I was watching The 40 Year Old Virgin the other day and was reminded of why I don't call myself a "telemarketer".

The film is about Andy Stitzer, who has a nice life complete with an action figure collection and a cushy job at an electronics store. But the only thing is, he's a 40 year old virgin who has just fallen in love with a woman, who doesn't want sex in the relationship

There's a scene where Andy calls a single mum he's met to make a date and, because he chickens out and pretends he's a telemarketer he gets the following response

[Telephone ringing]

Hello.

Hey, how you doing?

How you doing?

I'm well.

Who is this?

This is James.

James. Do I know you, James?

[Grunting]

I was wondering whether you had a few minutes... to talk about a little laundry detergent.

Are you a telemarketer, James?

Yep.

Are you at the top of a tall building? Can you get to a roof quickly? Jump off! I mean, you people are sick. Get a real f****ng job, why don't you? Go shoot yourself in the f****ng head. Hey, why don't you just, you know, get a knife and run into it? Why don't you do that, huh? Okay. I'll see you later, James. Nice to talk to you. F**k your mother, okay? Bye-bye.

Oh.

Anyone recognise that? I know a guy who was looking to recruit B2C (business-to-consumer) telemarketers on a commission only basis. He was telling me that no-one was interested in doing the job. Er.... really?

Here's a hilarious audio file to listen to: "Crazy Lady VS Telemarketer".

Over 17 years of sales prospecting, I've encountered a few people like this who have obviously had one cold-call too many and snapped.

OK, I admit it... maybe I've played along with them a little, just for the entertainment value. Once they're boiling it's so easy to keep 'em there.

But, the reality is, this type of aggressive, confrontational approach isn't going to get you anywhere.

Labels: sales, sales lead generation, telemarketing

I read an interesting article on RainToday.com called "Does Email Cold Calling Work?". The article's written by Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies. (I'm a big fan of Jill)

Reading Jill's article reminded me of my blog back in May, Email vs Cold Calling, which looked at exactly the same topic.

Jill says: -

"When I talk about email cold calling, I'm not talking about huge email blasts to everyone on your mailing list. I'm talking about targeted, focused, and totally personalized emails. That's what captures the attention of prospective clients.

Because it's virtually impossible to connect with decision makers on the phone, you need to immediately start thinking about how you can include e-mail in your account entry campaigns."

I wonder how many telemarketing companies have realised this?

Of course, most telemarketing companies are just not set up for doing this, and their people wouldn't know how to construct a targeted email that works. In a way, the majority of telemarketing companies are focused purely on one thing...the phone; they've built their whole business model around it.

Meanwhile, the corporate world has rapidly adopted email as a preferred method of communication. Think of all those executives with their Blackberry's.

To me, it's pretty obvious. If you can't get them by phone...try something else.

Labels: appointment setting, cold calling, marketing, telemarketing