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- Telemarketing Aint No Four Letter Word! … by neil smith
Telemarketing Aint No Four Letter Word! … by neil smith
- By Neil Smith
- Published 06/12/2008
- Careers and Workplace
- Unrated
6/12/08
Even mimes and the French aren't hated nearly as much as telemarketers!
Despite the introduction of the National Do Not Call Registry, many of us still get telemarketing calls, although I have noticed it has lessened more than a bit thankfully, except at election time where political campaigns aren't subject to the same rules. I literally got 11 automated calls at dinner one night from John McCain! Ridiculous!
It is sad that when someone invokes the word “telemarketer”, it instantly conjres the image of some bottom-feeder trying to pull a scam.
However, if done correctly with the proper ethics, telemarketing can be a positive and highly effective tool of commerce for both buyer and seller. It should however, always be done BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS and not Business-to-Consumer unless the consumer has expressed an active interest in receiving the calls (and no, I don’t mean accidentally forgetting to uncheck a vaguely-worded box on some web entry form).
I am fortunate enough to have received telesales training by some of the best in the business during the 90’s tech boom when any slob off the street could get hired and trained up the ying yang as long as it somehow loosely related to tech, and REALLY fortunate that the people who trained me were awesome folks who instilled ethics and honesty into their techniques. I don’t really have the time nor space to lay out the months of training I received into this one article, but the point is that although that time of my life is long in the past, the telemarketing skills I honed are still used on a daily basis in the applications of my business and in personal parts of my life as well.
The following article at first glance, may appear as though it is only for salespeople, but I am starting to see more clearly every day that we are all sales people of one form or another in most everything we do from landing a new job, to getting a date, to negotiating a lower price on something. We are all salespeople and becoming more skilled in the “art of the sell” is as an important part of life as learning to walk and something that will pay off for life!
DIALING, DOLLARS AND DISCIPLINE!
Telemarketing is one of the lowest-cost methods of drumming up new business and new clients and also for turning your old clients into new clients once again! It does require some hard work and perseverance though.
Research:
Learn who your most likely clients are and where to find them. If you can largely eliminate calling the wrong people who have no use for what you are selling, then you make the most of your valuable selling time.
I make my living as a professional musician, so I search online at places such as Craigslist for opportunities that match what I do as well as taking advantage of the free ads I can place there. Whenever I physically visit a new geographical area, I pick up the local papers and circle the venues and restaurants that appear to be a fit for my style of entertaining and just call those as opposed to every place in the phone book which would not be a very efficient method.
Chamber of Commerce websites are also an invaluable resource for finding businesses in your target areas that may be a fit for what you sell. Most Chamber of Commerce websites will have directories of their member businesses along with contact information usually broken into categories of types of business. Also, don’t be afraid to think outside the box a bit and get creative.
If you can think of a type of business or person who may lead you to appropriate prospects, give it a shot. The worst that can happen is that it will be a bust. The best that can happen is that you’ll find new customers!
Keeping a good contact management database so you can keep good notes of all your communications and also a list of the prospects you have eliminated so that you don’t waste time calling them again is also a must-have. I doesn’t have to be anything expensive or fancy. I personally just use the address book that came free with my Apple OSX operating system.
Diligent Follow Up:
Keep good track of your callbacks and appointments even if your prospects don’t. If a prospect wants a callback at a certain date and time and you are able to agree to that, keep that appointment! Put it into your schedule and treat it as you would any other important business meeting. Even if it doesn’t result in an immediate sale, it will show the prospect you are serious and competent and value their time and business.
If you mail or leave marketing materials, be sure follow up and make sure they have received and had an opportunity to review the materials. If nothing else, it gives a great excuse to have further communication. Also, when ending a conversation with the prospect, if it hasn’t already been clarified, be sure to ask when it would be best to follow up. This gives you your next “in.”
Persistence:
Sales isn’t just a financial transaction. It is a human relationship. It is important that you actually care about the needs of your prospective clients and have an earnest desire to meet their needs instead of just looking at them as a cash pinata to beat dollars out of. People are smart enough to see right through that and will generally not do business with you until they actually feel comfortable with you as a person. Have you ever walked out of a store and gone elsewhere to purchase the same product at the same price or possibly a bit more just because you didn’t like the person you were dealing with at the first store? I rest my case.
If you love what you do and are in your business for the long haul, then be prepared to invest the time in your clients to build a relationship. I have people in my database who have been there for years that are just now getting to the point of seriously considering using services such as mine. I have others who hire me instantly after a 60 second conversation. Business comes in many forms and the lifecycle of a sale is as varied as the people you speak with. Believe in yourself and in your product and if you don’t believe in your product, stop selling that product and sell something you actually do believe in.
Opportunities are everywhere if you know how to spot them.
So go get creative, get on the ball and as my bike messenger friends used to say…
GET HOT!
