Telemarketing

by 34 replies
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I was thinking..

Is there a better way to find customers than through telemarketing?

I hate telemarketing.
#offline marketing #telemarketing
  • There's a thread here about telemarketing. Check it out, who knows you will be able to change your mindset after that. I used to hate telemarketing but not now, although I am still not good at it yet. I think, it is not as bad as we thought it would be....


    Qamar
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    • I know it's a great way to get customers. And really I should not be complaining about it. Although it would be cool if there was a better way that I have never heard of before. Like a blast or something. As of right now I feel like I'm a sniper picking them out one by one.. and it's tedious and ineffective.. lol
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  • I'm doing post cards

    Cheap at least
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    • Is there a better way to knock out Mike Tyson than training? I hate getting physical.

      Thats about how this post sounds to me.
      • [ 6 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • ...I agree, telemarketing sucks! you waste so much time doing it. better to invest in PPC or SEO and generate leads that way.
  • I use to do a lot of telemarketing, and for many years. I hated it but still did it, just like a job you hate but still had to do it to earn a living.

    I made a huge push out of telemarketing and doing business online only for almost 7 years now. It can be done, I did it and enjoy much greater success now probably since I love what I do now.

    Bernard
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    • Whether you are doing it yourself or hiring someone to do it, I think its best to set aside a time and just get it done. I enjoy it once I have made my first call, what is daunting is dialing over and over and getting no response. However, that is the labor of sales in my viewpoint. All I ever had to do was remember being 16 and washing dishes and think to myself which one I would rather be doing.

      Sometimes these things have a counter intuitive feeling to them. I get "Are you a salesman?" on the phone; all while I am calling on a salesman. We are all in sales and have to really enjoy every aspect of what that requires. Of course I prefer to think of myself as a business owner - but you have to make a sale no matter what you call it.

      There really are only two jobs - sales and everything else. Asking for a promotion, getting others to help out and everything requires that you persuade passively or actively. Might as well jump in and make it active. And if it wasn't for all the calls I have ever made, I would not even be close to knowing how to hire a salesmen and explaining just exactly what I expected out of their work. So either way you cut it, its always best to just appreciate it and move forward with a smile or try a grin every now and then
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  • Yes.....show up in person!
  • Its funny how business owners still arent grasping the importance of online marketing. Some, but few. Takes alottttt of work to find the few
  • Telemarketing is the one type of marketing which is use the telephone for marketing purpose. Telemarketing is acclimated heavily by business-to-business marketers to analyze able leads, alienated biking and added costs associated with claimed sales calls.
  • Get some decent leads and you already found your customers. You might be thinking about telemarketing in terms of cold calling and talking to people who aren't interested one by one.

    But there are telemarketing tools such as leadnetpro and ibuzzpro where you plug in your leads, record a simple voice message, blast it to thousands, then you get only those interested in your offer calling you.
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    • The "magic bullet"! LOL. If only it were that simple. Picking up the phone and going through the numbers is still the most effective way, because it's more personal.
  • You can always hire commission only telemarketers.
  • "You can always hire commission only telemarketers. "

    True, but you had better be a closer.

    Hugh
  • I have also done telemarketing off and on over the years. Sometimes I didn't mind it, other times I couldn't stand it. It depended on what we were selling. I was good at it and in fact my very first time I did telemarketing I outsold the entire room on my first day. I have no clue how that happened as I never did sales before that. We were selling carpet cleaning of all things

    Lately I have had a very high interest in telemarketing from home using a dialer for a few hours a day to sell websites to offline clients. There was a thread here on the WF that spoke about this and how successful it can be.

    Maybe if you were doing telemarketing for yourself in your own business it wouldn't seem so bad. If you get good at it, you'll always be able to make money. And even if you suck at it, if you crank the dials out and run the numbers, you will still make sales.
  • Why wait for them to contact you? Or spending money when you don't really need to.

    I'm not knocking mailing out postcards or direct mail pieces but you will get a quicker return for your time spent. It's another medium to contact owners.

    Just as in mailing out info it's a numbers game.

    Mailing out 100 pieces could take up to 2-3 days for a business owner to contact you after you've sent the mail out.

    I can make 600 calls in those 2-3 days and get 2-3 appointments to meet with potential clients within that time frame.

    If you're skeptical about telemarketing here is what I suggest you do:

    1. Go join the Telemarketing Forum. The Telemarketing Forum - Index

    It's a great community over there and the members their truly want to help you succeed.

    2. Get Offline On Crack by John Durham. Telemarketing Free Audio Series

    Listen to it, devour it and take action. It's really not that difficult.

