 Introduction Many people would agree that the best way to make a sale would be through a direct sale, say, from your shop, or on the Internet. Consequently, telemarketing is commonly overlooked, but in fact telemarketing is responsible for millions of sales each year. Telemarketing is currently going through a growth phase after many years of doubt and is being adopted by all businesses - small to large. For those people that telemarketing is new to, it may take time to become a sales expert on the phone (just like it would for most tasks) but once you have mastered the technique, it can become a strong marketing tool. Telemarketing is not solely used to make an instant sale, but also to make appointments that may lead to a sale. The area of telemarketing is extremely wide and so we aim to introduce you to the basics of the subject by pointing you in the right direction for a successful campaign. First Objective
What are you trying to achieve when you first make contact with a customer by telephone?
A meeting?
A commitment to buy?
A sale?
In most instances you should only try to fix a meeting. All too often prospective customers are being lost not due to your product, but by the attempt to get the customer to buy something they have not seen, by someone they do not know. The pressure of trying to sell over the telephone is almost without parallel. How much simpler the whole process would be if you just concentrated on getting the appointment.
By concentrating on the appointment you can avoid the specifics of product/service performance and instead concentrate on:
‘We have something here that I know will excite you, and if you can give me 30 minutes (be honest with the time) I would love to show you how it will immediately improve your profitability’ and,
‘We have a new product/service that has a number of new/advanced/interesting/cutting edge/low cost advantages and I’m sure you would want to be one of the first to see them’. Cold Callers Beware Cold (telephone) callers beware. Since 25th June 2004 it has been an offence to telephone a BUSINESS that has registered, with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS), its telephone number/s as not wanting unsolicited business to business telephone calls.
The new regulations are in addition to the existing regulations that cover CONSUMER cold calling. Once a telephone number has been registered with the TPS, it takes 28 days to become an offence if you use it. Media companies use the TPS to 'clean' their call lists - at a cost of £100's per list.
If you have an existing list of past clients, you WOULD have to 'clean' the list through TPS if you had no idea if they would want to hear from you again.
Remember, not all unsolicited calls are a nuisance: if you put your company telephone numbers on the list, and all businesses use the register, you may lose business opportunities.
We will still call, unsolicited, those businesses that we want to develop business with regardless of being on the list or not: business development is not sales - well, not to us anyway.
Useful web sites:
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