Hiring a Telemarketer

Unless you are really lucky, you are likely to have to go through several if not many caller candidates before finding "your guy or gal."

Lots of people talk a good game but don't last 10 minutes when it comes to actually making the dials.

Get an accountability system in place. Pay them a wage; don't rely on commission to be a big enough carrot. It won't be. Have a morning meeting with them on the phone every work day.

I would say a sale I guess my question is, if I'm doing everything right is 1/100 reasonable

Jason has a lot of good advice on telemarketing in general. I just want to zero in on this point.

"does anyone know of anyway to get these guys motivated?"

One word: money.

For example, if you are paying a competitive wage ($10/hr in the US), plus commission you will get more motivated people. Just make sure you are heavily screening these people to weed out those who are only doing it for the base pay and drop the underperformers quickly.

Commission

If you are expecting these telemarketer to make the sale then make sure you are paying them a hefty commission since they are doing the heavy lifting. Let's a sale profits you $100. That $100 is basically your managing fee per sale. The more you turn over to the telemarketer, the more motivated they will be to sell more. (And the more they sell the, more you make, of course.)

Bonuses

On top of a big, fat commission makes sure you are rewarding top performers and motivating all your telemarketers to reach a higher quota with bonuses. Not only will this boost the enthusiasm of your best sellers but you will get your average sellers dedicated to reaching a higher number of sales in hopes of getting a bonus.

It kind of crass to say that money is all that motivates people but, in this case, it's true.

Thanks for the help guys...should I automatically offer the commission when screening? I feel like if they don't ask they are probably not motivated about the service but if they do ask they are motivated and want to earn part of sales or am I wrong here?

Anyone know about the accepting payment part?

I could say that it's difficult to hire or outsource that kind of telemarketers specially when you are dealing with credit cards. Quiet risky i believe.

Develop a telescript for you to use and refine.

Finding the right telemarketer is also about knowing what you are going to be using their skills for.

If it's hard-selling, then I hardly think that it's going to be effective for your cause. Cold calling is good, however, talk about their skills is just talk. Phone conversations are spontaneous and even with a script it could still go completely the wrong way.

Also, pay your telemarketers well. The better you pay them, the more they are likely to devote more time and effort into working for you.

You have two option for this. You can opt for a freelance or work with a telemarketing company.

The good thing about freelancers are that they can work on a commission based campaign however there can be a chance that they will work hard a 100% since there is no one to monitor them. I am not saying everyone is, I am just saying that there can be a chance.

Working with a telemarketing company however, will give you security that these telemarketers will work 8 hours a day. Usually when a clients signs up, not only do they get an agents, they get a QA and a Team Lead to supervise the whole thing. The downside of working with a company however is that most of them do not work with commission based campaign.

Go to the local WalMart and talk to cashiers there. They are working for a min wage anyway, with no benefits.

My suggestion would be don't before you get a semblance of phone sales skills simply because you won't know where exactly things went wrong if (when?) things go wrong.

If your TM is not experienced, it can quickly devolve into a situation of the blind leading the blind.

Relying on someone else to tell you is not acceptable because that person might not be available and then you're stuck @ figuring it out yourself anyway.

You may want to consider having a caller from a Telemarketing Company, such as Exclusive Calls or Telexperience or such. I used them once and the performance was superb. Telemarketers are easy learners.

If you're going to hire someone (and you're in the USA), you'll need to be able to process payroll correctly for them and cover them under a workers comp policy.

I don't really see how hiring one telemarketer will cover the cost of the payroll/bookkeeping/insurance/HR that comes with hiring someone.

It's basically impossible to legally subcontract them either, so you'll need to employ them. Or stick with elance or odesk telemarketing gigs.

Agree with Amber. You can either go with freelancers or work with a company. Regarding motivation, incentives is one way to keep them motivated. For example, if they give yo a certain number of closes, you give them a corresponding gift, it may be monetary or freebies.