    Have fun,

    South Bay Bones
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  • How much have you made from telemarketing? Excuse me if that is too personal but this is the 3rd telemarketing thread I have read and I'm itching to know.
  • Telemarketing is actually fun when you're offering something for free to a targeted list that you know would be interested in the free product.

    I actually borrowed the "free offer" tactic from a page of IM by Mike Filsame, and it also works in telemarketing, as in any other business I suppose. It has improved my response rate by a lot, and now people actually WANT to talk to me.
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    • It's a very good business model, that's for sure.
    • Mmm. I had offered FREE 15 minutes phone call consultation before and got VERY FEW takers! (global consulting, on any issue).

      Free QR codes could work out great for that, though.
    • DiggDug, what did you offer for free? What was your strategy then for making money from the free offer takers?
  • Yes, there is a better way to do it, and it is called direct marketing, you can use the principles in different media:

    a) Letters.
    b) Postcards.
    c) Adwords.
    d) Flyers.

    The principles are the same, you need to grab people attention in your headline, Explain the benefits and ask them to take action.

    Why works better than telemarketing? because you can escalate your marketing efforts, as telemarketer you will always will have 24 hour days, as direct marketer you can send 100, 1000, 10000 messages at the time, but most people don't know how to do it but of course it is better than telemarketing
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    • I respectfully disagree......


      If you send out 1000 direct marketing pieces....

      At the standard 1% conversion rate.... You will get 10 phone calls....

      Out of those 10 phone calls... with a standard (any type of sales) closing conversion... you are looking at 2-3 sales...

      The standard is 20-30%. For average sales people... if you have no sales training what so ever.... you are looking at maybe one client until you get your system down...

      If you have a strong marketing and sales background.... you are looking at 7 new clients....

      But most people on this forum are afraid to talk to people.... that is why they are too fearful of success.... I mean telemarketing....

      Now... When telemarketing.... you can get 10 clients in 1000 phone calls....

      How do I know this? Because it is what I do.... I am not trying to sell a product here... I am just sharing my own experience.

      Telemarketing gets you a direct line to the Decision Maker... Through your words, you can establish interest.... and set an appointment.

      Through direct marketing... they just through it away... because they get A THOUSAND pieces every day... but if you have the money to do 3,000 pieces a week... go for it... The law of numbers will work for you.... You can even increase your conversions after you have split test your offers... your fonts... your color schemes... your images.... etc..... But while split testing and looking for that killer campaign... you might waste a LOT of money... oh... and time....

      If you are starting on a thin budget... You may just want to pick up the phone..... Not only is it WAYYY more effective and faster results... but it has been repeatedly proven right here on this forum....

      Don't get me wrong... I do some direct marketing too... If you want to be successful you really need to have 5-7 marketing streams going all at once...

      That is just the way it is...

      IF you want new clients today... Pick up the phone....

      Then use the money you make to hire telemarketing appointment setters...

      You can get them hella cheap....

      You can have someone set you 3 appointments a day for a week or you can have 1000 double sided 8.5 x 5.5 direct mail/flier pieces printed... the same cost...

      Out of those appointments... you should be able to close 1 per day.... giving you 5 new clients...

      Out of those fliers.... you may get 10 phone calls that will translate into 3 appointments... then to 1 new client.

      Just using the standard conversion rates above...

      Really... You need to decide what's best for you....
      • [1] reply
  • Oh.... and as far as escelating your marketing efforts... You can hire 10 telemarketers and add sales reps to run the appointments...

    So...

    Really... I do not see the logic in not being able to expand your marketing efforts...

    Over at thetelemarketingforum.com a member had her first $30,000 day. She was using 5 Telemarketers to do sales....

    How many fliers would it take to do $30,000 in one day?

    How many emails?

    How many newspaper ads?

    The best part is.... it was a Saturday....

    Makes you wonder why more people don't use the phones....
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    • [2] replies
    • Here is the logic behind that statement:

      When you start hiring people your overhead increase, so you need to start closing higher deals to keep going and a direct marketer with a leaner infrastructure will kill you attacking the same offer.

      Even if they are commission base telemarketers, you have to become a telemarketer manager, so you have to develop a different set of skills, you are not being a better marketer, you just have more people being rejected.

      It can be one, attacking the right list, here is a true example of this, I have been working with immigration lawyers for a while, I have a list on that niche (very weird niche)... one of the people in my list was an investor... you get $25,000 commission for a client like that.

      I move from Toronto to Montreal because the client was accepted in this city and we signed the papers here

      Respectfully
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    • At its worst direct mailing as a 2% return and telemarketing has a 5% return. And that is if you are doing a really bad job with it.

      Actually, people are not as scared to talk to people as they are scared of wasting time or losing credibility - which is the same thing of course.

