Hiring the Best Appointment Setting Firm for Your Company

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Hiring the Best Appointment Setting Firm for Your Company

Appointment setting is one of the most difficult tasks a company faces. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most necessary.

In light of the fact that appointment setting is something everyone in a company tries to get out of, outsourcing is often the best alternative. Outsourcing works well for many companies since it allows salespeople to get the leads they need without overtaxing the sales team or other employees. Further, since appointment setting really does take a particular personality and skill set, a firm that specializes in these types of calls will, in most cases, be much better at it than most people.

When interviewing outsourcing firms to handle your appointment setting tasks, here are just a few things you need consider.

    1. What’s in their name? Make sure you work with a firm that has a good reputation in the industry. Ask to talk to current and former clients to find out how they feel about the firm.
    1. Experience counts. Find out the how long the agents who will be working on your account have been in the business. If a firm has high turnover, this means you may have some very inexperienced agents representing your company.
    1. Location, location, location. Find out if a firm’s agents are working in the United States or if they are located abroad. If it is important to you that the agents calling on your behalf work in a call center as opposed to remotely, you should inquire about this, as well. There are several scenarios when it comes to appointment setting agents, make sure you are comfortable with whatever scenario a firm you are considering uses.
    1. Is satisfaction guaranteed? Make sure you know what happens in the event you are not pleased with the firm you hire. If you want to be completely satisfied or get your money back, you need to have that in writing.
  1. Are they on target? The best appointment setting firms will understand who your ideal customer is and will know where to find them. Instead of calling anyone with a phone number, they will make sure they are calling prospects that are most likely to respond to your sales messages.

The key to outsourcing is to make sure you only work with a reputable firm that has extensive appointment setting experience. It also has to be a firm you trust your reputation with. After all, every time this firm calls on your behalf, your company’s name is on the line.

Is Your Sales Team Qualifying Leads?

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Is Your Sales Team Qualifying Leads?

Salespeople are good talkers. If they weren’t, they probably wouldn’t be in sales. While this is a great quality to possess, there are times when a salesperson needs to listen.

Qualifying a sales lead is an essential part of the sales process. Despite this fact, it is often overlooked. This is unfortunate since failing to qualify a lead can literally be the difference between closing a sale and going away empty-handed.

In order to qualify a sales lead, you need to find out the answers to some important questions. While these questions may vary from prospect to prospect, the following list is a good starting point:

Where is the business headquartered?
How large is the business?
What are some of the issues the business needs to address?
What would prevent this business from buying what you are selling?
How does the business choose its vendors?
Who has the final say in any purchasing decision?
When must a purchasing decision be made by?
Who is the competition?
Does the business already use this product or service?
Are there budget constraints?

While the answers to these questions are necessary to qualify leads, the way they are asked is as important as the information itself. When asking a prospect questions, that prospect should never feel as if he or she is being interrogated. If a prospect does feel this way there is a good chance the sale will be lost before it has even been pitched. In such cases, it would be wise to find someone other than the sales team to qualify leads.

There are other reasons why moving salespeople out of the lead qualifying realm is often the best course of action. Salespeople who are required to qualify leads and make sales will always (understandably) go for the sale. Therefore, lead qualification will fall by the wayside, which means an empty sales funnel. Further, qualifying leads is a specialty that requires a particular skill set. Most salespeople simply do not possess this skill set.

Businesses who make the decision to split up the roles of qualifying sales leads and selling report higher sales numbers than those who require their salespeople to do both. For this reason alone, it is something to seriously consider. If you don’t feel you have the in-house resources to do this, you might want to consider outsource call center services.

How to Make Sure Your Telemarketing Efforts are Successful

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How to Make Sure Your Telemarketing Efforts are Successful

Ask any business owner who has used telemarketing for anything from direct mail follow-up to sales to lead generation and he or she will almost certainly tell you that nothing compares to it. After all, no matter what else a telemarketing campaign accomplishes, connecting with a customer or a prospect through a live conversation cannot be beat.

Regardless of how much telemarketing can do for your business, it is still like everything else in business and in life. The more you put into it, the more you get out of it. Therefore, if you want telemarketing to do great things for your business, you need to make sure you put in the necessary effort. Here’s what that effort involves:

1. A plan: What are your telemarketing goals? More sales? Lead generation? Data acquisition? You need to know what you want and be willing to make the type of investment—time, talent, hardware, etc.—that will get you what you want. You also will have to decide whether or not you are able to handle your telemarketing efforts in-house or would be better off outsourcing.

2. The right data: Without accurate data, most telemarketing efforts will fail. It is essential that before you embark on any telemarketing campaign you know who you need to target and how to reach them.

3. A good script. The best telemarketing scripts are ones that act as a guide and allow a professional telemarketer to guide t he conversation in the right direction. It must grab the attention of its target audience and encourage interaction. Further, a script must be continually evaluated and, when necessary, refined.

4. A great team. In the end, the right team of professional telemarketers is the best way to ensure your telemarketing success. You can have a well thought out plan, precise data and the perfect script but if your telemarketers aren’t qualified to do the job, none of these things will matter. Your telemarketing team must be knowledgeable about your product or service and be able to talk intelligently about it. These professionals also must be persuasive, tenacious and always be able to keep calls on track.

When done right, telemarketing can yield outstanding results. The key is to make sure you are willing to make the necessary investment so that it is done right every single time.

Benefits of Telemarketing Go Far Beyond Sales

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Benefits of Telemarketing Go Far Beyond Sales

Savvy businesses owners understand that telemarketing is an essential part of their marketing and sales strategy. This is because time over time, telemarketing has proven to be one of the best ways to identify, qualify and nurture leads. After all, nothing compares to a one-on-one conversation.

Other business owners would like to integrate telemarketing into their marketing and sales efforts but are unsure of the best way to do it. While telemarketing is commonly associated with selling (and it is a great way to make sales), there are several other ways it can positively impact a business.

If you are wondering how telemarketing can make your business more successful, here are just some of the many ways it can be used to market your business to current and prospective customers:

    • Communication: Not all contact with customers and prospects should be sales related. Instead some contact should focus exclusively on relationship building. For example, if your website has been updated, you can call current and former customers and ask them to check it out. No strings attached.
    • Data collection: Telemarketing is the perfect way to gather information about the decision makers at a particular company and to find out how those decision makers use particular products or services.
    • Event registration: Marketing events are only worth the time and money if enough customers or prospects show up. Telemarketing is a great way to make sure the attendance numbers are high and that the right types of people attend.
    • Follow-up: Research has proven again and again that following up with customers after a direct mailing increases the ROI of that campaign. You also can follow up after a purchase to see if the customer is pleased with that purchase.
    • Lead Qualification: Instead of chasing and qualifying sales leads, sales people should be closing sales. Telemarketing allows salespeople to avoid the time-consuming task of lead qualification and focus on what they do best—sell.

List Scrubbing: Telemarketing is a great way to make sure that your salespeople have accurate and up-to-date information, allowing them to be much more successful since they won’t waste their valuable time on dead-end leads.

Telemarketing is an excellent way to sell products, but limiting it specifically to means you will miss out on its many other benefits.