Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Telephone Selling Or Telemarketing Is Still Alive And Kicking

Yes, Virginia, even though selling products and services through the Internet is very much alive and kicking these days, the use of this simple telecommunication device called the telephone is also kicking and rearing to go. Through telemarketing, the process of closing a deal may seem to have taken a lot of processes but the careful planning and qualifying of sales leads is very much needed and is always an essential part of selling. Today, there are lots of businesses including small and medium-scale businesses that have used the telephone to get their message across to their prospects. However, not everyone is successful in handling telemarketing. If there is anyone out there who wants to do telemarketing to promote his or her products or services, here are some tips that they might want to learn.

When calling prospect for the first time over the telephone, they must remember that they are not making the initial call to close a sale. They still need to qualify the lead to know what the needs are and what would be the solutions that can be highly recommended. It’s much more appropriate to mention the first name of the people they intend to talk to especially if they were answered by the secretary. By calling the decision maker by the first name, the caller is trying to establish his own sense of authority. Instead of saying, “May I speak with Mr. Roberts, please?”, he might say, “May I speak with Eric Roberts, please?”

In every office, the secretary is always the first person who will answer any calls. That person can be considered as a barrier and in the first place, they are assigned to answer calls to be as such. However, there is one way of trying to sort of break down that barrier by asking the name of the secretary. Then, it is best if the caller will mention the word “help” as this will give the secretary a feeling that he or she is also an important person. People would like to help and that’s one of the things that people have to remember.

Finally, when the caller has finally got in touch with the decision maker himself, it’s also best that he can mention the name of the competition. That way, they can give a sort of comparison with the company of the person that they have called and will tell him about how satisfied the competition was because of what they have offered to them.

There are still a lot of things that anyone will learn if they want to use telemarketing to do the job done in qualifying sales leads which could lead to a successful closing of the deal. If all else fails, the next best thing they can do is to hire professional appointment setters by outsourcing them through lead generation companies.

Related Content: So Who Says that Telemarketing is Outdated?

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Know Your Strengths In Four Steps

Understanding what you, and your team, are good at is not narcissism. Rather, it is an investment in your lead generation and appointment setting campaign. Think about it. You will not place someone on a job where they cannot perform well, right? That is why you need to know what they are good at in order to maximize their capacity in generating sales leads. So where do you start, what should you look for? There are several points that you have to take note about.
  1. Look for signs of excitement – observe your workers as they work through different tasks. What kind of work do they do when you notice their enthusiasm, creativity, or spontaneity spike? Identify that and you will know where they are actually good at.
  2. Do away with job titles – job titles are just that – titles. They hardly contribute anything in making your lead generation campaign fly. It is much better for you to put people on a job based on their abilities, not on the titles that they carry.
  3. See what you do differently – there is no such thing as one-size-fits-all in a appointment setting campaign. You have to look for people who think differently, who are not afraid to try something new or think up something radical if it means getting to the goal.
  4. Be creative in describing the strengths – once you know the strengths of each member of your team, you can proceed to label them. But it has to be creative enough to elicit a positive impact. You can try telemarketing superstar, commercial think-tank, walking library. Let your imagination fly and you will see it with your team as well.
That is how you identify the strengths that can help you in your lead generation and appointment setting campaign.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Common Mistakes in Appointment Setting Process

Ever wondered how to fail in your appointment setting campaign? It is fairly simple. All you need is to annoy them. Practically speaking, you lose B2B leads you offend prospects on the phone. Yes, it is simple, and you might think that you can avoid them already, but believe it or not, you might find yourself doing exactly that during your sales leads generation campaign. Please keep in mind that telemarketing is a hard task. Do not make it any harder by increasing the obstacles to your getting more qualified sales leads. And in case you wonder what these common mistakes are, these are:
  1. Using a scripted transaction – remember, each call is different, and you need to adjust according to what your discussion will turn into. Following a script will not only prove to be inconvenient. It might be downright inappropriate. 
  2. Being condescending towards prospects – one way to mess up your appointment setting campaign is to lecture your prospects about what a great product or service you have. You think they are impressed? No. Rather, they become irritated about you.
  3. Giving out a sales pitch – in sales, you think about selling. Change that thinking. Instead, focus on serving. Since that is the reason you are selling something in the first place. You are much more effective in getting B2B leads if you can put a spin on your campaign that focuses more on the solutions you offer.

