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24/10/11
Some Thoughts on Telemarketing in a Volatile Environment
Well, the economic world has moved on some since my last post earlier this year – or rather it has not, as it’s all come to a shuddering standstill. Three paces forward, four back, five paces forward, four back again: where are we? In truth, nobody has the slightest idea. Doomsters are looking at the US as an empire in ruins and are citing municipal debt as the next fault line; optimists are on an uphill slope trying to talk up their own economies; pragmatists are declaring that Europe appears to be heading for civil war; every western public sector, rather than providing stimulus, appears to be contributing to stagflation; the US federal government, with its electorate split right down the middle, has become fond of the ostrich position, seeming to have no idea how to mend a deeply broken social and financial system; and the same government continues to contribute to the shrinking percentage (now 1% instead of the 20% it was not so long ago) of wealth owners and creators, with the fat cats in Washington recently overtaking Silicon Valley’s San Jose as the richest population per capita.
So where in all this is the supposed jewel in the crown, the private sector, to which everyone is desperately and hopefully holding out the leadership baton.
The answer right now is pretty well nowhere. Some companies are sitting on stockpiles of cash, others are trying to find more, but most are standing absolutely still. Projects are on hold, under resourced staff are now permanently tired, much less proactive and working in a culture where it is now entirely acceptable not to respond to emails, answer voicemails or pick up a ringing telephone. Each call, each meeting, leads to more work that they do not have time for and, to cap it all, many senior staff, especially in IT, do not have landlines any more and have no point of contact reference at switchboard. On top of which, they often have cause to regret picking up the telephone, which they might once in a blue moon, because the call is ill prepared, badly directed and poorly researched.
So, what actually does make your call different? How can you make the most of a rare conversation?
As I have mentioned before, you do not pick up the telephone unless you are as sure as you can be that your call is likely to make their company and yours some good money. Just as listening skills are the keystone of every sales conversation, putting thought into why exactly your prospect may want your service or product works well too! Before you talk to senior people, try and engage with a junior or two first. Ask advice; get perspective; understand, as far as you can, their current priorities. Are they currently operationally geared, rolling out applications across the enterprise? Are they moving from a regional to a global structure? Is their current structure global already? Are they in a merger or prime bid situation, recent past, present or near future? Are they making yet more people redundant and therefore do not want to talk about new spend?
The positioning of this information in such a way as to leverage your subsequent conversation makes it clear that you have put thought and time into making the call relevant and that you understand, to a point, their possible dilemmas. You are not just machine gunning the entire sector or market you are after, are you? And in case you think only paying lip service to just a little research fits the bill, mentioning that you have looked at their web site is simply not enough. The web site only tells you what that particular company wants to place into the public domain. Try reading some of the related company articles posted by other people on the Internet. The effort is likely to give you some of the depth you need.
You must also bear in mind the other side of this particular coin: you will not ever have a complete understanding of your prospect’s needs without working for them. In fact, confidently telling them where they are and what they are doing will often lead to your proposition’s demise, because you do not and cannot ever know as much as detail as they do. So just be deferential and simply demonstrate that at least you’ve tried to research and position your call to make the most of their time.
If an analogy helps, think of your call in the same light as cooking a meal: the more important the meal, the longer the preparation time; the better the preparation, the better the meal; the better the meal, the more it is worth lingering over. Then realise that eating the meal takes a fraction of the preparation time – even though it is the only piece of the process in which the recipient is involved. Make note of the fact that around 90% of the success of any direct marketing campaign depends on the strength of the ingredients.
If that does not work for you, then think about the call in terms of you spending your own money. Each minute on the telephone could be worth a substantial sum in terms of your prospect’s time and the organisation’s turnover. Four minutes on the telephone might cost the company anything upwards of £200. Would you spend that amount of money these days without a thought, just because it is as easy for you to get out your wallet as it is for you to pick up a telephone? So make sure you give that possible future client or customer value for money. This alone will get your call at least some of the attention you need.
07/01/11
Telephone Etiquette: a Couple of Tips
Well, here we are in 2011, a year that is sure to provide a host of partly analytically expected, partly exuberantly ignored, economic twists and turns. It is a year bound to keep us on our toes and may be a stomach churning, volatile roller coaster ride, excitingly full of bullishness for some organisations, timidity for others and anxious anticipation for all of us.
So it is probably high time I shoot a few more telemarketing thoughts into the public arena.
The public sector, as we all know, has ground to a halt, whilst all central government departments have had their budgets, not just cut, but completely taken away. The Cabinet Office and the appropriate Departmental Minister are now the only bodies able to authorize spend. Local Authorities, acting for the citizen, have had, as we know, around one quarter of their annual funding cut. It seems they are also being asked, with a baby boomer advertising echo of the 1960's, to give “power to the people” in order to cover off various needs voluntarily, which, whilst no doubt supplies fertile ground for the ambitious to aspire to an MBE, seems rather like audience participation in a low budget theatre, where, for my money, you go to be entertained, not to do the entertaining yourself.
