03/01/2010 by Stephen Law.

Hi, Stephen Law telemarketing expert saying Happy New Year to everyone.  As an award winning telemarketing and sales expert of 25 years, I’ve seen a lot of telemarketing people come and go.  The recession of 2009 appears to have increased the number of freelance telemarketing people out there along with the number of boutique telemarketing agencies.  But is it a good reason to become a professional telemarketer because you were fired from your job?

During 2009 I received numerous calls from would-be telemarketing people trying to find out how I do my job for a living or wanting to join me.  It was as if the recession had driven all the aggressive, nasty and stupid people to take this up for a living.  I even had one chap who started using very rude words when I told him politely that I did not want to tell him all my trade secrets or teach him for free!

The upshot is that you can expect a lot more choice out there in 2010 if you want to find telemarketing people, but more choice doesn’t necessarily mean better service.  This is an important concept to grasp – make sure that you are comparing like-for-like when you seek help with telemarketing.

As always, I’m still offering my inimitable brand of Consultative Telemarketing – highly focused to reach the right objectives.  I’m sorry to say the bar has lowered somewhat in your choice of my competitors for 2010, with a plethora of very basic “scatter-gun” approach individuals and agencies joining the market place.  I’m also offering a new service that I piloted in 2009, that goes beyond the realms of what any other telemarketing professional is offering in the UK.  For the very complex sale I’m employing a new concept that is working well for the guru’s helping the top 100 USA corporations.  Fortunately, I’m not yet charging the same rates for anyone using this enhanced telemarketing strategy - so grab my help here at a hugely discounted rate whilst you can.

My prediction for this year is that you’ll find a lot more choice out there when you’re seeking the best telemarketing in 2010.  I think the markets will pick up this year, but not as rapidly as some people are hoping.  I think we’ll see some of the top telemarketing people (such as me – www.sl-freelance.co.uk 0870 042 1263) losing a bit of ground to the newbie telemarketers at the start of the year.  By the end of 2010, I predict that many of the newbie telemarketers will be running back to 9-5 jobs faster than they can be sued for overpromising and under-delivering.

With the right telemarketing people helping you, a strong offering, and a good sales team, 2010 will bring out the best in telemarketing for you.  Be wary about setting your expectations too high and be ready to “do deals”.  The recession is not over yet – so if you insist on maintaining your prices at the same level and do not offer any incentives, don’t expect buyers to bite your hand off like they might have done in 2008.  If you’re wary of damaging your brand by offering any incentives – that’s a valid stance, but make sure you bear that in mind when setting your objectives. 

The same rules as ever apply out there when looking for the best telemarketing.  Makes sure you know who is making the phone calls for you – it’s all well and good speaking to a brilliant telemarketing manager – but will they be the one making the calls for you?  If you choose freelance telemarketing  (someone like me www.sl-freelance.co.uk )– you’re guaranteed that the person you work with is also making the calls for you.

Finding the best telemarketing people in 2010 still comes down to your judgement of them on the telephone when they talk to you.  If you call a telemarketing person or a telemarketing agency and you are bored or aggravated – the chances are that this is how they will behave towards your prospective clients.  So if you’ve been on the telephone for 15 minutes, the time has flown and you like what you are hearing – let them close you and you know they will close your clients.

Like many people, I want to compare like-for-like.  I get very frustrated in a supermarket if one packet of biscuits is priced per biscuit and another per gram.  So here’s a quick checklist for you to choose the best telemarketing for 2010:

1)      Are they assertive or aggressive?

2)      Did they interest you or bore you?

3)      Did they ask key questions by charming you or being too pushy?

4)      Did they close you on the next call to action or leave you wondering what the next step is?

5)      Did their explanation of how to generate opportunities leave you feeling excited or confused?

6)      Was the conversation all about metrics or objectives?

7)      Were databases, pitches, campaign emails, calls – all inclusive or an additional cost?

      Would you want that person representing your business?

This is not an exhaustive checklist for finding the best telemarketing in 2010, but if anyone you speak to scores 8/8 then shortlist them immediately. 

If possible – DO NOT MEET UP WITH ANYONE until you’ve covered the above checklist by telephone.  Remember that the best telemarketing people are going to help you on the telephone not in the field.  A face2face meeting before conducting this process could seriously provide you with a false impression of their telephone capabilities.

Finally, the best telemarketing people will do their best not to over-promise.  I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve loved me initially on the telephone, gone with someone who over-promised, then returned to me to do a proper job.  Instead – try a pilot (a short trial) on telemarketing of about 4 days work – this will be your final decider on who’s the best telemarketing person for you in 2010.

If you want to short-circuit your learning curve – call me on 0870 042 1263, I’ll give you an honest account of the best people out there and you can compare them yourself.  Bear in mind that I work for the top UK agencies, so I’ll happily recommend them for you.  Better still, come to me direct and you’ll be even happier with my direct rates – www.sl-freelance.co.uk.

