Script or no script? That is one question that I think divides opinions about telemarketing.

If you've read my blog before then it'll be no surprise that I come down firmly on the "No Script" side (see my post "Stop reading & start listening!" as an example).

But there's still a lot of people out there who will tell you that to be successful with telemarketing you need a "killer script". Just google "telemarketing script" and you'll find plenty of people hawking that holy grail.

There are a number of sales trainers that I agree with on almost every aspect of cold calling and prospecting but when it comes down to scripts I just don't buy it.

The thing is, I've never met a seasoned telemarketing professional who actually uses a script.

If you're working with telemarketers in a traditional call-centre (where they've been dragged off the street, sat down in front of a phone and told to start dialling) then a script is probably necessary. For anyone new to telemarketing in fact, it's probably a good starting point as it gives you an idea of the structure of a call. But that's all it should be, a starting point.

Because, if you've ever received a call from someone reading a telemarketing script - I don't need to tell you why they just don't work.

The reality is that anyone who's been prospecting/telemarketing for any length of time (and all our people have at least 10 years cold-calling experience) will tell you that they don't use a script.

However, that doesn't mean that they don't know what they're going to say.

All telemarketing pros start each call with a plan of what they want to get out of it. They've done their homework before they pick up the phone so they understand exactly what they're calling about.

At Maine Associates, we work through a client briefing process so that our people can understand your business, learn the key messaging and positioning and prepare themselves for the campaign.

They'll typically have notes tagged to their monitor or stuck on the wall in front of them; they'll create a cheat-sheet with key points and messages on it. All this preparation means that when they actually speak with a prospect they know exactly what they want to say.

This frees them up to focus on the real job in hand, which is their call plan.

A telemarketing call is just a conversation. And if you know what you want out of the conversation (your call plan) then you don't need to read a script.

You can boil down any telemarketing call to just three steps: get their attention, tell them why you're calling and then ask them for what you want.

I've read many telemarketing scripts and they really do boil down to these basic steps. Sure, they'll be padded with lots of conditional branching, etc but they all follow a similar format. Most telemarketing companies that prepare a script just pull out a boiler-plate and drop in the company name and a copy of "what they do" pulled from a the client's website.

The other thing about each call being a conversation is that there will be a number of questions back and forth. Questions are essentially about qualification; the telemarketer's asking questions to qualify the prospect and the prospect is asking questions to understand if it's of interest.

Which is why you need to really know your stuff, rather than just read it off a script. No amount of branches in a script with cover every twist and turn of a live conversation.

And here's something that every seasoned telemarketer will tell you. After a while (which could be after a few hours or a few days) gradually a "pitch" evolves.

Now, to be clear, a pitch is not a script.

A pitch is basically an approach, an angle, that the telemarketer has found works for them. Two telemarketers could have a completely different pitch and still get results. That's because a pitch is something that comes from within.

When you know your subject matter, know what you want to get out of the call, and have spoken with a number of prospects, a pitch just starts to come together. You begin to notice the words that hit home and start to find a way around the common objections.

All good telemarketing professionals instinctively know when they've got their pitch.

Now, of course, the script brigade will you you that you write down your pitch and then you've got a script to hand over to someone else. But, for me, that's missing the point (plus I still don't think it would work).

Probably one of the main reasons I don't like scripts is that they take away a persons natural talent. It de-humanises the process (both for the telemarketer and their prospect)

I've found that the reason people insist on telemarketers reading their scripts is because they just don't trust them.

In my experience, marketers are the most guilty of this; they usually think that they can write the script best as they know how to write copy. Guess what, a telemarketing call isn't a prospect listening to someone reading sales copy at them.

Telemarketing is all about people.

Teach your people about your business, your value proposition and what qualifies as a lead and then let them get on with it.

By all means, monitor the results early on to speed up learning and help refine the pitch (we have regular conference calls during the first few weeks of any campaign) but, if you're working with experienced telemarketing professionals, trust that they know what they're doing and will develop their own way of making it work.

In the end, you only use a script if you (or your telemarketing company) don't trust the people making the calls.

And if you don't trust them, do you really want them calling your potential clients or customers?

Labels: b2b telemarketing, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company

I was chatting the other day to one of my team and she was describing a typical call-centre operation as a "battery farm".

Think about it...

There's this large metal shed in the middle of some field (there's always a regional development grant behind these things). Anyway, it's filled with row upon row of people in little cubicles. There they are, clucking away with their scripts, predictive diallers force-feeding them with their next call.

Everything's automated and the "farmer" runs the sorry show from a big office overlooking it all. Casualties are high and anyone who doesn't make the grade is culled and replaced with a brand new chick.

What a sad and depressing thought.

No wonder call-centres have the highest staff churn levels of any industry.

Surely it should outlawed!

Now, on the other hand, think about your "free-range" telemarketer.

Working from the comfort of their own home, free to create their own workspace and decide how they approach each day.

The free-range telemarketer lives a far longer and happier existence. Force-feeding is not for them, they use their natural talents to explore every available opportunity and only dig out the juiciest worms.

Ah, what a life!

I'm thinking of asking Jamie Oliver if he'll support the cause.

Labels: freelance telemarketing, telemarketing agency

I always advocate considering telemarketing as a long-term marketing tactic.

Of course, it's true that telemarketing can deliver immediate results; if you've targeted well and have a killer proposition then you can land a whale on the first day. We all get lucky!

However, the reality is that it takes some time to get a campaign up-and-running and delivering results consistently.

And here's a fact that very few people consider:

Once you've built a qualified database of prospects that have been called, sent info and further qualified (which could be 2 or 3 months into a campaign) your strike-rate improves by at least 100% when compared with the start of your campaign.

That's right, the longer you keep a telemarketing campaign running the more effective it is.

Now, whilst this may be an overlooked aspect of telemarketing campaigns it's hardly rocket-science. Here's why it works this way:

At the start of a campaign you're calling everyone on a list. As you progress you filter the list based on the level of interest each prospect has. At the same time, you remove the bad data (contacts who have moved away, etc) and the people who are just not interested at all. So, after a while, you end up with a much more targeted list of people with at least some level of qualified interest.

