13/05/2010 by Stephen Law.

If someone tells you, that they know “everyone”, does that make them the best telemarketing person?  Are skills and experience a waste of time in telemarketing – and does it all boil down to what you know or who you know?

The key here - is that these are two opposite mindsets – one mindset which is easy to understand whilst the other mindset is clouded in mystery.  Let’s face it, if someone has years of experience and the skills to succeed at telemarketing, it’s easy to identify this when they talk to you on the telephone.  However, if someone tells you that “they know everyone that you need to be doing business with” – then are you simply taking a leap of faith in believing what they tell you?  If someone promises to you, that by knowing all the right people, they could win you £millions in business – is this the best telemarketing available or are you simply swallowing a tale so incredible that it must be true?

The only way to fathom this out is to look at this logically and objectively.  Firstly, all the best telemarketing people have access to the best data.  So whichever top telemarketing person or agency you pick – one could say that they know everyone because they have access to that data.  But having someone’s name on a database is not the same as knowing someone.  After years of telemarketing, someone with experience may well have spoken to or sold to a lot of people – but again it’s difficult to argue that you “know them”. 

The real answer to the question boils down to mathematics – which I will explain.  In life every individual knows a lot of people but one only knows a few people very well.  Generally speaking, the people we know best are our partner and our children.  Then we know our parents and siblings.  After that, things start to become less clear.  How well do we know our grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins? 

Many people have one or two very good friends that they know very well.  Then there are friends that we occasionally chat to, people we say hello to at the office, and so on.  We may say hello to the postman every day, but do we really know him?  If you attend a club of any kind, there are people you may know, but how well do you know them?  The same is true in business – you may have worked with hundreds of people, but which ones can you really remember and how many could you say that you really knew properly?

So applying the logic to business relationships – there are literally hundreds of sectors and sub-sectors that millions of people work within.  Most sales people have worked in many sectors, some have worked in very niche markets.  Yet during a person’s sales career they will only have known a small number of clients very well.  Any good Sales Director will tell you that one person can only handle so many accounts at a given time, ranging from 1 to 10 accounts.  The greater the worth of a business account to a company – the more time one person spends with one customer.  If you accept the facts here, then let’s look further at the mathematics.

Let’s take some averages.  On average, a sales person has known 5 key account people – each for a period of 3 years.  Over the sales person’s career of 30 years the sales person could have got to know very well 3 x 5 x 30 people = 450 people.  However, the first accounts that they handled might have been 30 years ago!  So even if we accept that the sales person was so remarkable that they’re still remembered 30 years later, then a good sales person knows about 450 people in the UK - which leaves about 60 million people in the UK who they don’t know at all. 

In truth, is it possible that of all these 450 people, some of them didn’t like the sales person – as they only handled the account for 3 years?  Is it possible that some of these 450 people have emigrated, retired, or completely changed their role in life?  Even if we accept that a good sales person knew 450 people very well at some stage in their career – is it possible that this has any relevance to them picking up the telephone and immediately doing a deal for you?  Let’s look at the mathematics.

Industry sector numbers are huge - from Accountancy Practices to Waste Management Corporations.  With 100s of industry sectors and 100s of sub-sectors, it is not possible that any human could possibly know someone very well in each sector.  Think about the numbers of people in any organisation, whether it is public or private sector.  At the top we have the Chief Executives, then a Board of Directors, followed by a myriad of operational directors and so on.  An SME might be run by one person, but there are thousands of organisations in the UK alone that employ 1000+ people.  It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to work out that no human being could possibly know everyone very well.

In truth, we all know a small number of people very well – and if we’re honest here, we could count that number of people on 2 hands at most.  So now we’ve looked at the mathematics of “who you know”, let’s look at the mathematics of “what you know”.

Like any profession, there are many people who have undertaken outbound cold sales calls, but there are few people who successfully continue this career.  As an analogy, there are millions of people who love to play football, but how many people ever played for their national squad?  BT, Thomson, Yell and United Artists have churned out some of the most highly qualified and successful sales people through their training programmes (I’m one of them).  Yet for every successful sales person that succeeded at these companies, there are at least 10 who failed to cut the mustard.

A high level of skill is required to contact the right person and convince them that they should consider buying a product or service.  This skill cannot be learned instantly and it takes years of practice and learning to achieve true success.  At a guesstimate, there are probably about 1000 people in the UK at any given time that could do this very well.  Yet of those 1000 people, the number who knows how to find/build a database of potential buyers is much smaller.  At a call centre or larger telemarketing agency, the jobs of database building and calling are often split between data buyers and callers.  So at any given time – we’re probably talking about only 100 people in the UK who have the skills, experience and successful track record to successfully build data and cold call.

Of the 100 top people you could turn to for telemarketing based on “what they know”, not “who they know”, how can these people succeed for you?  Well firstly, these top telemarketing people do “know” where to find the data.  They “know” how to identify the right buyers from years of experience.  Moreover, they “know” how to communicate with these people.  You’ll generally find that the cream of the top 100 telemarketing people have been a Director before and run a company themselves.  The key here is - if you’ve sat in the driving seat yourself, then you understand the pressures that a senior level executive has to face.  You know what drives your prospective customers and what they’re looking for.

I’ve sold contracts to buyers at Waitrose, the MoD, Land Securities and the list goes on and on.  Prior to the sale I had never met these people before in my life; I didn’t know their friends or families or work colleagues.  Top class selling is about identifying who you should be doing business with, making contact and building relationships.  It is not mathematically possible for anyone to know all the right people before picking up the telephone.