      If you think about it, no one is scared to talk to people. If you were, you would NEVER talk to anyone at all. What people are scared of is poor results, outcome and contigency thinking. They are also scared of getting yelled at and cussed out over the phone. I have actually been cussed out several times - and mostly when I was selling my own services.

      I had a guy immediately start yelling that he had been asked to be taken off "the list" and threatened to get me for thousands of dollars. I eventually let it go, but I felt like going down to his business and "explaining" how I was local, I knew just as many people here in town as he did, and that business often calls on other business and has nothing to do with any do not call lists.

      I let it go, it was nothing and the reality is I know he was busy and was just frustrated as hell to be pulled away from his work at the moment; I feel the same way many times when I am working and the phone rings.

      However, the phone is next on the list under walking in to a business in person. The cold walk in is absolutely the best in my opinion and you can land a sale in about 15 minutes doing that; problem is, that takes a TON of time and a lot of "no's". But it is worth it because the personal presence is very solid in convincing someone to work with you. So, the only way to speed up the parts with traffic and gatekeepers is to skip it by calling on the phone.

      Calling on the phone still has the personal touch, but lacks the feeling of being there. For all they know you could be calling from some back alley bar in Chicago. So you either have a golden tongue in closing sales on the phone or you only ask for an equivalent exchange - such as an appointment.

      Direct Mail is fine but is much lower in the numbers. I would rather take that money and spend it on a PPC, which is basically the same thing. I myself have not looked at a direct mail piece in years. The offers are rarely worth anything and often don't make sense to me. I have cable, yet I keep getting mailings asking me to signup with them??? So obviously a third party and flimsy. So, what are you going to say in a direct mail for offline? You have about 2 seconds to grab their attention before that thing goes into the trash. On the phone they will give you 30. You may have a five minute conversation, but they tend to make up their mind in 30 seconds.

      Now if I outsource calls, just to make appointments and I hire four people to do it. They can all call at least 300 numbers a day. And that may cost me $200 a week for FOUR people calling on my behalf. I have had one person calling and setting more appointments than I care for in just a few days. The difference here is that technology has changed the competitive advantages of direct sales.

      Now, having said all that. I see a lot of discussion about one tech against another. What that tells me is that people are not evaluating their ROI and cost. If you want to grow, you might as well do a campaign. That means you do ALL techniques together.

      Send out a mailing
      Send out callers to follow up on the mailing
      Send Follow Emails
      Get Appointments and Close
      Follow up Follow up Follow up.

      If anyone wanted to just pick one, I would say in person does it, and a phone call is worth half that but far more than anything else.
  • So after all that, discussion. Here's my response to the OP.

    Telemarketing holds the value of being FAST, other than that it is really the same sales and marketing that is contained in all your efforts. So, if you want speed and numbers - the phones are best.

    Now, if you want a better way without calling I can tell you right off how to do three things that will get you as close to what you want; though I don't know if it will seem that way to you.

    Join the chamber of commerce
    Join a group at your local museum
    Join a professional club that is local in your area

    All three of those will have functions, meetings, and get togethers all month long and can keep you busy as hell meeting people who are active and involved in getting to know everyone. On the flipside, they are also filled with people who always want to hang out and talk all day long and avoid direct sales. It's a mix of all types. But I do know, that I learned a ton that way, and that is actually how I began to really push on phone calls for myself. A bunch of sales from network marketing is great, but it can fluctuate here and there; long run or short run. So totally valuable and really its what you are going to end up doing anyway. At least one of your clients will bring up some sort of event he is a part of and ask if you want to come along. Standard human social instincts.

    Like I said before, the only difference is really that using the phones is VERY fast. I think many think that once they call on someone and get rejected they tend to think that contact is a lost cause; totally untrue. When you realize that in order to grow business you have to constantly contact people over and over, you will start to see a huge difference. I think people avoid the phones because they don't like seeing the list dwindle down and all they got was a BUNCH of "no's". The thing is, a month later or two months later, you are going to call them again. Even the customers you already have, you are going to call again. If you don't it turns into a "churn and burn" business where you take a client and move onto the next one; then someone else comes up behind you and picks your client up.

    Anyway, it's ok to just go in person and do the walking with your feet. Send email or direct mailing and follow up or whatever. But you ought to end up using the phone one way or another.

  • Amir: Ever get up to PHX? Would like to buy you a beer sometime and talk biz. Email me at: ChipBrault@gmail.com cheers!
    • [1] reply

    • I actually don't drink... But would gladly accept a table dance!

      This weekend a bunch of friends and myself are meeting out in Yuma to play some kickball!!!

      I know... who would have thought?

      I did a conference call with some people opening a 5 person call room in Phoenix the other day....

      Was that you?
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