Now, one thing that will remain pretty constant is what we call the "pitch rate", also referred to as the # of DMC's (Decision Maker Contacts). That's the number of decision makers you speak to in a given length of time (we measure it per day). Each industry sector, type of business and level of authority will have it's own pitch-rate. It remains constant because you're still calling the same people.

But, if the pitch-rate is constant but you're now calling a more qualified list, your strike rate will go up.

If your list initially has 50% "interested" prospects (ranging from mildly interested to hot-to-meet-you-now interested) and you pitch 20 decision makers a day then only 10 are going to be interested, right? (50% of 20 pitches, stay with me).

Once you've qualified your list, you're still pitching 20 a day but now 100% are interested, making you twice as effective as before.

We advise clients to think of two distinct phases of a campaign.

The initial phase is what we call the "build" phase. This is where we're least efficient as we're filtering and qualifying as we go. It's often best to have a higher level of resourcing (subject to budget) at this stage to get traction faster.

Once we've qualified much of the list, and determined the most appropriate contact frequency for each classification of lead, we're left with a much tighter database of prospects.

This is when we move onto our "maintenance" phase.

The resourcing level for this phase can be half or even a third of the build phase. Some of the leads with lower levels of interest may only require a call every 90 days, backed up with regular email marketing. However, because we're now more effective at this stage, we can produce the same results as we did in the build phase.

In the maintenance phase the ROI is at least double that of the build phase.

To me, when a company stops a telemarketing campaign at the end of the build phase it's a criminal waste of money. All that hard work in qualifying the database is just thrown away and, without nurturing those lower level leads, they'll just go cold (or go to your competitors).

As I said at the start, telemarketing can deliver short-term results but that really is the tip of the iceberg.

If you invest in telemarketing over the long-term you'll start to build a process that delivers a steady flow of new business opportunities with an outstanding ROI.

Labels: telemarketing agency, telemarketing ROI

One of the things we're finding in the current economic climate is the need to recalibrate success metrics for telemarketing campaigns. Essentially, we need to re-think the number and type of meetings that can be delivered for a given number of days effort.

Some of this is sector specific and some of it holds true across all sectors.

Generally, if you'd asked any seasoned telemarketer at the beginning of 2008 how many meetings they could book in a day it would roughly equate to 1 per day.

A "deal a day" has been the unofficial benchmark for B2B telemarketing.

And, for clarification, I'm talking about senior level, well qualified meetings, not just a 15-minute coffee that's been squeezed out of a prospect and has a 100% chance of being bounced.

So, what's changed since early 2008?

Actually, you know what's changed; we've entered one of the most severe recessions experienced for decades.

What this means from a telemarketing perspective is that it's become harder to get meetings but, ironically, the meetings are much better quality.

Think about it. When times are good, budgets are plump, people are generally more open to looking at new ideas and exploring new relationships. Bringing in a new agency, consultancy or vendor to pitch their credentials is the norm.

However, when budgets have been cut off at the knees and you're wondering whether you've still got a job (or a business) in the next 3 months, you're going to restrict your time to things that have both a short-term impact or are critically aligned with the business agenda.

This means two things:

Firstly, it's essential that your pitch hits those hot buttons. OK, the time-line may vary depending how strategic your proposition is, but unless it cuts directly to what's on the business agenda right now, it's going to fall on deaf ears.

Secondly, if they are interested, you can bet it's hot one.

People just won't meet you to shoot the breeze at the moment. If they've agreed to see you it's because they need your help.

We're finding that businesses which hit those hot buttons and can deliver a rapid return-on-investment without large capital investment are still getting traction.

Sure, the "one deal a day" rule could now be more like one deal every two or even three days, but if the trade-off is high conversions, shorter-lead times, etc then telemarketing can still be one of the best direct marketing mediums for high-end B2B lead generation.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, telemarketing agency, telemarketing ROI, telemarketing services

The other day I was speaking with a prospective client who was considering outsourcing telemarketing after his in-house telemarketer "left and never returned".

I asked how long the telemarketer had been working with him and he told me just 4 days!

Was he any good? "Oh yeah", says this guy, "He made about 20 or so calls a day and got us a meeting before he left"

20 calls a day? One meeting after 4 days work? Oh please...

That pretty much sums up the experience of many businesses who have tried to hire people in-house to "do some telemarketing". I know, when I ran a UK sales team I hired and trained telemarketers. The trouble is, good ones are just hard to find.

What usually happens is this:

During the interview they tell you that they've had some experience telemarketing. Which is true, pretty much anyone who's been in some sales or admin role will have had to do a little cold-calling.

So, you set them on, give them the training and then they go hard at it. If you're lucky, they make plenty of calls, turn up some leads and even book some meetings.

That's week one over.

Then, as sure as the sun comes up every morning, their performance starts to tail off. They start telling you the leads are drying up. And - I guarantee this - they start to "help out" with a few jobs around the office.

It could be some filing, maybe helping with the marketing, or even "researching" online. If someone in the office goes off ill, they're in their seat like a shot. Before you know it, one day soon, you'll wake up and realise that they're no longer making those calls.

Why does this happen?

The reason is simple: very few people like to make cold calls.

Why do you think the average staff churn in most telemarketing call centres is close to 50%? People who can do this job and are any good at it are like hens teeth.

Most people would rather crawl over broken glass on bare knees than pick up the phone and start cold calling (and that includes most salespeople).

If you really want an in-house telemarketing team, expect to invest heavily in recruiting, managing and retaining them. Unless you have a market that can support two or more telemarketers full-time, it simply doesn't make sense to create an in-house team.

Outsourcing telemarketing to a professional telemarketing agency really is a no-brainer for most businesses.

For one thing, it's more flexible. Only need someone for a day a week? Need to halt a campaign, stop during the holidays or avoid specific times within your industry? By outsourcing your telemarketing to an agency that's not a problem.

For example, we work on monthly retainers for many clients, but will take a break whenever it suits ours clients best. That's the kind of flexibility that's not possible with employed in-house staff, even part-time ones!

Also, by outsourcing to a telemarketing agency that works with seasoned telemarketers (like ours, of course), you'll work with experienced people who you simply wouldn't find on the open market.

As I said earlier, very few people like to do this work and are good at it. If you hire someone with little experience then cut to the chase and ask them to start filing.