Happy New Year and happy hunting.

Posted in Freelance Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Telemarketing | No Comments »

10/08/2008 by Stephen Law.

When you hire freelance telemarketing experts like SL-Freelance, what do they mean by ‘Consultative Telemarketing‘? I’ll try and explain the nuts and bolts of the approach.

The first element of a Consultative Telemarketing approach is to determine whether this approach has a good chance of providing you with a decent Return On Investment (ROI). The second element is to gain an understanding of your business, to find all the key points that will lead to success. The final part of the approach is in applying proven techniques to implement the process.

So let’s start with ROI. ROI is always the name of the game. If there is no chance of you gaining a return on your investment in Consultative Telemarketing, then you should be looking at alternative routes to market. Hence the first and most important aspect is whether Consultative Telemarketing is right for your business model. ROI in its simplest form is a mathematical equation of - ‘Benefit of Telemarketing minus Cost of Telemarketing‘. If this equation provides a positive outcome, then you are on the right lines.

Let’s give a simple example here - You decide to spend a budget of £2k to try Consultative Telemarketing. During the campaign, 10 appointments are made for you which you attend. Let’s say that you are not the best sales person in the World, so during the campaign you close 2 sales, the value of which is 2 x £10k = £20k. Your profit margin on the sales is 40%, so you make £20k x 40% = £8k. You deduct your travel expenses of £2k and you deduct the cost of Consultative Telemarketing of £2k - that’s £8k - £2k - £2k = £4k.

Now of course, everyone’s business model is different. We don’t all sell products for £10k a sale. Neither do we all close 1/5 sales. The reality is more complex, but this should give you a good idea of Return On Investment. Simply replace the figures above with your model to gain an idea of what is feasible. To put it in simple terms - if you are selling a product or service that has a medium/high sale value, with a reasonable profit margin, then you are on to a winner. If you are selling a low value product or service - then there is little point racing round the country trying to sell it and paying for telemarketing on top.

If at this point, you have realised that your product sale value is very low, then you should be considering alternative routes to market. If your sale value is middle to high, then read on. The next step is for the Consultative Telemarketing person to look deeply in to your business offering.

We’ve already agreed that your sale price justifies paying for Consultative Telemarketing, but let’s just clarify here why you should be choosing Consultative Telemarketing over bog standard Call Centre Telemerketing. In essence, the higher the value of the sale, the greater the chance that the Buyer will hold a more senior position within the organisations that you are trying to sell to. That means the telemarketing person must be of a high enough calibre to communicate with such people at their level. Moreover, a relationship (both rapid and long-term) must be built up with the Buyer. The vast majority of call centres simply don’t have that ability on a consistent basis.

So the Consultative Telemarketing approach is right for you so far. Now comes the part about finding about more about your business. For the non-sales person, it can often seem difficult to grasp the concept, that an outsider can often sell your business better than anyone in your team. But if you think about this logically - it applies to all professions. After all - if you could look after your accounts better than a skilled accountant - why outsource this task to an accountant? In a legal case, you know far more about the problem - so why outsource this to a solicitor? The answer to these questions is obvious - you may know more about your business than an accountant, a solicitor or a consulatative telemarketing person - but you are not an expert in applying that knowledge to gain the outcome that you desire. Just as an accountant or solicitor would take the time to understand the salient points necessary, that is exactly the process followed by a skilled Consultative Telemarketing expert.

At SL-Freelance, we would spend an appropriate amount of time right at the start, in understanding all the key points of your business. We don’t need to be you or have all the knowledge in your head - we just need the salient points that will gain the outcome you desire. We will talk to you about the geographical area your company works in, build a profile of your ideal customer, and so on. In essence, we will hone in on who you are trying to sell to and why they should be buying from you.

The final stage is to set up and implement the telemarketing campaign. Consultative Telemarketing generally follows what is known as a ‘Call - Email - Call’ scenario. Of course a good telemarketing person will always be looking for any early or easy wins. However, the vast majority of prospective customers will need to be ‘courted’. They are possibly about to spend a lot of money with you, so they want to feel comforable that they are making the right decision.

Firstly your prospects will want a proper introduction by telephone - a brief discussion of the benefits of doing business with you. Then a little more flesh is put on the bone with an email and maybe an electronic brochure. Finally, another call at the right time, puts them in a position where they want to meet up with you Face2Face to talk terms and prices. That’s what we call, a ‘Call-Email-Call‘ scenario.

