Category: Sales

If you’re involved in telemarketing or sales, you’ll almost certainly have encountered the ‘gatekeeper’.

Tasked with preventing people from accessing the key decision maker, the Gatekeeper is usually a personal assistant, secretary, receptionist, or switchboard operator who will ensure that only a select few callers will make it through.

With this in mind, the first challenge of any successful call or pitch is to get past the gatekeeper, allowing you to reach the all-important decision maker. Of course, that’s easier said than done!

Here are our top 5 ways to get past the gatekeeper:

Treat them with respect

Although they might not be decision makers, Gatekeepers are typically respected individuals within their firm. With this in mind, it is important that you treat them with the respect they deserve and express your gratitude for the help or information they provide you. This will also keep you in their good books so you will stand more chance of getting through to the decision maker next time you call.

It’s understandable that you might become frustrated if they are trying to stop you getting through to the person you really want to speak to, but don’t take this frustration out on them – they’re only doing their job and the last thing you want is to end up on a blacklist!

Build a rapport

As well as respecting the Gatekeeper, you should also try to build a rapport. Rather than trying to push past them as though they’re nothing more than an automated system, focus on building a positive relationship with them.

For example, as soon as you learn their name, be sure to write it down and start addressing them by that name every time you call.

Sound senior

Within any business, those in management roles can be treated differently by other employees. If someone believes you are important or high up within an organisation, they may think twice about putting the phone down.

So speak slowly and articulately, keep calm and relaxed, and never divulge more details than necessary. If the Gatekeeper senses that you have a senior position, they won’t risk offending or insulting you by probing into your reasons for calling too deeply.

Don’t sell

The Gatekeeper has no power to make a decision regarding the products or services you’re trying to sell. And, to be honest, they’re probably not interested in your sales pitch. So don’t waste your time, or theirs, trying to deliver your sales pitch.

Instead, when they ask what the call is regarding, provide an answer that doesn’t sound too ‘salesy’. Perhaps mention previous correspondence you’ve had with the decision maker.

Call before or after hours

One way to avoid the Gatekeeper is to call when they’re not there! Executives and decision makers often arrive before and leave after normal working hours. If you call during these out-of-office hours, you might well find that their Gatekeeper isn’t around and they are answering their phone themselves.

To find out more about how we can help you optimise your telemarketing results, give us a call on 0345 241 3038 or get in touch.

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Each and every outsourced campaign brings with it a different client briefing. Some may be efficient and give the telemarketers the tools they need to produce results, and some may see a few implications further down the line from a rushed briefing process.

If you’re looking at briefing a telemarketing agency for an up and coming campaign, there are a few elements that you need to be completing in order to run an effective outbound operation.

So, without further ado, here is our 10 point checklist that can help your business when briefing the telemarketing agency you’re working with.

1. Regular Communication

Ask your telemarketing agency how often you’ll be in touch. Dropping communication can lead to potential opportunities to improve the campaign being missed.

Suggest a guideline, perhaps every couple of days, where you speak to the account manager to stay up to date.

2. Monitor and Review

Regular communication also helps you to monitor and review what’s happening with the campaign.
Ask your agency how they are monitoring what’s happening on the campaign, and what their review process is in order to check changes are being made where necessary.

3. Set and Evaluate Targets

Work with your telemarketing agency to set targets for the timescale of your campaign. And, look deeper in to whether these are realistic based on your industry.

Both KPI and team targets can help you to give the agency you work with an extra push to hit those all important objectives of the campaign.

4. Set Key Messaging

Without discussing the messaging that will be communicated over both verbal and non-verbal channels, you may get different callers with different ideas of what the messaging should be.

Be concise with the messaging, making this clear to your provider. And, take out any unnecessary add-ons or information that will confuse a prospect rather than advise.

5. Outline Product Benefits

You and the agency should on the same page when it comes to what benefits are being promoted during telemarketing calls.

Provide them with any information that might support the benefits of your product and service. For example, a results statistic, testimonial or case studies.

6. Define Audience Pain Points

Continuing on from the benefits, inform the telemarketing agency of what pain points your target audience have and how your product answers these.

Think about the perception of the audience; advise the agency on why your company is the best solution for problems they are experiencing.

7. Set Audience Action

Brief the telemarketing agency on what you want the audience to do. Be part of a meeting? Will this be over the phone? Face to face? What is the booking process?

Tell the agency exactly what the prospect needs to do, in order for a successful sale or meeting to be made.

8. Outline Profiling Questions

You know your perfect buyer, but does your telemarketing provider? Look to set up profiling questions that callers might ask in order to define whether a prospect is the right fit.