Quality telemarketing professionals are the ones who do this for a living.

Even the costs of in-house telemarketing vs outsourced seldom stack up.

OK, so you will be able to pay someone to work in-house for less than an agency. Of course, there's a whole bunch of hidden costs you'll incur such as holidays, sickness, management time, IT costs, training, etc, but even with these added, the total "costs" may still be less, pound for pound, for an in-house person compared with an outsourced telemarketer through a professional telemarketing agency.

But, it's not the costs you need to consider - it's your return-on-investment.

Even if an in-house telemarketer costs you half of an agencies daily rate, they will struggle to deliver a quarter of the results of an experienced pro.

What did that guy tell me at the start of this post? His in-house telemarketer had worked with him for 4 days, made 20 calls a day and got him one meeting. No professional telemarketer would survive on those ratios - they'd have no clients.

Outsourcing telemarketing to experienced, seasoned professionals will give you a superior return-on-investment compared with in-house people. Sure, hour-for-hour, day-for-day it might cost more to outsource telemarketing, but if your in-house people deliver a fraction of the results (and they will) then it's an irrelevant comparison.

Any experienced telemarketer worth their salt will produce at least 4x the results of the type of person you're likely to attract for an in-house role.

Plus they'll do it day after day, consistently, without you having to manage them.

And, they won't ask to do the filing :-)

Labels: b2b telemarketing, outsourcing telemarketing, telemarketing agency

If you're considering hiring a telemarketing agency for a campaign, what are the questions you should ask?

I've been asked this before on a number of occasions, particularly by people who have "tried telemarketing before" and had their fingers burned.

The reality is that telemarketing is one of those businesses which you can literally set up with a phone and a spare room. If you include freelancers, there are probably thousands of telemarketing agencies out there, and quality does vary.

So, here's a list of areas which you can focus your questions to determine whether a telemarketing agency is right for you:

1) Client experience - has the telemarketing agency worked on similar campaigns for other clients in your sector? Most sectors have their own terminology and ways of doing business. If your telemarketing agency has worked for similar clients previously they are more likely to quickly grasp your proposition. Typically, when you speak to the telemarketing agency, you'll get an understanding of whether they "speak your language".

2) Market & Sectors - what type of companies has the telemarketing agency experience of calling into. Whilst the first question looks at client experience, this is focused on the companies that you are targeting. For example, a telemarketing agency may have worked with other web design agencies previously, but if they were calling one-man-bands and you want to target FTSE 100 prospects that doesn't really work.

3) Function & seniority - similar to the above question, is the telemarketing agency experienced at calling into the function and/or level of decision maker that you are targeting. For example, if you are targeting HR, has the telemarketing agency successfully completed similar campaigns into that business function. Again, language varies between functions. Calling CEO's is very different to calling middle management.

[It's worth mentioning before I continue that often you need to take a view of the breadth of experience the telemarketing agency has, rather than expecting to find an agency that has done exactly the same campaign as yours. An example could be a telemarketing agency that has called into HR previously for a training company, and has also worked for software companies before, but not run a campaign for a software company calling into HR. Like most things in life, it's about finding the right balance]

4) Reporting - how will the telemarketing agency keep you up-to-date on the progress of your campaign? Do they provide summary reports? Can they work on CRM systems? Depending on the scope and scale of your campaign, a regular update by Excel could be all you need. The important thing is to be kept informed on how the telemarketing campaign is progressing.

5) Data - two questions here. What data will the telemarketing agency be using and, once the campaign has finished, what happens to the data? Cutting costs by re-using stale data is a false economy. And the quality of data has a direct impact on the output of any telemarketing campaign. Personally, I would always make sure that the telemarketing agency buys (or builds) the data-set on your behalf because then it's their responsibility to make sure it's good data (they can't blame you that the data was poor), plus you "own" the data at the end of the campaign (subject to the terms of the data provider, of course).

6) Track record - how long have they worked with their clients? As I said earlier, there are lots of telemarketing agencies out there. What you're looking to avoid is an agency that can't provide references for long-term clients. Good telemarketing agencies (and good freelance telemarketers) keep clients over the long term. Even if they don't work continuously on campaigns, their clients will come back to them. Why, because good telemarketing agencies (and telemarketers) are hard to find! For example, we're still working with our first client we started with back in 2005. That speaks volumes!

7) ROI - telemarketing should always deliver a strong ROI (return-on-investment) and agencies that understand this should be willing to advise you on what they can deliver for their fees. Good agencies will agree deliverables up-front, and work closely with you during any pilot or proof-of-concept period to review performance. If an agency can't give you any clear indication of what ROI they expect to deliver on a campaign - walk away.

8) Staff retention - what's their staff turnover, or churn rate? How long have their people been working with them? This applies equally to telemarketing agencies with employees or ones that work with associates (such as ours). Why is this important? Well, assuming you want to develop a long-term relationship with a telemarketing agency, you want to know if the time you invest getting their people up to speed with your business and proposition is going to be wasted or not. For example, one of our team (who we've worked with for several years) used to be a manager of a telemarketing agency. She told me one of the reasons she stopped and went freelance was because she got tired of coming back after the weekend and finding a whole new team to train. Large call-centres have the highest rate of churn than any other business.

9) Client portfolio - how many clients do they work with? And are any of them direct competitors? This gives you a good indication of whether you're going to be "just another client" or whether you're going to get a more personal service. Also, the question around competitors tells you whether there's likely to be any conflict of interest (and whether the telemarketing agency has any integrity). Working with a telemarketing agency that handles your competitors brings up so many issues around data security, intelligence leaks, etc; it's best to simply avoid it altogether.

10) Who's calling - finally, who's actually going to be picking up the phone and calling on your account? Any telemarketing agency, once you've agreed commercials, should introduce you to the team member(s) who will be working on your account. This is your opportunity to speak with them (ask some of the above questions, like "how long have you worked here?") and get a feel for whether you are comfortable with them representing your company on the phone. If the telemarketing agency can't do this, it means that you'll just get the "next one available", which pretty much means you're just another number to them.

So there you are, 10 areas to probe and prod a potential telemarketing agency.

And if you find more than one agency that ticks all the boxes it'll probably come down to the best question of all - do you like them?