The Private Sector is expected to pick up the slack and, to some extent will do so. Not in the Business to Consumer arena but in the engine room of Business to Business. Many protagonists will start to play from a vastly reduced cost base, looking for quality and value. This they will treasure (hopefully) as oppose to looking for volume, with which they will neither be able to cope, nor, under a regime of strict accountability, be seen to squander. It is becoming apparent that some global corporations now have assets close on $1 trillion and, amidst some further consolidating activity such as share buy back, will now be looking for growth opportunities.
Board directors and senior managers will want to listen to intelligent propositions, so to determine whether those propositions enhance their agenda - or not. They will assume that the person calling them has done sufficient research to be as sure as they can be, without yet having had the keynote conversation, that the telephone time will contribute well to corporate strategy and profit.
Which brings me around to two absolutes in the telemarketing skill set.
Firstly, know the difference between a “suspect”, who you assume might benefit from your call, and a prospect who you know will gain considerable advantage. Both predetermined definitions depend on the amount of appropriate information you have been able to glean in your research. Never make the research part of the crucial call with the decision maker. You are not expected to waste a senior man's time, nor are you likely to get a decision on whether your prospect should meet with your organisation, if you present, out of the blue, with too many unknowns. So, do as much work as you can beforehand to determine whether the proposition is right, the timing is right and the person you are talking to is right. Be prepared to take your time. The second hand car salesman does not have margin to think about anything else but commission and thinks in the short term. You are playing a longer game and will only distinguish yourself in a senior decision making capacity by having the depth, assurance and security to think first, not of yourself or your company, but entirely of the other person, their organisation, their timing and their needs. You must bear in mind that it can take up to three years to get your company in front of a prospect for a face to face presentation; but they are on your “A” list of potential clients for a good reason. Have the determination, persistence and belief to make sure that you are able to make profitable contact for both companies, yours and theirs, when all the cards begin to fall into place and the inhibitors fade away. The compensation comes with the coincidence of need and supply - and you may be lucky, sometimes that coincidence arrives with the first call.
Secondly, bearing in mind that you are likely to have just one to two minutes to pitch and two minutes after that to complete both the ensuing conversation and the administrative logistics (when and where to meet or when to call back), you have a maximum of two minutes, or possibly three with free flow, to establish whether there is a meeting opportunity. So, do not go down the “audience participation” route in order to manipulate appropriate responses from the person with whom you are talking. Don't ask them “how they are” (what do you care, you don't know them from Adam and yes, it's true, they don't care about you); don't ask them questions to which you should already know the answer (how long they've been in the job, the spelling of their name, who their secretary is, how big their department is, what their responsibilities are); and don't ask them how they currently operate unless it becomes useful in the post pitch discussion (your call is not a questionnaire). The ONLY tolerable question is when you double check, especially if your prospect sounds “pushed”, that it is a convenient time to talk (thus demonstrating your listening skills).
05/09/07
 03:07:22 pm, by admin  , 845 words, 12557 views  Categories: Background
Business to Business, CIO's, IT Leaders and the Bull Pit of Lead Generation
Telephoning IT Leaders, whether CIO's, IT Directors or Heads of Strategy and Infrastructure through the UK, the US East Coast and Northern Europe with intelligent and strategic propositions, is central to my business activity. Having done it for twenty years, it might be said I know a thing about it too.
Let me set the scene by going back to 1985, when the PC first hit the desktop. No more getting up to visit the filing cabinet; all your information was to hand - a real boon for the marketing department. No longer were the records of the 95%, who were not able to say "yes" to the proposition, lost to bad handwriting and the dustbin, together with their valuable conversational intelligence. It became realistic and profitable to record that information and to run a database as oppose to a list. The more sophisticated the data records got, the more pay back they gave. A struggle to sell in the Thatcherite era of quick money in the late 1980's, the database finally came into its own during the recession of the early nineties (the last we were able to understand and measure properly before the new scenarios of a global economy began to pan out) as both BtoB and BtoC organisations now wanted to hit the new upturn in 1993 and come out running from those sticky starting blocks. Outsourcing and "returning to core business" were the new mantras as the "job for life" began to disappear. Technology was beginning to lead business by the hand, so much so that business had to make a real effort to pull back the reins.
With this background, the IT Director or computer manager was held up as an icon of efficiency and future development but isolated in a separate world until a problem (shortly to become an issue?) arose, as no one else understood, or wanted to understand, the technology. Business stood back aghast at the increasingly expensive budget requirements and the underlying, disturbing dependency on the spend engendered.