Monday, July 23, 2012

A Good Reason Why Outbound Lead Generation Methods Increase Sales

Inbound marketing may not be as effective after all...if you want your company to truly impact the purchasing decision of your business leads, that is. But if you're happy simply having a steady flow of business sales leads, then inbound marketing is not a bad choice.

However, for those who want to earn more profits for each business sales lead, opting for outbound marketing methods is the way to go. Here are the reasons why:

Inbound marketing

While lead generation firms utilizing inbound marketing strategies lead to effective b2b appointment setting campaigns, there is one caveat about this marketing strategy. Because your business leads are already well into the sales process of their own initiative, they have already formed and decided upon their own expectations about what solutions will answer their needs and how much this solution will cost them. Because of this, your sales representatives will have little capacity of persuading these b2b sales leads to purchase a product or service of higher price, even if it offers more benefits for the lead in the long run.

Outbound marketing

B2B leads generated through outbound lead generation such as b2b telemarketing, on the other hand, places your sales representatives in the ideal position of guiding a b2b lead from identifying the need to finding a solution. Because your b2b sales leads have not yet decided upon a definite solution for their problem, they are still open to any suggestions that your sales representatives may give them. Which means they are more willing to try out products and services that have higher value, and consequently, a higher price. Aside from this, having your sales representative present at the beginning of the sales process will help you b2b leads identify your company or business as an effective provider of solutions, thereby cementing your brand as a reliable company.

If you want to increase your profits for each b2b lead that is generated, consider hiring an experienced outbound b2b telemarketing company to perform your lead generation processes. These firms employ professional b2b telemarketers who are able to generate highly qualified b2b sales leads for your company and also perform additional functions such as b2b appointment setting and data profiling services.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Beating The Innovation Misconception In Lead Generation

Yes, we all have heard of the word "innovation" when improved lead generation work is being discussed. And really, it cannot be helped. There are a lot of pundits who are saying that innovation has become a part of the past. It is not really producing results, especially if we are talking about B2B leads. We do have these executives who are saying that we must go back to the basics, strip the changes made on a process, in order to finally get the needed sales leads. But why is innovation seemingly not improving anything? That can be blamed on three misconceptions that has long influenced our minds.
  1.  Creativity and innovation are the same – not exactly, to tell you the truth. Actually, creativity is just one part of the innovation process. The next part is getting people who know how to get these ideas flying off the ground.
  2. Only a few should lead the innovation process – honest to goodness, everyone can join the innovation process. If someone knows how to make a telemarketing process better, then he should be given the chance to show how it works.
  3. Innovation should be big – if you use Apple as your benchmark, well, that is a good one. But it can be misleading in terms of the results produced by their innovation process. You need not have something big. Just something that can get you more business leads will do the trick.
As a food for thought, remember that innovation is "something different that has an impact". Keep that in mind.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Online Market: The Next Frontier for Telemarketing

Two very mismatched businesses seem to be connected to each other these days. For those who wonder, why do telemarketing firms need to be involved in the online market? It is for the simple reason that prospects now use the web to know more about the telemarketing services they wish to hire. If your telemarketing firm is interested in getting more prospects and business clients, then you might have to consider giving your company website a make-over. Believe it or not, the first impression of prospects about your company is not with the call you made to them, but rather with the way your website looked when they first visit it.

Good for you if your website is professional looking and contains relevant content. If not, then you really need to fix things fast.

Get a good web designer to tweak your site’s appearance, as well as a graphics artist that can give your website a snappy appearance. Also, hiring a competent content writer can work wonders for you and your firm. Sure, it may be too much work for your telemarketing company, but in today’s increasingly online business community, this is a necessary investment. The initial cost can be more than covered by the returns that you are sure to get with the help of these online improvements. You will not regret it.

Of course, like all business investments, only you can decide whether to make the change or not. But what are the risks? You might not get results immediately, but you can be sure that things will get better in the future.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Singapore's Business - Can You Concord With?

It is possible to make a lot of profits in Singapore, as long as you invest in the right telemarketing firm. After all, for a company to survive Singapore’s competitive environment, they will need to have accurate market data. And what better means is to get that than through the help of professional and dedicated telemarketers? Indeed, telemarketing services has evolved over the years. It is no longer used merely to make a sale; rather it has now become a tool for information retrieval. These days, the company that is able to get the most accurate, the mast updated, and the most affordably obtained market information gets to corner the market. And this is something that telemarketers are pretty good at, which makes them very in demand in business.


So ,if you want to take the lead in Singapore and would like no use something new, then telemarketing is the best solution for that.