The better information both the agency and sales team has on the prospect, the better they can assess the needs and wants of that potential buyer.

9. Seek Relevant Data

Whether you or the telemarketing provider is supplying the data for the campaign, it will need to be accurate and relevant to your target audience in order to justify seeing any results.

10. Set Meeting Quality Guidelines

If the outsourced agency is booking appointments or setting meetings, you need to let them know what an ideal lead looks like.

Quality beats quantity every time, so avoid setting meeting targets without knowing how a quality lead may look.

Outsourcing your telemarketing to an agency may come about for a number of reasons; Lack of skill, lack of time, or simply because you would rather set your sights on other operations within your business.

Whatever the reason, the campaign setup and briefing are crucial to ensure effective results and, of course, a better return on investment for you.

Want to know more? Call us today on 0345 241 3038 or get in touch here.

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The telemarketing industry carries with it some pretty strong stereotypes, which is unfortunate for one of the most direct routes to market with a huge amount of results to back it up.

Additionally, and as a consequence of stereotyping, there are several negative myths which are associated with telemarketing. As a company that sees our clients get great results out of telemarketing campaigns, we’ve set out to debunk these and explore why they really are just myths.

Telemarketing calls always use scripts

Sticking to strict scripts does not result in conversations that are tailored to each and every individual on the phone.

Although there may be some structure to the calls, a strict script is not adhered to, enabling real conversations that adapt to the prospect’s needs.

There’s no emotion, each call is just a number

With no emotion, and with people on the phones that didn’t care, we wouldn’t get much done. Each call isn’t just a call; it’s a conversation which looks in to pain points and reasons why a service or product might help someone.

This therefore requires a deeper and emotional understanding that goes beyond statistics.

Complex products can’t be sold over the phone

This all comes down to training. We would agree that without the right training, no product can be sold over the phone.

If you’re looking to work with an outsourced telemarketing supplier, it’s important to understand that full training is carried out in order for telemarketers to be confident on what they’re talking about.

At Air, we work on a vast range of products, which means we have to be seriously clued up on the details of each and what they could potentially offer a prospect.

Inexperienced staff that don’t stick around

The phrase ‘call centre’ brings with it connotations which surround the idea of young and inexperienced staff members who leave not long before their seat is warm.

At Air, we have ex-directors, business owners and sales professionals from a variety of backgrounds, spanning a wide age range.

Dishonest or aggressive methods

Telemarketers hammer the phones, they’re aggressive and their practices are dishonest, with some assuming information about the prospect.

A powerful myth and again, one that is far from true. Before any campaign, we at Air ensure that our data is as clean as possible with the right information and that we adhere to any TPS registers.

Cold calling is dead

And this is the biggest myth of them all. There is an ongoing debate which is based on the concept that cold calling just doesn’t work anymore.

This simply isn’t true. What’s more, the results from both telemarketing and multi-channel marketing campaigns proving this ideology wrong every year.

In fact, our clients made an average return last year of £18 ROI for every £1 they spent.

Air Marketing Group – Nurturing prospects is a large part of what we do

We don’t throw mud at a wall and hope some of it sticks; we look to nurture leads to encourage conversions.

We’re passionate about the way we work with your business. We’ll ensure that any questions or uncertainties you may have surrounding a campaign with us are answered.

Get in touch today or call 0345 241 3038.

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Any great sales professional will tell you that they would rather have one great appointment, than 10 terrible meetings.

There is the argument that it costs to generate those leads so each and every one should be attended to in the same way, regardless of the quality.

But, should we be spending even more time (and money) on B2B appointments that just aren’t worth it?

In our opinion, it’s best to choose quality over quantity every time.

There is a huge difference between obtaining a lead, and obtaining a good lead. It’s important for you to spend time focussing on the difference between what you would cast as a good lead for your company, and what isn’t.

Ask questions

You can ask quality questions to understand how much you really know about that lead, and whether the appointment is worth your sales agent spending time on.

These B2B quality checking questions can include:

– Is there a real need?
– What makes this need important at this time?
– Are we meeting with the right individuals? I.e. are they the decision maker?
– What problem is our solution answering?

Know your criteria

On top of questions, set a criterion that adheres to your specific audience, or prospect criteria that tends to convert.

This could be down to a company size, a type of operation, industry type and more. The more in depth you are and the better the understanding you have of your ideal customer type, the better the quality checking will be when checking appointments against said criteria.

With these processes in place, you’ll have a sales diary full of well-qualified appointments that really are worth your sales agents’ time.