Please visit my website at http://www.letsgetahead.com for more great articles like this one!
Even mimes and the French aren't hated nearly as much as telemarketers!
Despite the introduction of the National Do Not Call Registry, many of us still get telemarketing calls, although I have noticed it has lessened more than a bit thankfully, except at election time where political campaigns aren't subject to the same rules. I literally got 11 automated calls at dinner one night from John McCain! Ridiculous!
It is sad that when someone invokes the word “telemarketer”, it instantly conjres the image of some bottom-feeder trying to pull a scam.
However, if done correctly with the proper ethics, telemarketing can be a positive and highly effective tool of commerce for both buyer and seller. It should however, always be done BUSINESS-TO-BUSINESS and not Business-to-Consumer unless the consumer has expressed an active interest in receiving the calls (and no, I don’t mean accidentally forgetting to uncheck a vaguely-worded box on some web entry form).
I am fortunate enough to have received telesales training by some of the best in the business during the 90’s tech boom when any slob off the street could get hired and trained up the ying yang as long as it somehow loosely related to tech, and REALLY fortunate that the people who trained me were awesome folks who instilled ethics and honesty into their techniques. I don’t really have the time nor space to lay out the months of training I received into this one article, but the point is that although that time of my life is long in the past, the telemarketing skills I honed are still used on a daily basis in the applications of my business and in personal parts of my life as well.
The following article at first glance, may appear as though it is only for salespeople, but I am starting to see more clearly every day that we are all sales people of one form or another in most everything we do from landing a new job, to getting a date, to negotiating a lower price on something. We are all salespeople and becoming more skilled in the “art of the sell” is as an important part of life as learning to walk and something that will pay off for life!
DIALING, DOLLARS AND DISCIPLINE!
Telemarketing is one of the lowest-cost methods of drumming up new business and new clients and also for turning your old clients into new clients once again! It does require some hard work and perseverance though.
Research:
Learn who your most likely clients are and where to find them. If you can largely eliminate calling the wrong people who have no use for what you are selling, then you make the most of your valuable selling time.
I make my living as a professional musician, so I search online at places such as Craigslist for opportunities that match what I do as well as taking advantage of the free ads I can place there. Whenever I physically visit a new geographical area, I pick up the local papers and circle the venues and restaurants that appear to be a fit for my style of entertaining and just call those as opposed to every place in the phone book which would not be a very efficient method.
Chamber of Commerce websites are also an invaluable resource for finding businesses in your target areas that may be a fit for what you sell. Most Chamber of Commerce websites will have directories of their member businesses along with contact information usually broken into categories of types of business. Also, don’t be afraid to think outside the box a bit and get creative.
If you can think of a type of business or person who may lead you to appropriate prospects, give it a shot. The worst that can happen is that it will be a bust. The best that can happen is that you’ll find new customers!
Keeping a good contact management database so you can keep good notes of all your communications and also a list of the prospects you have eliminated so that you don’t waste time calling them again is also a must-have. I doesn’t have to be anything expensive or fancy. I personally just use the address book that came free with my Apple OSX operating system.
Diligent Follow Up:
Keep good track of your callbacks and appointments even if your prospects don’t. If a prospect wants a callback at a certain date and time and you are able to agree to that, keep that appointment! Put it into your schedule and treat it as you would any other important business meeting. Even if it doesn’t result in an immediate sale, it will show the prospect you are serious and competent and value their time and business.
If you mail or leave marketing materials, be sure follow up and make sure they have received and had an opportunity to review the materials. If nothing else, it gives a great excuse to have further communication. Also, when ending a conversation with the prospect, if it hasn’t already been clarified, be sure to ask when it would be best to follow up. This gives you your next “in.”
Persistence:
Sales isn’t just a financial transaction. It is a human relationship. It is important that you actually care about the needs of your prospective clients and have an earnest desire to meet their needs instead of just looking at them as a cash pinata to beat dollars out of. People are smart enough to see right through that and will generally not do business with you until they actually feel comfortable with you as a person. Have you ever walked out of a store and gone elsewhere to purchase the same product at the same price or possibly a bit more just because you didn’t like the person you were dealing with at the first store? I rest my case.
If you love what you do and are in your business for the long haul, then be prepared to invest the time in your clients to build a relationship. I have people in my database who have been there for years that are just now getting to the point of seriously considering using services such as mine. I have others who hire me instantly after a 60 second conversation. Business comes in many forms and the lifecycle of a sale is as varied as the people you speak with. Believe in yourself and in your product and if you don’t believe in your product, stop selling that product and sell something you actually do believe in.
Opportunities are everywhere if you know how to spot them.
So go get creative, get on the ball and as my bike messenger friends used to say…
GET HOT!
Please visit my website at http://www.letsgetahead.com for more great articles like this one!
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