So let’s recap - first check that the Return On Investment looks promising. Then a Consultative Telemarketing person focuses on the key aspects of your business - to find the right prospective customers for you. Finally, a succesful formulae of call-email-call starts bringing in the business. Now I know I’ve tried to simplify this for you. So I will be discussing more ideas in detail on this blog. If you want to know more right now - call SL-Freelance today on 0870 042 1263, go to www.sl-freelance.co.uk or email me - stephen@sl-freelance.co.uk .

Posted in Freelance Telemarketing, Telemarketing | No Comments »

16/07/2008 by Stephen Law.

Let’s face it, most people hate undertaking telemarketing or telesales themselves. But there is a huge difference in the telemarketing industry between what is known as - Consultative Telemarketing - and using the services of a Call Centre. I’ll explain the difference and show you how to get the best results from Telemarketing.

I don’t remember anyone at school, college or University teaching me how to use a telephone. The telephone is one of those every day tools, that is so familiar to us all, that we simply assume that everyone knows how to use it effectively. I’m not necessarily talking about how to dial a number or pick up the receiver. I’m talking about effectively communicating with another person on the telephone.

We’ve all chuckled seeing Grandparents call long-distance and YELL down the phone - as if their voice has to be loud enough to reach us 100s of miles away. But it’s quite common to call a major corporation or government office, only to be met by a feint murmur from the receptionist - or worse still - a receptionist SHOUTING at you. These people are paid good money to represent their organisation every day - yet if they are unable to answer an incoming call effectively, then think how many more skills are required to sell a concept or product via telephone?

Telemarketing is like any other industry - there is the high end and the low end. We all hear about football stars and their glamorous lifesytles, but for every high-profile professional there are literally millions of amateurs out there. The difference in the telemarketing industry, is that the fame (or rather infamy) generally goes to the millions of amateurs rather than the professionals.

How often has your evening meal been disturbed by someone trying to sell you a mobile phone package? Just when you wanted to settle down for the evening - you receive a call from someone who can barely speak or understand English. Worse still, you might recieve an automated message where a voice recording simply spews out nonsense - from a robot that cannot even talk back to you! This is a million miles away from Consultative Telemarketing.

So why is it that corporations large and small always come back to telemarketing? If the industry is so awful, then why use telemarketing at all? The simple answer is that when used correctly, telemarketing is probably the fastest method to increase sales. To use the football analogy again, do you think a premier league manager would ask his next-door neighbour’s grossly overweight lad to play in the next match - just because he’s available and cheap? The obvious answer, is that anyone of sane mind would hunt around for the best person and not simply take on the first person available. There is only one winner in a football final and there is only one winner in business. There is no second prize if you don’t win a sale!

So this brings me on to discussing Freelance Telemarketing. Are all Freelance Telemarketing people better than using a Call Centre? The simple answer is NO! It’s really about deciding whether the product you are trying to sell requires the ‘consultative telemarketing‘ approach or not. If you are in an industry of ‘pile em high - sell em cheap’ - then by all means find a really low-end call centre in Mumbai - personally I think you’d get better results from direct mail or advertising - and less animosity from your customer database.

If you are serious about your offering - you have something interesting to sell, that requires explaining a concept to intelligent people - then you must seriously consider using a freelance telemarketing person or team. I’m not saying there aren’t any decent Call Centres out there - but on the whole they’re populated by people who work there as a stop gap between jobs.

So what makes a Freelance Telemarketer different? At the beginning, I told you how I was never taught to use a telephone at school, college or University. I also spoke about how most people don’t like undertaking telemarketing themselves. Due to the infamy of the low-end telemarketers - the industry has a bad name. If your son or daughter anounced one day that they were going to become a doctor, and spend years training to be the best doctor - you would probably be elated. By the same token, if your son or daughter anounced taht they were going to spend years training to become the best freelance telemarketing expert - would you be quite so happy?

Ask any Managing Director who built a business from scratch, whether he began by calling companies to do business with them. Most MD’s started by begrudgingly picking up that telephone and making calls. The funny thing is, that those calls probably put them on a road to wealth, more than any other thing they did. So it’s really all about perception. We know that telemarketing is important. We know it can be the difference between success or failure of an enterprise - but with such a bad rep’ - are you beginning to see why few people take up consultative telemarketing as a serious profession?

A freelance telemarketing expert (like me) has probably studied sales psychology, rapid-learning techniques, opening and closing skills, etc, etc. They’ve probably spent years learning their trade - and here’s the major point - they like it! I love telemarketing, and the more high-tech and complex the offering, the more I enjoy it. So the first question you need to ask, when searching for a freelance telemarketing expert is - “do you enjoy what you do?”

We all have our good days and bad days. But if you seriously believe that any professional footballer is only in it for the money - then please don’t ever call me about telemarketing. We all need to earn a living, but you will never get professional results from someone who has no passion for their work. Choose the best, choose someone who is passionate about their work - choose SL-Freelance.

Posted in Freelance Telemarketing, Telemarketing | No Comments »