Things to Know Before You Start Cold Calling

I had about 150 phone numbers for leads in Texas, and I was hiring a cold caller to work through them. Simple plan: call, introduce myself, book a Zoom demo. Nothing gets sold on the call.

Before anybody started dialing, I went and read the Texas statute.

Texas wants you registered as a telemarketer before you make sales calls into the state, and that applies to calls to businesses too. It’s a $200 filing plus a $10,000 bond. There’s an exemption if the pitch happens “face-to-face at a later meeting.” My demo happens on Zoom. I couldn’t find a court or agency that had said whether Zoom counts.

So Texas is parked until a lawyer answers that one question. Then I had AI research agents run through calling laws in all 50 states that same day, to see what else I’d missed.

This is what came back. I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice. It’s the working list I’m using.

Calling businesses didn’t exempt me

I assumed B2B cold calls were mostly unregulated. Some states do exempt them. North Carolina says it outright. Texas doesn’t. Its only business exemption is for buyers who resell what you sell.

Owners’ cell phones count as personal

Federal rule: you can’t cold call a number on the national Do Not Call Registry. Business landlines are generally exempt.

A business owner’s cell is not. A federal appeals court treated it as a personal number (Chennette v. Porch.com, 2022). Most of my numbers are owners’ cells, because that’s what they put on their website and Google listing.

What the registry takes:

• An account at telemarketing.donotcall.gov. Setup is same day.
• First 5 area codes are free, then $85 per area code per year. Five area codes is a metro or two.
• Download the list for every area code you’ll call, then do it again every 31 days and keep records.
• Remove every number on it before the caller ever sees the list.

Two states just ban cold calls to cells

• Arizona, even if you’re exempt from registration. And if you call there unregistered when you were supposed to register, that’s a felony.
• New Jersey.

I’m not calling Texas or Arizona for now.

A freebie on the call can trigger registration

“Book a demo and get a free month.” That kind of line can move you into regulated telemarketing in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Nevada, Oregon, and a few other states. Offering something free or below normal price is what does it. So my script asks for the demo and nothing else.

Every state does its own thing

Here’s how the 50 states sorted out for calls like ours:

• No registration needed: 29 states, including Georgia, North Carolina, New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Georgia and North Carolina came back the cleanest.
• Lawyer question first: 15 states, including Texas, Arizona, Colorado, Washington, Florida, and Tennessee.
• Avoid for now: Alaska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Utah, Vermont, and New Jersey cell phones.

A few examples:

• Utah treats booking appointments as covered activity, which is literally all my caller does.
• Ohio wants a $50,000 bond and your Social Security number.
• Vermont is only $125 with no bond, but calling unregistered is a crime.

Recording

About a dozen states require everyone on the call to agree to recording, including California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Washington. My calls record automatically, so the caller gives notice in those states and nowhere else.

Hours and call caps

• Federal: 8am to 9pm, the owner’s local time.
• Florida, Maryland, and Oklahoma stop at 8pm and allow 3 calls to the same person in 24 hours.
• My rule: one call per owner per day.

The opening line matters

Everywhere, the caller needs to say who they are, who they work for, why they’re calling, and show a real caller ID. Some states want more:

• New York: within 30 seconds, offer the do-not-call list and say if the call is recorded.
• South Carolina: name, company, phone, address, purpose, and the do-not-call offer.
• North Dakota and Kentucky: the caller’s city and state.
• Illinois: ask if they’re okay hearing the pitch.

If someone says “don’t call me,” they go on my own list and that number never gets called again. Several states allow private lawsuits per call.

Fiverr banned me while I was hiring

Same week, I made a Fiverr account to find callers. I sent the same list of questions to three sellers. Within minutes, the account got permanently suspended for spam. I appealed, then moved the job posting to Upwork instead.

My checklist before the first dial

1. Start in a state with no registration requirement.
2. Open the Do Not Call account and download the area codes.
3. Scrub the list and remove every cell on the registry.
4. No cells in Arizona or New Jersey.
5. Keep a one-page do-not-call policy: log it, honor it the same day, keep it forever.
6. Use a script with name, company, and purpose up front. No freebies. Add the state-specific opener where needed.
7. Give recording notice in all-party-consent states.
8. Call 8am to 9pm local time, tighter where required. Once a day per owner.
9. Anything in the lawyer-question pile waits for the lawyer.

Texas is still waiting on that answer.