Labels: b2b telemarketing, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

Here's a question: if you read about a RFP in the trade press, is it a hot lead or simply old news?

I know there are many agencies who spend most of their time reading the trade press and sifting for intelligence on RFP's, tenders, etc. In many cases it's simply because they're afraid to pick up the phone and do some real work :-)

Once they see that XYZ plc is going to be tendering, guess what, they're straight on the phone.

Now, whilst the trade press can be useful for some intelligence, in my experience chasing RFP announcements is simply a waste of time.

Why? Because if you didn't know it was happening before it hit the press then you're just too late.

A senior executive of an FTSE 100 company put it to me like this: "once the word gets out, there's blood in the water and suddenly your boat's being circled by hundreds of sharks."

He was referring to management consultants, but it's applicable to any professional services.

I was recently asked to call a company after an article was published saying they were looking for new agencies. My client presented this as a hot lead. OK, I thought, let's give it a go.

So, I called the contact and he tells me, very politely actually, that he'd already been called by hundreds of agencies off the back of that article and, in fact, the article was incorrect - they had no requirements. So many agencies called them that they published a news release on their website saying that the article was inaccurate and called for the publication to retract it.

The thing that amazed me was that so many agencies had followed up this lead.

To me, one of the ways we add value is by prospecting for business before it becomes public. If we can put you in-front of an opportunity before it gets to a RFP or tender, then you are able to influence the brief.

Frankly, if you come in late to the party then you're really just there to make up the numbers.

Labels: b2b telemarketing, lead generation agency, new business agency, telemarketing agency

I was chatting about this with one of my associates recently (an experienced telemarketer who's made 1000's of pitches over her career) and we were discussing the process of refining a pitch. It was apparent to me that in the business-to-business (B2B) space, telemarketing is much more of an art than a science.

Here's why I say that.

Direct marketing has always included both a creative element (such as writing copy) and then a science element (metrics, split testing, etc). These things go hand-in-hand because a minor change to the copy, when tested properly, can show a huge uplift in results.

That's why I've always thought of myself as a direct-marketer (coming from a sales background initially) as I'm always focused on results.

Anyway, the same is true for telemarketing but here's the difference: in B2C direct marketing campaigns, the volumes are such that tactics like segmentation, split testing, etc can be applied. For example, if you're sending out 500,000 direct mail pieces (or emails, or whatever) then you can test 1,000 on two different versions to find the one which makes a difference. A 1% uplift can make a huge impact to the overall campaign ROI.

However, in business-to-business telemarketing, and particularly high-end B2B telemarketing, these numbers really don't make sense.

For many clients, we may work on a campaign targeting a few hundred companies. When you really target your sweet-spot, for most small businesses, this is normal. When you are faced with a very small segment, it's not as easy to see statistically relevant results from making discrete changes.

Plus, add to this the human element. That is, even with a script (if you use such things, we don't) the message isn't delivered exactly the same way every time - even using the same telemarketer. So many variables come into play that it's impossible to determine which one made the difference.

Hence, it's an art, and one which is best practised by experienced people who have learned their craft by making thousands of pitches.

Labels: telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

I often discuss the issue of blow-back with clients who are concerned about potential brand damage when considering using telemarketing to generate leads for new business.

As the saying goes, "you can't make an omelette...."

Of course, anything you do which involves making an unsolicited approach for new business, whether that's by phone or email, carries a degree of risk. I've seen sales people sit all day doing anything rather than pick up the phone and cold call because they're afraid of rejection; in the trade they call it call avoidance.

But, for a company considering working with a telemarketing agency, it's a legitimate concern to have. After all, anyone making a call on behalf of your company is representing your brand in front of potential clients.

In my experience there are two things that you should be aware of:

Firstly, scripts should be avoided at all costs.

Whoever's calling on your behalf needs to clearly understand your proposition. That's not to say they need to be experts, they just need to know your key messages, how you're positioned and why the prospect should consider meeting you (if the output is a meeting, for example). This is why we invest time in client briefings at the start of every new business campaign.

If your prospect receives a call from someone who is obviously reading a script it tells them immediately that it's a cold call from someone who probably doesn't even know who they are and what they do.

An intelligent, well-researched approach says something entirely different...

Secondly, pushy sales people will kill any chance you have.

In this business, a little guile, wit and persistence is always needed to deliver results (after all, if it was that easy....). But thinking you can strong-arm someone into a meeting never works.

At best they'll agree to the meeting and then cancel it. At worst they'll remember your company name. And if you upset them they will always remember it.

So, always make sure you work with people who have an interest in delivering quality sales appointments, not just another name in the diary or meeting notched up on the board.

That may mean fewer meetings. But, in our book, fewer, quality meetings often lead to more profitable new business.

Labels: appointment setting services, new business agency, sales lead generation, telemarketing agency

I've been watching today's Formula 1 Grand Prix at the Fuji Speedway (at a civilised time thanks to Sky+) and it was great to see Alonso make it two in a row.

Somehow, I always enjoy it when the underdog wins.

Maybe it's because we're a small agency, or maybe it's because we typically work with clients who are up against larger, more well known, and better resourced competitors, but I get a lot of satisfaction when the smaller guy wins.

Now, whilst Renault would dispute they're a small player, you have to admit they've been running well behind the usual suspects for most of the season.

As I wrote in my last post about new business development in uncertain times, smaller companies can often out-manoeuvre larger ones when the game changes unexpectedly.

And it's that ability to act quickly, re-act to external trigger events and pitch prospects with an unscripted approach that means we can uncover new business opportunities for our clients that, otherwise, they would not have.

For us, getting our clients in pole position is what we're all about.

Labels: new business agency, new business development, telemarketing agency

It's always good to put a name to something.

After my earlier post which asked the question "Is stand alone telemarketing dead?" I was reading an article in CCF (yes, even I read the call-centre press) and came across the term "Unified Communications" in an article about future technology trends for call centres.

The article refers to Unified Communications (UC) as the "next big step" which offers real integration between telephony, the web, email, instant messaging and social networking sites.

The example they give is where agents "have a view of which experts are available to help them if they encounter a problem when on a call. The expert could be asked to join a chat session and shared documents could be used"

Obviously, much of this is referring to large inbound contact centres but how about UC for outbound?

