I've been selling to Serbian small businesses for twelve years. Four at a telco, four at a software reseller, four here. The week I'm describing is pretty normal for me — not a best week, not a worst week. If you want to know what selling free websites in Belgrade actually looks like, here it is.

Monday — Outbound

Monday is always outbound. Coffee at 8:30, at the desk by 9. I pull the week's list from GoHighLevel: 120 businesses across Niš, Kragujevac, and Novi Sad, all vetted the Friday before. Plumbers, dentists, driving schools, two wineries. I call from 9:15 to 13:00 with a 20-minute break somewhere in the middle.

Out of 120 dials I'll usually reach about 35 people. Of those, 12 will say "send me an email" which is polite Serbian for no. About 8 will hang up as soon as they hear "website". The remaining 15 is where the real conversations happen. A plumber in Kragujevac, Dragan, asks me three times if I am trying to sell him hosting. I tell him yes and no — we are giving him the website, and the hosting is paid to a different company, separately. He books a discovery call for Thursday.

Lunch is burek and yogurt from the place on the corner. Not glamorous. Monday afternoon is CRM hygiene — every call logged, every follow-up scheduled. If you don't do this on Monday, Wednesday arrives and nobody knows who called whom.

Tuesday — Demos

Tuesday is discovery calls. Seven booked, six show up. The no-show is a café owner in Niš who I'll call back Friday. The six who show up are: two restaurants, a dentist, a dance studio, a veterinarian, and the plumber from Monday who moved his slot up.

The call template is twenty minutes. First five: what does the business do, who are the customers, what does the current site (if any) do. Next ten: we walk through two or three relevant live sites we've built, same industry, same region. Last five: I explain the hosting partnership, write-down what they'll pay and to whom, answer questions. We don't ask for the sale on the call. We send a written recap that evening, with a booking link for a follow-up.

The Serbian SMB owner has been lied to often enough that the trust-building is the product.

The dentist books a follow-up on the spot. The veterinarian says she'll think about it. The dance studio asks if her daughter can sit in on the next call because her daughter "understands internet". Of course she can. Her daughter will probably close the deal for me.

Wednesday — Closes

Wednesday is a mix. Four follow-ups from last week's discovery calls, plus a couple of fresh inbound warm leads from the website and Instagram. Two close today: the plumber (who wanted 48 hours to check with his wife, who handles the books) and one of Tuesday's restaurants.

A close, in our model, is less dramatic than it sounds. The client signs a one-page agreement, creates the DreamHost account through our partner link (we walk them through it on the call), and fills out the intake form in the shared folder. The actual revenue event happens a few days later when the hosting charge processes. But the handoff to the project manager happens the moment the intake form is filled in — so from my side, Wednesday afternoon is where the sale becomes real.

Thursday — Objections

Thursday I do the calls I've been avoiding. Two referrals from happy clients who haven't responded to email, one big prospect — a small regional chain of bakeries — who's been hesitating for six weeks.

The bakery owner's real objection, once we actually get on the phone, is not price. It's "my cousin made our current website and I don't want to insult him". This is not in any sales training deck. You handle it by asking whether the cousin is still in the business of making websites (he isn't), suggesting the cousin be thanked publicly in the new site's footer (she likes this), and moving on. We close the bakery on Friday morning.

Thursday afternoon: coaching call with our Zagreb counterpart. We share a playbook doc that we both keep updated — objections, responses, edge cases. This week we add "my cousin made it" as objection #47.

Friday — Handoffs

Friday is the day I hate and need. Every deal I closed this week I walk through, end-to-end, with Milan (PM) and whichever designer is going to take it. Sales-to-production handoff, 15 minutes per deal. What the business actually does, who the customer is, what I promised them, what I didn't promise them, what to watch out for.

The plumber is straightforward. The dentist wants a booking widget we don't do by default — I flag this and Milan will set expectations on day one. The bakery chain wants the old site's photos reused, which is a mistake, but it's their call and I note it.

By 16:00 I'm done. I pull my weekly numbers from the CRM: 120 dials, 35 conversations, 7 discovery calls, 6 closes. €280 in first-month partner commission, with a long tail if they stay on hosting (which about 85% of clients do for at least a year).

I close my laptop and walk to the Saturday market. Monday starts again.

Božo Marjanović leads the Serbian sales team from Belgrade. He is available at bozo@decaroy.com to complain about this description.