Air’s B2B Appointment Setting

Appointment setting campaigns with Air Marketing Group look to provide you with meetings that bring you together with your ideal target audience.

Our rigorous quality checking process ensures that every single appointment is suited to the criteria that you’ve set in your campaign strategy.

We say this time and time again; we won’t provide you with an appointment if it isn’t quality and does not present the potential opportunity to convert.

Want to find out more? Contact us today by getting in touch or calling 0345 241 3038.

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I often ask people ‘how long is your sales cycle?’ and can honestly say that 90% of the time, the response is the same:

“It varies.”

Do you know what that tells me…? It tells me that most people don’t actually know how long their average purchase takes, from the point of first contact to a converted sale.

Each and every industry has a varying sales cycle that is so dependent on the following:

• Getting in touch with prospects at the right time (a bit of luck and persistence)
• The state of the market (out of your control)
• Where your solutions fits in their priority list

…And sometimes the cycle of things, such as budgets.

The Coffee Story

Let’s look at an example. Around 3 months ago, we decided that we wanted a coffee machine for our office. We know we need it, but other priorities that come with a busy office have prevented us from taking action.

Cue a very timely telesales call from a company that sells coffee machines. After a good meeting and discussion about the options available, we were happy that they were a good fit for the coffee machine shaped gap in the kitchen.

3 months on, still no coffee machine.

Now, I was the right decision maker, they hit us at the right time and with the right product but has anything happened? No, it has not.

Although sometime soon I will get this organised, it sits lower down my to-do list than a lot of other things. One day soon, I will become a sale for that company.

That sale would have come as a result of their telemarketing campaigns, but not unlike many of you and despite best intentions, the process will have taken 3-6 months for my ‘sale’ to be completed.

Perfection isn’t Reality

Great relationships and sales cycles that produce an amazing ROI take time. Much like the coffee salesman, we can only influence our prospects, not guarantee a purchase even if they are at the right stage in the buying cycle.

Most sales processes take 3-6 months. However, some take 18 months, and some potential buyers won’t make a decision until years later.

There isn’t a perfect time to talk to someone and there isn’t the perfect campaign. But, there are actions you can take to make the most of a telesales campaign…

Follow up, Follow Up, Follow Up

There is a statistic I read many years ago that sticks with me. Apparently, in the B2B world it takes an average of 11 touch points before a sale is made. If you aren’t fresh in your prospects mind, you may as well forget the lead altogether.

So this is the key. Good follow up, patience, persistence and an acceptance that it does take time to close even the warmest leads. There are too many elements that you can’t control and the sooner you recognise this, the more comfortable you’ll be in accepting that follow up must be consistent and sustainable.

So how long should a good telesales campaign be run for, before you can measure its effectiveness?

Our trial phase (known as a pilot campaign) at Air Marketing Group is usually 12 weeks long. By this point we are generating leads consistently, and are fully competent in understanding your products, services and offer.

However, during months 7-9, our clients are often still closing sales with prospects we originally spoke to in months 1-3. With this in mind, we recommend trialling something for 12 weeks to prove the concept that good leads can be generated.

But, it’s good to go into any outbound sales and marketing with the expectation that you can only truly measure its effectiveness after 12 months.

Contact Us

Not only do we separate the warm leads from those that are not interested, we nurture and develop relationships with prospects to ensure we only pass over leads that are on the path to conversion.

Want to learn more? Contact us today by email or call us on 0345 241 3038.

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“Why would I pay that much when I can just hire someone for £10 per hour?” is a sentence I’ve heard many times. But beware of the on cost!

It’s a question that many of us ask ourselves on a regular basis, across a variety of business services; ‘Should we outsource, or hire in house?’

Well, with years of experience in the B2B telemarketing industry, we’ve helped companies to answer this question – when it comes to hiring telemarketers – it’s simple maths.

And the numbers show that it’s far more expensive to hire in house than most people realise…

Below is a typical cost breakdown model for an in-house telemarketing role, based on the industry average wage of a telemarketer.

Often people don’t realise just how much it actually costs to run an internal operation and how it quickly ends up costing the business circa £20 p/hr (or much more in many cases).

And, at the same time it can often be more problematic, far less consistent and certainly more time consuming for you.

Cost Breakdown

According to Total jobs (2017), the average salary for a telemarketer in the UK is £22,492 (Approx. £10.81 per hour).

So, using this as a starting point, we look at what this would really mean to your business to find what the effective ‘per actual, delivered hour’ cost really is.