Of course we all know a small number of people that we could do business with – but only a small number.  Any good business person will tell you to talk to friends and family first– but at some point, you will reach the limit of trust.    The postman may trust you enough to talk to you, but would he buy from you?  If your circle of contacts is CEO’s, then they may enjoy sharing a good whisky with you, but would they really buy from you any more than from a stranger?

Every day, millions of people across the UK buy products and services from people that they don’t know.  Marketing experts spend £millions on promoting brands and building relationships with their customers.  The key point here is that you don’t have to “know” your customer personally to make the sale.  The real art in telemarketing boils down to the pitch at the end of the day.  You could call someone that you’ve known for many years and who trusts you; but if you pitch it badly - they will walk away and you might not even be friends anymore.  Pitch something well to a complete stranger and you start the relationship building process.

The key truth in “It’s who you know not what you know” - is in getting to know new people.  Yesterday’s stranger can become tomorrow’s close friend.  I don’t claim to know everyone, but I do claim that I could find the right people for you to do business with – and if you play your cards right – they may become your highest paying customer, and your new best friend.

Stephen Law, 0870 042 1263 www.sl-freelance.co.uk

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

04/05/2010 by Stephen Law.

As an SME, how do you use telemarketing targeting to make lots more sales?  Let me explain….

There are basically two main types of people used in telemarketing targeting– what the experts call the “Storm” team or the “Conscript” team.  Think of troops who join an army – one is a volunteer and the other is a conscript.  They’re both soldiers, but one wants to be there and the other has been drafted.  The outcome of battle – in this case, your marketing campaign, will vary greatly depending on which type of people you choose.

Recently, I started helping a client who knew their industry inside out and I was very impressed with their knowledge of how quality telemarketing could help them.  They’d tried different telemarketing approaches for many years and I can say that they were the first client in many years where I could definitely say they knew what they were talking about.  Generally speaking though, such people are rare and that’s where I help.

Each part of the targeting process may seem easy on first appearance.  I still giggle when I’m told “well you make so many calls and out the other end pop sales – that’s how it works isn’t it?”  OK, so most of my clients are not that naive – but most do not truly understand the full mechanics of how to create opportunities by telephone – or rather they understand much of the theory, but perhaps do not understand how to put it in to practice.  For example, I know how to swim, but I’m really not a good swimmer and I’ll never be entering for the Olympics.

Believe it or not, most campaigns are rarely as simple as they seem on paper.  If they were, then everyone would simply figure it out, make the calls and sales would pop out the other end.   In truth, there are many hurdles along the way to working out how to create sales opportunities.  The whole methodology can be split in to a set of processes, but what differentiates the expert from the novice is in the skill of the individual who uses the processes.  Let me explain…

The first process is to find the right data, then you shortlist this using filters such as geography, size of company you want to do business with, and so on.  The difference between the professional and the novice is in what one does with the data thereafter.  The novice telemarketing person makes the calls and logs the outcome.  The professional telemarketing person works on a continuous feedback loop.  Believe it or not, it’s often more important to know why someone said “No” than why someone said “Yes”.

Sometimes, my clients ask me to work out the strategy from day1.  More often, a client has spent hours and hours trying to work it out themselves first then they ask me to fulfil their plan.  The clever clients are those that get me to work it out for them.  Going back to my poor swimming abilities, if you asked me to figure out how to help the British swimming team win the Olympics then I’m a smart guy with an Honours degree, so could I do it?  Of course we both know our team would come last as I may be clever but I just don’t know what it takes to make people swim better.  But ask me how to make people interested in a buying a product or service, then I’m your man - with a 25 year track record of success.

The objective is always clear in telemarketing – to find as many people as possible who want to meet up to discuss buying my clients products/services.  To get this right is the tricky bit.  For example, I had one client whose offering sounded too good to be true.  The problem was how to portray the offering in a way that people could understand, so that they didn’t think I was pulling their leg.  Another client had an offering in a market saturated by competitors so the hard part was to find a way to talk to prospects who would even give anyone 20 seconds of their time.

The feedback loop of market intelligence is always the key.  One has to go over and over the “filters” as to why a customer might buy.  Is it because they live in a certain locality?  Is it because they work in a certain industry?  The novice telemarketing person can burn a big hole in a marketing budget and you may be left with no opportunities, no sales and no idea why everyone kept saying “No!”  So why is it that the “Storm” person keeps winning in such situations?

Whilst the “Conscript” telemarketer is counting the hours until he can go home, the “Storm” telemarketer is constantly trying to figure out how to find the right people and why they will buy.  They look for trends in what people are saying.  They constantly adapt their pitch to suit the buyer.  They constantly adapt emails and feedback as to whether the marketing collateral is working from – is the pdf brochure right?  Is the website giving the right message?  As an SME your greatest strength is to adapt rapidly.  Working with the “Storm” telemarketer, they will find you new opportunities and new ways to make people interested in your offering.

So the next person who tries to sell you “Conscript” telemarketing – think carefully before you act.  Will a conscript be looking at his watch, or looking for a gap in the enemy lines for you to make that big breakthrough?  The Art of Storm Telemarketing is to adapt, adapt and adapt again.   It is said that  “knowledge is power” – so if you really want a powerful campaign – choose your telemarketing people correctly.  A fool can dance around in circles and bring you nothing.  A Rainmaker will bring you some wins – but a Storm-Maker could completely change the way you do business.

Call Storming Stephen Law now on 0870 042 1263 – winning doesn’t have to cost you the Earth.

Posted in Freelance Telemarketing, Lead Generation, Business Development, Telemarketing | No Comments »