From my perspective, as a small telemarketing agency already combining phone, web, email and IM (such as Skype) on a regular basis between client teams and our new business people, this is already available. OK, it requires a certain amount of intelligence on the part of the "agent" but that's not a problem for us.

Another area where unified communications is an interesting concept, particularly with respect to telemarketing & lead generation, is the integration of web forms, email marketing and pay-per-click lead generation with an outsourced telemarketing or telesales resource.

To me, this is when we start to see increased returns by joining up disparate marketing technologies into a closed-loop process. The actual communication channel used shouldn't really be of any concern; neither should we be be forcing prospects into any particular channel for ongoing communication.

As I say, unified communications are available now, but just not on one platform that you can scale and manage across 1000's of agents

So, I guess it'll still be a few years before the big boys catch up.

Labels: telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

I've posted often about our approach to lead generation and appointment setting and how it's different the the way most telemarketing companies work.

But a recent conversation with an associate who's probably written the book on cold-calling made me wonder whether telemarketing as a stand-alone marketing tactic has finally had it's day.

Certainly, in the b2c sector it's days are well and truly numbered, evidenced by the growth of TPS and the Do Not Call Registry in the US. As far as business-to-business telemarketing is concerned, I think the time is also running out.

Now, let me be clear, I'm not saying that prospecting for new business by phone is dead, far from it. But, I do believe that telemarketing on its own is no longer effective.

This typically applies to larger telemarketing agencies and outbound call centres than smaller telemarketing companies, as their entire business model is based upon volume and scripts. Their approach is to keep dialling until they finally reach someone and then deliver a killer script designed to "trick" them into saying "yes".

Excuse me, but that simply doesn't work any more.

For many senior decision makers, telephone is no longer the preferred method of communication. Partly due to the telemarketing industry and partly due to the nature of work (mobility, home-working, meetings, time pressures, etc) business people today avoid incoming phone calls as much as possible.

And if you do get them on the phone, will they really sit through a six-minute scripted pitch? I don't think so.

In business-to-business, lead generation today is about one-on-one marketing, opening a dialogue and using a mix of communication methods.

Here's an example of how large call centres have got it so wrong:

I received a call a while back from a utility company (it was already my utility company as it happens) wanting to get me to switch my electricity to them.

Now, as it happens, I was interested in doing this, but I wanted to see something in writing before I made any decision ("decision strategies" are a whole other area to blog about but basically, many people want to see something before they can make a decision). So, I asked them to send me something. "Sorry, can't do that" was the reply.

If you're from the old school of sales you'd probably chalk up my request as a "time waster" or a delaying tactic and simply move on. But, I don't subscribe to all those "buyers are liars" sales cliches.

No, the reason they couldn't send me anything was because they were sitting in an office in Chennai or Glasgow and were not in anyway joined up with the whole sales process.

So they didn't send me anything. Wasted call, wasted opportunity.

When we work on new business campaigns for our clients we operate as part of their team. We hold collateral, send emails from our clients' domain, and nurture leads through the pipeline.

When we initially approach someone (by phone or email) and they ask for info, what does it tell them when we send it to them and then follow-up? It tells them that we're interested in starting a dialogue.

It may (and often does) take several phone calls, emails & voice-mails over a period of weeks or months until they're ready. Over that period we're demonstrating that we're not a pushy salesperson, we value their time and we want to do business.

When the timing is right, we'll book a meeting (or conference call, or whatever the appropriate next step is).

To me this is simple. Why have most telemarketing companies got it so wrong?

I guess, lucky for us, they have :-)

Labels: appointment setting services, lead generation agency, lead generation company, new business development, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

For me, one of the interesting things I picked up at the Being Digital event I attended yesterday (excellent event btw) was that consumers don't mind adverts as long as they're relevant.

OK, that may seem obvious, but it came out of a lengthy panel discussion on how to monetise content in a fragmented market without upsetting your audience.

When adverts as relevant (or targeted), such as with Google Adwords, then people don't object to them. In a way, there's this serendipitous effect that the advert appears to reach you just when you were looking.

OK, maybe that's over egging it, but there's no doubt that the more targeted your ads the higher the conversion, or CPR, or whatever metric you're using plus (and here's the real thing) the less you upset your target market.

This is what I've always said about targeted cold-calling for new business.

When you really target your audience, then your hit rate goes up, plus the people you are calling will respect the fact that your call was relevant to them. Even if they're not interested today, they will agree that they could have been.

Think about it. For most telemarketers they're calling you just because you're the next person on their list. How does that make you feel? Now, how different does it feel if someone contacts you because they've actually thought about whether you might be interested before they called you?

Perhaps they've done some research about your business or competitors. Or they've noticed a trigger event that makes them believe you would respond positively to their message.

Approaching any new business campaign in this way is essential to starting a relationship that you can build on for the future.

It's about mutual respect, really.

Labels: appointment setting services, cold calling, lead generation agency, lead generation company, new business development, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

The guys at Jigsaw sent over an email today for a webinar they're running next week "Microwave Your Cold Calls -- Sales 2.0". Catchy title, I thought.

But why does it seems that everything is "2.0" nowadays?

According to their blurb,

Prospects today are even more short of time than ever and "Old school" selling techniques are less-and-less effective. It's time to not only warm up your cold calls. It's time to "nuke 'em". It's time for Sales 2.0.

I agree that things have moved on. Email is the preferred method of contact for many prospects (particularly senior ones) and, as I've blogged about many times before here, you need to target prospects with precision to make an impact today.

Nigel Edelshain, who's behind this Sales 2.0 concept and is presenting on the webinar, says that most sales people "do reasonably well once they are in a sales meeting. But most of them are unable to execute a successful prospecting/lead generation program".

100% behind you there, Nigel. For salespeople also read: "any small business owner and Director". Nigel goes on to say:

One element that really distinguishes "Sales 2.0" in my eyes from "old school selling" is the focus on the front end of the sales process not the back end. The "old school" sales books always focused on closing techniques and said very little about prospecting. "Sales 2.0" flips this approach and puts most of a sales person's time and energy into research and prospecting.

Again, couldn't agree more Nigel. In fact, I'd go as far as saying that if lead generation is done right the deals almost close themselves (OK, maybe that's a bit far)

But, he's correct that if you target the right people with a well researched proposition it's at least 50% of the way there.