In-house cost breakdown

So although you might describe this as ‘loose maths’, you can see, based on a fairly ‘normal’ situation, the cost of each actual calling hour that is delivered is far more that you expect it to be.

So now let’s consider the additional on-costs:

When you break it down and work out each of the above costs, you begin to see just how much it really costs to hire.

Let’s take a look out why outsourcing might be the better option…

The 6 upsides of the outsourced model

Beyond cost, there are several other factors to consider in whether you should outsource or hire in-house. Here are some of the key considerations that you may want to think about:

Lost hours

With an outsourced model, we can catch up lost hours or cover them with a second trained person so they’re not lost in the first place. With internal employees, sickness isn’t always covered so it often means lost time, missed opportunities and lost productivity.

Transparency

We provide live automated reporting, full statistics and call recordings through our bespoke CRM system. You need to ask the question, is there an ability to automate this and have this transparency internally?

If not, do you have the time to create these detailed reports and does your telemarketing team have the time to maintain them?

Proven results

Hiring new employees is a gamble; you have no guarantee that you’ll get people who can perform and if they don’t you have to replace them.

With an outsourced model, we already have highly experienced, trained staff who have proven their capabilities.

People leave

Telemarketing staff move more often than most so even if you do find good performers, it may not be long before they want a pay rise and promotion to another role, or until they leave.

At which point, you incur the time and aforementioned costs of replacing them all over again.

One point of contact

With an outsourced supplier, you have one point of contact and the staff management is looked after for you, giving you time to focus on other things, rather than managing multiple employees.

No add-on costs, no lost hours through sickness, no staff leaving and no hiring.

We hope that this blog gives you a good insight in to the cost of in-house vs outsourcing your next telemarketer.

If you have any questions, feel free to call us on 0345 241 3038 or get in touch.

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It’s great to see our clients reaping the benefits of telemarketing to increase sales revenue and generate quality leads. But, we know how important it is to ensure we are completely transparent with them to develop a great client – supplier relationship.

If you’re considering working with an outsourced supplier for your telemarketing campaigns, it’s important to get it right. You want to trust them and most importantly, know that you will achieve a solid return on investment.

Before you make your final decision, we cover questions that you can ask your potential supplier to make the most out of your telemarketing campaigns.

1. Do you understand our key goals for the campaign?

Both you as the client and the supplier need to be clear on where you see the campaign going. There’s no point in running a campaign if you don’t have set goals that are clear to everyone.

2. What sort of results should we expect from the campaign?

If you aren’t sure what your goals should be, ask your potential supplier what they would suggest. They are experts in their field, and can therefore guide you on what you can expect. This should include expected call numbers, contact rates and expected conversion rates.

3. How long should we run the campaign for?

There is no definitive answer for this, but again it’s a great question to ask. Companies can compare other campaigns of a similar nature, or they may have an initial setup phase which then develops further over a longer or set time period.

In fact, we discuss this in one of our latest blogs.

4. Which clients have you worked with who are similar to us?

If the supplier has worked with other clients in your industry, you can glean ideas and research on what may or may not work for your company. This can also work for their previous clients of a similar size to yours. Remember, you can always ask to speak to their clients to get a reference too.

5. Who will be my first point of contact?

A great supplier will provide you with a first point of contact. This could be in the form of a dedicated account manager. Should something go wrong, or if you need to change parts of the campaign, it’s reassuring to have someone you know is on the end of the phone to help.

6. Who will make the calls and where are they based?

It’s a reality of our industry that there are many different models. Outsourcing calls to agents who work from home or from overseas can keep costs down but ask yourself, is this how you want your brand to be reflected? Furthermore, ask whether you’ll have access to the callers. Will you meet them and have a relationship with them directly?

7. How will I be updated on how the campaign is going?

No one likes being left in the dark by outsourced suppliers. You need to know that you will have regular updates on your campaign including those all-important statistics such as call hours, conversion rates, lead generated and more.

8. How will you ensure that you have researched in to our product and industry enough?

Your brief may be detailed, but how do you know that your supplier is going to be confident enough on the phone to discuss your product? Ask them how they aim to stay knowledgeable on your product portfolio and industry. It’s crucial as a telemarketing supplier that the work carried out is adapted to your company.

From product information to conversations on the phone, an outsourced telemarketing supplier should work with you to setup and develop campaigns bespoke to your organisation.

Air Marketing Group

Our campaigns are supported by our client portal which provides live and transparent reporting. We work with clients to discuss the best approach possible for telemarketing campaigns.

Want to find out more? Contact us today by email or call today on 0345 241 3038.

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