somebody with a job title. Standing in a shop it sounds like a script, and the shop owner has heard four of them this month.

"I noticed you don't have a website" is the natural thing to say and it does three unhelpful things in six words.

It opens with a deficiency. The first thing you have said about somebody's business is what is wrong with it, to a person who has usually built it over a decade.

It is a claim they may be able to refute. If there is a Facebook page, a directory listing, or a site you did not find, you have opened by being wrong. That ends conversations faster than anything else.

It identifies you instantly. By the second half of that sentence they know exactly what you are selling and have prepared a no.

The alternative works because it opens with something true and flattering — the reviews — and puts the gap in the same breath as evidence that the business is succeeding. And it ends in a genuine question rather than a pitch.

The last one is worth more than the other four combined and is the whole reason to ask every client for one specific introduction.

Notice that three of the five end in a question. The job of an opening line is to earn the next question, not to deliver a pitch — and a question is much harder to say no to than a statement.

Several natural-sounding phrases carry a judgement the speaker did not intend, and they are worth removing deliberately because you will not hear it in your own voice.

"You're losing customers." Told to someone whose shop is full, it is both unwelcome and unproven. They will ask how you know, and you cannot answer.

"Every business needs a website these days." This says they are behind. For an owner who has traded successfully for fifteen years, it invites a correct and irritated response.

"Don't you want to grow?" Pushes them into defending their ambition, which is not a conversation you can win.

"It's cheaper than you think." Introduces price before value and implies they were worried about affording it, which some will hear as a comment about their business.

The general rule: describe what you observed, ask what they think, and let them name the problem. Anything that tells an owner something is wrong with their business puts you on the losing side of a conversation about their own trade.

Two pieces of standard cold-call advice reverse when you are physically in the shop, and getting them the wrong way round is common.

Never apologise for calling is correct on the phone and wrong at a counter. "Sorry, I know you're busy" on a call sounds weak; said to somebody actually serving a customer it is simply true, and acknowledging it buys you the two minutes. The distinction is that on the phone you are apologising for existing, and in person you are acknowledging something visible to both of you.

Permission-based openers damage credibility — "is now a bad time?" — again holds on the phone and not in person. In a shop, asking whether now is a good moment is what a person from the same city would do, and refusing to ask marks you as somebody running a script.

The underlying reason both flip: on a call you are an unknown voice with no context, so hesitancy reads as weakness. Standing in front of somebody, you are visibly a person in their shop, and the social rules of being in somebody's shop apply instead of the rules of a sales call.

Openers get all the attention and the second line does more work, because that is where you either become specific or become a salesperson.

The strongest second line is a question about their business rather than a statement about yours: "How do most of your customers find you at the moment?" It is genuine, owners enjoy answering it, and every possible answer tells you which conversation you are in.

The weakest second line is any version of what you do. "We build websites for local businesses starting at ₹15,000" answers a question nobody asked and moves the conversation to price before there is any reason to want the thing being priced.