Whether that's really 2.0 or not I'm not so sure.

No doubt, Nigel will go on to show us how we can use Jigsaw, LinkedIn, et al to target prospects and that's where the 2.0 bit will come in.

But I wouldn't rule out the "old school" either. Even with the all the tools available to target prospects, sometimes you've still got to pick up that phone.

But that's just my 2.0 pence... or 2.0 cents if you're on Nigel's side of the pond.

Labels: sales lead generation, social networking sites, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

I get approached by a lot on online business looking to outsource their ad sales.

Well, I say outsource their ad sales but, basically, they don't have any to outsource.

What they all really mean is... "I want you to sell advertising for my unproven Web 2.0 business but I haven't any cash to pay you".

There's a great article in today's Sunday Times The new dotcom boom which gives some insight into this.

Whilst drawing some parallels with the last dot-bomb bubble, most notably the growth of start-up networking events, it's recognised that there are a some differences this time round.

Today, it's typcial of Web 2.0 start-ups see their exit through a strategic buyer rather than an IPO. VC activity is up but no-where near the feeding frenzy heights of last time around. One reason could be that it's so much cheaper to actually start up a Web 2.0 business today.

"Lastminute used to cost millions of pounds every year in technology," says Hoberman [Brent Hoberman of Lastminute.com and wayn.com]. "Now it is far cheaper." How come? "Moore's Law. Everything becomes cheaper and faster." Can you set up for 20,000? "Absolutely," says Clegg [Judith Clegg of the Glasshouse, the company that runs Second Chance Tuesday]. "Less, perhaps."

Add this to the fact that most Web 2.0 start-ups' business model is based solely on advertising revenues and you start to see why we get approached by so many people to sell advertising on commission.

The problem is that none of these start-ups have anywhere near enough traction to make a CPM model pay. So, to fill the void, there's this vague idea that someone can just make a few phone calls and drum up a quick ad deal for their "next big thing".

Sure, ad spend is moving rapidly online. However, as the article points out "with lots of social networking sites all seeking advertising money, some kind of shake-out is due."

Web 2.0 businesses typically work on some low value/high volume model (which could be be that a directly listing fee, monthly or annually subscription or CPM ad revenues). The trouble for us is that these models just don't work well with telesales (which needs at the very least a medium value proposition) unless you're prepared to buy business in a land-grab.

If you're looking to self-fund and grow covering your sales costs (outsources or in-house) from revenue then you either need a higher value offering or a small number of partnership deals which will bring the long term revenue scale you need.

So, now you know, please... stop calling me ;-)

Labels: new business development, sales outsourcing, start-ups, telemarketing agency, telesales, venture capital

Can you remember that line from Joe in Reservoir Dogs - "Let's go to work"

What a great film!

There's this theme that runs through some of my favourite films. Films like Ronin, Heat and, of course, Reservoir Dogs.

In all these films there's this core team of experts who come together to execute a plan.

That's something I completely identify with because it's at the heart of what we do; we pull together a team of seasoned experts, usually formed around a core team who we have worked with previously, to make it happen.

Our clients use us because we just "get to work".

It's something I've always enjoyed about people who are real experts at what they do; the straight-forward way they effortlessly deliver.

Whether we're talking about a builder, plumber or sales person, you know when you're with someone who's an expert in their field. And we're not talking about "book smart" here, I'm referring to the seasoned, battle-scarred expert who's earned their stripes in the trenches.

"Workman like" is a good term for it. No fuss, someone who quickly knows what needs to be done and gets organised to do it. Simple.

In fact, one of my favourite client testimonials pretty much sums it up:

"David is easy to work with, he understands how to get results and he delivers."

Let's go to work...

Labels: new business development, sales outsourcing, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

Adding to what I said on my previous post, I came across this blog "The Ultimate Revenge On A Telemarketer".

This really is the best! Have fun.

I found it on an Ecademy blog which was talking about how to avoid telemarketers.

It seems the word "telemarketer" is not a label someone wants to have; it's signifies someone who's a low-level, scripted, call-centre...well, "telemarketer"

The reality is that I know many big-ticket "telemarketers" who have been doing this for a long time and have made a lot of money (and still do).

Generally they focus on business-to-business and very high level work. Calling on CEO's is completely different to calling someone's home in the evening (CEO's are soooo much easier)

Consider this...there are some industries where the "big-billers" do all their business on the phone. They make cold-calls, they cut high-value deals on the phone and make a lot of money.

Generally they're in some kind of "broker" activity, such as recruiting, or executive search.

Think about that, recruiting's an industry that thrives on cold-calling. One veteran once told me "recruiting is cold-calling"

I personally do about 50% of my work by phone. It's nearly always "cold-calling" - whether it's research or lead generation. But then again, I also use email a lot and online networks such as LinkedIn

There's two main reasons I don't call myself a "telemarketer":

1) It limits what I do, as I say, the phone is only one way in.
2) It devalues what I do, when people are looking for telemarketers they want to pay next-to-nothing.

That, and the social stigma, public humiliation and verbal abuse ;-)

Labels: cold calling, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

OK, so there's always a point when I engage with a new client when we start to discuss fees. For "appointment setting", there are a few fee models on the market, ranging from the very bottom (setting up meetings for financial advisers or low-value B2B propositions) to the very top...CEO of a global company.

I pretty much focus on the upper-middle to top of this market.

Typically, my clients want to engage with senior budget holders and decision makers where their value proposition has the most currency. In larger companies that's not always an easy person to find. Often for consultancies I need to find a departmental or divisional head... or even a "Director" level interim who's heading up a programme. Titles can be a bit misleading...

[You can't go out and buy those names on a list, BTW.]

Anyway, we now get back to "how much" is the meeting worth?

Whilst there are methods of calculating the life-time value of your potential client, as used by many direct marketing guru's when establishing ROI and Client Acquisition methods, I find these don't really help.

In any case, the cost of getting the meeting will be far less than the cost of "pitching" for the business. For any company with a complex sale, and long bidding process this cost regularly runs into hundreds of thousands, GBP or USD, take your pick.

Therefore, when you factor in the cost of sale, it's more important to have a well qualified meeting than just any meeting.

