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.

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21/06/2009 by Stephen Law.

This article is written for those of you thinking about using telemarketing to find new customers.  Without sales, no business can survive and prosper; but how do we find potential customers in the first place?  There are many routes to market, but this article discusses the classic use of telemarketing to achieve the objective of lead generation and sales opportunity creation. 

You may be asking yourself at this point “what is the difference between ‘lead generation’ and ‘sales opportunity creation’.  The two terms sound very similar, but the difference starts right at the beginning of the sales process.  Choosing the right approach could make all the difference to succeeding or failing in finding the right customers.  Please note - BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR - IF THE BEST TELEMARKETING PROVIDES THE BEST RETURN ON INVESTMENT, THEN THE BEST ACTUALLY COSTS LESS.

Though few people have visited a Call Centre, most people have a fairly good idea what goes on there.  Anywhere between 30 and 250 people are sat at desks, generally being fed calls by a computer queuing system - where they read scripts from screens.  This is the base end of telemarketing lead generation.  The calibre of the staff ranges from low to medium.  So in terms of lead generation, the Call Centre staff are led by those who design the campaign and write the scripts for them.  So let’s first take a look at what most people think of lead generation via a Call Centre.

Because a certain number of people are allotted to a campaign at a Call Centre and the campaign has to book these seats, getting the sales message correct at the start is crucial.  You need to remember that for a Call Centre, it is either the customer or the manager at the Call Centre who will devise and write the scripts for the callers for lead generation.  The first basic difference between lead generation and sales opportunity creation starts here. 

The Call Centre manager may not know who will be making the calls, so a script is devised to aim at the lowest common denominator.  Such a script can rarely take in to account any individual methods and must be a “one size fits all” script.  It’s not surprising that Call Centre lead generation sounds somewhat ‘robotic’.  Therefore, logically the Call Centre approach to lead generation often uses a ‘scatter-gun’ approach, on the basis that if you make enough calls you should find enough interested people.

If you think about all this carefully, you can start to see why Call Centre lead generation works for some companies but fails miserably for others.  If a Call Centre relies on the ‘throw enough mud and some will stick’ approach to lead generation, then logically they will need to buy enough data for your campaign.  If you’re selling something like mobile phones to end users, then you can see why a Call Centre lead generation approach will work in such a saturated market.  On the other hand, if you are selling Consultative Expertise then you can see why your chances of succeeding via Call Centre lead generation suddenly begin to dissipate.  In other words, if you are selling something that requires a dialogue with an intelligent buyer, you need to move away from the standard Call Centre lead generation approach and adopt the approach of sales opportunity creation.

Sales opportunity creation is a form of lead generation that takes a ‘laser-guided sniper’ approach to a campaign rather than the Call Centre ‘scatter-gun’ approach.  I use the ‘laser-guided’ analogy because this form of lead generation begins with very careful targeting.  To use the military analogy further for your sales campaign, you will generally hire a very small number of ‘special forces’ (better known as Consultative Telemarketing people) as opposed to a large number of ‘conscripts’ (Call Centre staff).  Instead of the Call Centre ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to lead generation, the Consultative Telemarketing person will create a ‘pitch’ instead of a ‘script’.  The pitch will be matched to a carefully selected database that the expert will build for you or work with you to produce.  Sales opportunity creation is a business development approach that uses a high-calibre telemarketing person.  This form of lead generation is geared towards medium to high level decision makers with larger budgets.  This approach is far more suited to new markets, new technologies, niche offerings and specialist skills provided.

To summarise, if you have a product in a saturated market place that takes little or no explanation of what your product does, then use Call Centre lead generation.  If your product or service is a complex or specialist offering, then your lead generation requires a sales opportunity creation approach - using a high-calibre consultative telemarketing person.

If you are in any doubt, I offer high-calibre consultative telemarketing for lead generation.   I’m happy to explain the difference if you need further help – call 0870 042 1263.

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