Around the turn of this 21st century a new breed of executive began to appear. Methodologies were put in place and processes laid out for a middle ground where technology and business could work together. The more enlightened companies picked CEO's who at least knew how to 'walk the walk' when it came to IT and a rare one or two organisations even gave their IT leader a seat on the board. The CIO was born (though even now the majority are still not full board members). One of first,Uve Natho of BUPA, was telling me then that soon his world was to become a rota of strategy meetings from 08.30hrs to 17.30 hrs amidst much subsequent but necessary operational delegation. At the same time, experienced IT Directors were being head hunted to sort out huge operational requirements from legacy mainframe systems that didn't communicate with desktop PC's and to centralise distributed (mostly country based) networks. IT leaders were running badly short of time as tight deadlines for solutions were imposed upon them. They began sheltering themselves with good 'guard dog' secretaries who diligently screened calls, determined to be proactive in pursuit of market knowledge rather than react to the latest cost saving measures that promised to cut their workload but rarely did. Purchasing was becoming a financial science and by 2003 ROI intelligence was required; a business case had to be produced before a purchase was considered. By 2006 Mike McNamara, IT Director UK at Tesco, would not take a meeting unless his Purchasing Director ratified it first and could then be present for the pitch.
So where does that now leave the person with a telephone call to make about a new proposition addressed to the IT leadership of a leading global and national business? 'In the mire' some would say, whilst IT strategists rejoice, glorifying the fact that they no longer have to hear unsuitable pitches put to them by people who knew not the first thing about the environment in which IT engineers the business and therefore by default, pitches delivered without intelligence, without getting to the point quickly enough and sometimes with an over aggressive tone to boot.
Well, I'm glad to say that there is still room for manoeuvre if you play the game properly, with honesty, respect, courtesy and consideration - still a 'big ask' for some. Despite all the barriers that CIO's, CTO's and IT Leaders have had, quite necessarily, to put in place (and these can vary from voice mail only direct telephone numbers to an insistence on an initial approach by e-mail), when you do get to speak to them most are amenable to an intelligent, brief and well targeted proposition put to them by someone who understands how they work and the pressure they are under.
And when you take into consideration that 3 or 4 conversations a day on the back of 80-100 dial attempts is now the statistical norm - and that's on a good day - from the point of view of those companies doing the pitching, these opportunities had better be made the most of!
02/03/07
02:32:58 pm, by admin , 576 words, 28632 views Categories: Background
Previously Published Atricle That May Be of Interest To Readers
LATEST NEWS
Marketing sector guilty of double standards
by Alexander Simpkin Brand Republic January 2006
Alexander Simpkin
I was shocked to learn that more than 1,500 companies in the marketing, advertising and PR sector have registered with the Corporate Telephone Preference Service, writes Alexander Simpkin, an outbound telemarketing consultant.
I have often contended over the 20 years I've been in this business, that it is a shame many people in the communications industry do not think of themselves as recipients of direct marketing, whatever the channel, as well as instigators.
Those who are able to do so benefit from a more personable approach that pays dividends right from initial strategic planning, through tactical implementation, and also, happily, to the degree of return. After all, isn't identification a key tenet of the sales and marketing process?
I never thought, however, perhaps over-optimistically, that I'd encounter downright cynicism.
Consequently, I was therefore considerably taken aback when I discovered recently that of those companies registered with the Corporate Telephone Preference Service, a disturbing 4% slice of the first-year registrations through July 2004-2005 have been placed by companies operating in the marketing, PR and advertising sector.
This is equivalent to around 1,750 companies as at the end of September, when the overall company total was 44,093.
So it appears, to some, to be OK to initiate direct contact but not to receive it. This is totally shameless and, were it not for privacy regulations, I would be happy to have those who registered on this basis named, shamed, tarred and feathered.
Perhaps fortunately for them they are not alone. They sit alongside the 69 companies who have registered more than 1,000 numbers and who have declared themselves as coming from the financial services sector, which is the highest direct contact propagator in UK business.
Actually, the CTPS may well die a death anyway. The UK is the only country in the world to my knowledge to have a registration service for business telephone numbers.
Just as protectionism in the EU with reference to agricultural and other subsidies has recently been in the limelight, do we really want to be seen to perpetuate an over-protected commercial environment? Do we really want to inhibit the sense of fun we get out of hunting in the business arena too?
I think not, but the key factor is that the CTPS is unenforceable.
As any good business-to-business telemarketer knows, there are many legitimate ways of getting to your prospects without breaking the rules.
And these are prospects who are quite capable of shielding themselves anyway, through a combination of their own company practices and data protection legislation or, as is fast becoming the case now for department heads, not even having a direct number or an extension logged in at the switchboard.
So, let's do away with this hypocrisy now, shall we? If you work in a sector that deals with direct contact, whatever the channel, start supporting your sector.
And for our part, let's get on the telephone only when we're reasonably sure that we have the right prospect, we have a proposition that will benefit the prospect's company, and that we can deliver that proposition concisely, intelligently, courteously and, importantly in an era where untold brand damage is being done through offshore placement, intelligibly.
Alexander Simpkin is an IDM Fellow and has worked for clients including Cisco Systems, Harper Collins and Nestle.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, do post a comment.
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