Another way of establishing cost per meeting is to look at alternatives, such as trade shows, events, or even your own biz dev people cold-calling - OK, so we both know that'll never happen :-)

When I've sat down with clients before and looked at the costs, when you add up lost billable hours or sales "down-time", plus costs of the event etc, the cost per meeting always runs above 1000GBP.

I regularly deliver qualified meetings for less than half that amount, as well as supporting my clients with account research & intelligence that they can leverage for success.

Labels: appointment setting services, sales lead generation, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

I was chatting to a fellow business developer the other day and we discussed the concept of "the wall" in cold-calling.

Hitting the Wall is a term from marathon running (also called "bonking") where the runner experiences dramatic fatigue.

From a cold-calling perspective, it's a very similar experience. It's something that few people (and most call centres) appreciate because they forget that cold-calling is essentially a human activity.

What do I mean by that?

With other methods of direct marketing, such as direct mail or email marketing, it's easy to play the numbers game. For a start, there's a lot of consistency in the medium used and message delivered. With telemarketing, the message is delivered by a human being.

Remember that.

Most new business developers, the experienced ones that have been in the game a long time, will tell you that they like to alternate projects. For me, 3 hours is a good length of time to work on the same job. It's long enough to get some momentum, but short enough to keep you fresh.

When I get calls from potential clients and they start talking about, "I want 20 leads per week, based on 60 hours of calling", etc, I know that they've never actually done the job themselves.

Now, those metrics could actually be correct. But the idea that one person can stay chained to the desk and deliver the same message again & again without getting bored, tired or clinically depressed... I don't think so.

What did The Prisoner say? "I am not a number..."

To me, this is one of the key aspects of understanding whether I can deliver on a campaign - bandwidth.

As always, it's all a matter of quality vs quantity.

Labels: cold calling, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

I was watching The 40 Year Old Virgin the other day and was reminded of why we don't do B2C telemarketing.

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 lead generation, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

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 services, cold calling, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

With the spread of broadband, low-cost telephony and VoIP, there have been a growing number of experienced telemarketing & sales people striking out on their own as free agents.

Many are disillusioned with the large call-centres, or perhaps their job was outsourced overseas. Some have decided to take a career break, perhaps to raise a family, and want a new, home-based, flexible working arrangement. Whatever the circumstances, there is a growing pool of talented home-workers that you can leverage to expand your business.

Some key advantages of using freelance telesales & telemarketing people are:

Freelancers come pre-loaded with experience - on average most freelance sales & marketing people have at least 5 years experience. Using a freelancer gives you access to highly skilled knowledge workers on an "as needed" basis, which means they can hit the ground running and start delivering results for you.

In contrast, call-centres have large overheads. If you're paying 250 GBP a day per agent, they need to pay their agent less than 80 GBP per day to cover overheads, management, down-time, etc. This means they usually employ young and inexperienced people compared to a freelancer.

Freelancers are flexible - you don't have to use them full-time for large projects. In fact, they probably don't want to work full-time, that's why they're freelancing. Maybe you just want them to work a few days a month? If you're a small consultancy operating in a niche market, maybe you just want someone to target a short list of 50 companies.

A call-centre could never handle this type of work; they want volume. Call-centres, of 20+ seats, have overheads that dictate they need volume. All those people need to be fed regular work. If you're a corporate and need a campaign to hit 10,000 companies in 2 weeks, then you need a call-centre. Even a distributed freelance network like ours could not scale to handle that type of project.

Freelancers can operate as if they're part of your company - freelancers can send emails from your company domain, work with your marketing collateral, and operate as if they're part of your team. With collaborate online tools, such as Salesforce.com, or Microsoft's new Office Live, it's easy to share customer contact details, diaries, etc. Many freelancers operate like Virtual "Sales" PA's, setting up appointments for you and chasing quotes on your behalf. Because you engage a freelancer direct, you can build a relationship with them over time. They learn more about your business and develop as part of your team.

By comparison, whilst call centres can place outbound calls as if they're from your company, typically that's all they're set up for. They don't send information by email and call back, their model is all about crunching through high volume. Plus, they have terrible churn rates (employee turnover), which means building any long-term relationship with an individual is almost impossible.

Freelancers are doing this work because they want to - if you've ever been called by some 18 year old in a call-centre reading a canned script for the 100th time that day, you'll understand this point immediately. Freelancers do this work because they're good at it and they enjoy it. This point alone makes all the difference.

In summary, for directors of small businesses or companies operating in niche markets, hiring freelance telesales professionals can be an ideal fit. For most small businesses, as little as 30 hours a month can deliver real results. Their costs are comparable with most telemarketing agencies and call-centres, they're experienced, and can work on an appropriate scale for your needs.

If you need to feed a hungry team of 20 sales people with "leads" then, I'm afraid, you'll still have to work with the big boys.

Labels: freelance telemarketing, telemarketing agency

Did you know that everyone has a built-in SPAM filter?

When you get one of those cold-calls, or the door-bell goes and there's this guy with a name-badge and clipboard...you just know that you're about to be SPAM'd.

Senior executives have had so much SPAM that they've installed firewalls and sophisticated human SPAM-filters, otherwise known as PA's. They put policies in place so that anyone who answers the phone must immediately junk-folder any call that is SPAM.

It's even got so bad that some companies register with the Human SPAM police, otherwise known as the CTPS in the UK, to publicly say "no Human SPAM here".

In the electronic world, SPAM filters work on the basis that if it looks like SPAM then it is SPAM. Some people use overly-zealous settings on their SPAM filters, and so they only get emails from people that they already know and are on their white-list (this is a bit like CTPS or no-name policies in companies).

So, here's the thing. The way to avoid the Human SPAM filter is simple: Don't SPAM.

I contact senior executives daily on behalf of my clients. Sometimes I just phone them up. Sometimes it's by email and sometimes I reach them via a networking site, such as LinkedIn.

However, when I contact them I make sure that I do not look or sound like SPAM.

For a start, I'm usually contacting them because I've invested time researching their company to make sure my approach is well targeted. I take time to check that they will be interested in my proposition before I initiate contact.

