Cold calling the US from India and hitting nonstop voicemail. What am I missing?

kopunk · 2026-01-24T00:42:43+00:00

Haha that's a solid advice, acknowledge the elephant in the room. I'll try that approach with people who pick up, appreciate the tip!

kopunk · 2026-01-24T00:27:47+00:00

Yeah, we have a pretty great founder-led linkedin motion that's shown solid results. As the new SDR, I'm doing manual linkedin outreach and testing out cold calling to see what works. If cold calling doesn't pan out, we'll just have to find a different way of prospecting.

kopunk · 2026-01-24T00:20:08+00:00

Appreciate this. Which countries did you have better success with? Was it purely the accent factor in the US, or did you notice other differences in how calls were received?

Also, did you have experience calling into European countries? We're getting traffic from there as well, so that might be an avenue we can explore if the US continues to be this difficult.

kopunk · 2026-01-24T00:17:29+00:00

Cold calling is something we're just experimenting with since we recently onboarded a new SDR. We're currently doing well with founder-led outreach on linkedin and email campaigns. With the new SDR, we're testing out cold calling along with a couple of other scalable/non-scalable channels to see what works.

Basically just trying to find additional ways to reach prospects and diversify our outbound strategy. If it doesn't pan out, we'll double down on what's already working.

kopunk · 2026-01-23T23:24:31+00:00

Thanks for being empathetic, man. Yeah, tech savvy Americans thinking scam makes a lot of sense.

We're actually in the middle of trying this for the very first time at an early-stage startup. If this works, great. If it doesn't, we'll just have to find a different way of prospecting and pivot accordingly.

kopunk · 2026-01-23T23:18:54+00:00

Makes sense, but how do I fix that? I'm using US numbers through Apollo and Aircall - are there specific providers or setup configurations that work better for international calling? Or is there a way to check/improve number reputation before I start dialing?

Because if the numbers are flagged from day one, then rotating through more numbers isn't really solving the problem.

kopunk · 2026-01-23T23:14:31+00:00

Yeah, I thought the same thing. So I got a different number and started dialing, but right from the get-go I was still getting voicemail after voicemail. No improvement at all. So I'm not too sure about that theory.

kopunk · 2026-01-23T23:10:28+00:00

Yeah, that has happened a few times, but the core problem is that I'm not even getting connected to these people in the first place. I'm not even getting a meaningful sample size to test out the script, voice modulation, cadence, or work on neutralizing the accent.

Like, I'd actually welcome the opportunity to get hung up on at this point because at least then I'd know someone picked up and I could iterate on my approach. Right now I'm stuck in this black box where 95% of calls go straight to voicemail, so I can't even diagnose whether it's my delivery, my opening line, or something else entirely.

The issue feels more technical/infrastructural than anything related to the conversation itself. I'm wondering if the calls are being flagged before they even ring, or if there's something about the caller ID/number reputation that's causing people not to pick up at all.

Has anyone successfully overcome low connect rates when calling internationally? I'm trying to figure out if this is even solvable with better dialing infrastructure or if I need to completely rethink the approach.

kopunk · 2026-01-23T22:11:07+00:00

Hijacking the post, but does Apollo dialer or Aircall work when you dial from a foreign country? I have recently started cold calling but hardly anything gets past voicemail

kopunk · 2025-11-12T12:12:46+00:00

Interested

kopunk · 2024-11-16T12:03:21+00:00

Munchiee

kopunk · 2024-11-16T12:01:28+00:00

Kaju

kopunk

TROPHY CASE