If I'm unable to check this before-hand (a real cold-call, yes I do these too), I don't just launch into a script that doesn't respect their time, I ask simple questions to quickly establish if there's an interest. In short, I think about the person I am calling before, during and after my call. I work from the stand-point that I want to potentially develop a relationship and so I treat the person politely and with respect.

Sure, the reality is that not everyone is going to be interested in my proposition. If I've done my research and I have a well-targeted approach, maybe I'll be successful with 30-40%. But, I've still dealt with the people who are not interested in an honest, straight-forward & respectful way.

At this point you could be forgiven for thinking, "So What?". My approach may not seem very special. In fact, you could say that all I'm doing is thinking about who I approach and being professional when I contact them.

And here's the thing...this is the exact opposite to how 95% of tele-marketers work.

My approach takes time; it's about creativity & flexibility.

Most call-centres work a "numbers game". What's it like to do a job where you're grinding away at the numbers with very limited success. You start to get a negative process mind-set..."just another call, say my pitch. Not interested? OK, onto the next call. Every No is nearer a Yes, right?".

So the call-centre says, "we're only getting a 3% success rate, how can we get more people to make more calls faster? Let's automate dialing, let's chain everyone to their desk and give them huge "target boards" to motivate them."

No wonder some of them have 140% employee churn-rates.

Is it any wonder that companies put policies in place to avoid these poor people? Speaking to 100's of depressed and demotivated drones every day must have health & safety implications ;-)

I've coached entrepreneurs on "cold-calling". One woman I coached was concerned that she would make mistakes when she made the calls. I said "that's great, making mistakes is just human. And the more human and unpolished you are the less you sound like you're calling from a call-centre"

That's it...it's just about one human connecting with another. Be polite, think about the other person and ask for what you want. You may be surprised how simple it really is.

Labels: sales lead generation, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

There's a great quote from Lou Adler from his article "The Best Article Ever Written on Passive Candidate Recruiting"
on the Electronic Recruiting Exchange.

The article covers key metrics which Lou believes will significantly increase your results for sourcing passive candidates. Incidentally, this article is equally appropriate for cold calling for sales people.

The quote I particularly like is:

"The Internet has made the process of finding names of passive candidates quite easy. But this is only the first step in getting them into your network and possibly hired into your company. Look at the names as the start of the process, not the end."

Resources such as ZoomInfo have made it easier to search for people (especially if they're US based). For LinkedIn read the same.

However, in most cases, this will just provide the entry-point, or the starting block. As Lou observes, "this is only the first step...look at the names as the start of the process, not the end."

Whether you're sourcing names, digging for competitive intelligence, setting appointments...at some point you need to pick up that phone ;-)

Labels: competitive intelligence, sales lead generation, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company

I was chatting with a good friend of mine, Michael Beale, who has an interest in, amongst other things, the use of language patterns for seduction.

We were discussing a book we both own called "The Full Facts Book Of Cold Reading" by Ian Rowland.

It is, incidentally, the only book on the subject endorsed by the excellent Derren Brown.

Cold reading is (my definition) the art of convincing people that you can read their mind, tell their future, etc. It's done by making vaguely specific statements and then adjusting to the responses you get. In my opinion, there's nothing super-natural in it.

Anyway, there's an excellent section on how you can apply techniques from cold-reading to making cold-calls.

Now, I've got to say, these techniques carry a potential risk of blow-back (they're more appropriate with low-level "blockers") but, if you really need to get that information, and you've tried other approaches...they're worth a go.

And, our course, if you want to learn an interesting party trick...

Labels: cold calling, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

The other day I had an amusing cold-call from a recruitment company. I'll not mention their name, but they bill themselves as "specialising in placing and training graduates for high-profile sales and marketing jobs". Yeah, right.

Anyway, this guy calls me up, let's call him James, and from the start he's not listening.

ME: Hello, David Regler.

JAMES: Can I speak with Mr Regler please?

ME: This is Mr Regler.

JAMES: Er...er...(He recovers and launches into his pitch) We're a UK Recruitment company specialising in placing and training graduates for high-profile sales and marketing jobs. I want to arrange a meeting with you...yadda, yadda....synergies....explore relationships...yadda, yadda....

He goes on for a couple of minutes and I don't say a word (apparantly the more he talks the more I'm convinced). His pitch is just the usual canned waffle. Eventually, he closes me for an appointment with probably the oldest one in the book.

JAMES: I'm going to be in your area either May 8th or 11th, which is best for you?

ME: James, I don't understand why you want to meet me (I ignored the fact that he obviously didn't know where my area was and I seriously doubt whether he was going to ever be in it).

JAMES: Er...er....

ME: You're a recruitment company right?

JAMES: Yes

ME: Well...we don't employ anyone.

JAMES: Er...er...(this was obviously not an objection on his script)...I don't understand...er...

ME: We work on an associate model, that means we don't employ anyone. So why would you want to waste your time meeting me?

Talk about lack of qualification. If he'd taken one minute to look at my website he'd have found that out. I mean, the clue is in the name: Maine Associates ;-)

I went on to question James about his company, got to find out that he'd been there 6 months and had been through their intensive sales training which included, wait for it, cold calling. His target was to make 6 appointments a week; obviously it didn't matter what appointment it was - the company didn't have to meet some basic criteria, such as do they hire sales people ;-). If he just wanted an appointment he should have gone to the doctor.

I emailed his MD and suggested that if they wanted to run a real training course on "cold calling" they should give me a call. I'll not hold my breath on that one.

Needless to say, James' approach is not unique. In fact, it's pretty much the standard out there. And while people like James are doing such a bad job, our life is so much easier.

When we contact prospects they instantly know that we are different - and that's what makes the difference.

Labels: appointment setting services, cold calling, sales lead generation, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services

Welcome to my new blog.

I've been blogging on blogspot for a few months now with my Virtual Sales Team Blog. The focus was to look at online resources to help develop business.

Ahead of the expansion of my website here at Maine Associates, I've decided to merge the same remit with a new blog.

I'll be monitoring the blogsphere to bring you my perspective on what's happening, as well as providing a few anecdotes from the world of telemarketing, lead generation, sales outsourcing & new business development.

I look forward to your comments on my Blog.

Labels: lead generation company, new business agency, telemarketing agency, telemarketing company, telemarketing services, telesales