What value do the salespeople deliver and from how many calls a week? If they are making 8-10 visits a week and selling with a high percentage then supporting them with a telemarketing team makes sense. If it is low value then adding a £30-40k resource to support them does not make sense.

The salespeople should always manage existing relationships and so the telemarketing team have the more difficult job of new client acquisition. It might be worth considering a campaign focus to provide support. Targeting one market segment at a time with a great offer and persistent follow up works in the information business. (I have worked in professional services and information businesses). Using an external agency can ensure that the callers do not get stale - they can also be cheaper.

Crispin White
www.chiswickconsulting.com

posted 10 months ago

It depends on the number of accounts per salespeople, with a small portfoflio salesreps should manage they own calls. They must do their homework and understand who's "the man" to talk too and bypass barriers if they show up.
With limited resources on the sales team, I prefer an internal telemarketing team managing the calls. It's easy to control and asses the performance and the communication is easy within the company. Salespeople can be advised by the telemarketing people about the outputs of the "cold call" and prepare for a friendly / unfriendly meeting.

posted 10 months ago

Hi Anthony

First congratulations on your great business. I had your guys in here the other day presenting what you do and it is great.

Let me also declare my bias - being the MD of an outsource B2B tele prospecting company.

Clearly, ideally, the best people to make cold calls are the senior sales executives / business owners. There is a whole heap of meaning that can be communicated by a business owner or very senior sales exec that just can not be duplicated by anyone no matter how technically skilled they are.

However, it is just not possible to scale a business if you rely on these people to do all the work.

It is our view that telemarketing is often an undervalued task within many organistions. It is a job that goes to a junior or temporary / transient worker. Sales people see it as something they don't want to do. You set a rule such as 10 before 10 - and it just doesn't get done.

However, there is a real professional skill to cold calling. There are professional tele-prospectors who, by application of training, skill and experience, can deliver results that an unskilled operator just can't do.

Also there is the question of brand. In the B2B space in particular the relationship between brand and telemarketing is critical. Often, the telemarketer is the first person to actually have a one-to-one conversation with a prospective client. All the work done on PR and advertising in ComputerWorld or any other trade magazine building a brand is completely un-done if the call goes out by an unskilled or sloppy operator.

Then there is the question of burn out. It is a fact that staff turn over in outbound cold calling roles is high. The thing is it is wearing on the psyche to make 120 calls a day, day after day, to the same market selling the same company.

So, outsourced operators, if they are appropriately professional, offer a number of value points.

First, they offer a professional, well managed team of expert telemarketers who are skilled, trained practitioners at the art.

Second, they offer a depth of talent pool, so they can rotate experts through a campaign so as to ensure that burn out does not exist.

Finally, they offer a professional management interface, so when you deal with your telemarketing team you are dealing with a high powered, deeply experienced management team that might unfold more than 200 campaigns a year - the kind of resource that you just can't get inhouse.

There is a bunch of other stuff, but bottom line we believe that the argument for outsourced B2B teleprospecting is compelling.

That said, if you don't agree, we have written a White Paper called 'Run your own telemarketing campaign'. Please, download the paper and use it to run your own campaigns inhouse.

I hope this is helpful

Kind Regards

Chris

Links:

• http://www.strikeforcesales.com.au/index.php?option=com_fabrik&Itemid=31

posted 10 months ago

In my experience, given that we dont require a high number of calls sales people making own calls works best for us.

When we are launching a new product which is a mass market product we will use an outsourced telemarketing.

posted 10 months ago

Cold calling is best left to professionals. This not only leaves getting through the gatekeepers, qualifying the lead, and setting the appointment on someone else, but this frees up your time and your salespeoples time in huge ways.

One problem you will have with "telemarketing" is exactly that... telemarketing. This is nothing more than a telephone version of spam. Telemarketing does not work. What DOES work are marketing assistants who understand your product or service, and can speak in those terms. By doing this, they can "talk the talk" and understand what your prospect is saying, rather than reading off of a script looking for yes and no answers to move onto the next question.

One company that does just this is EAS LeadGen. They are a US based Executive Appointment Setting and Lead Generation company. They are highly skilled professionals who can understand and filter your prospects needs, and then set an appointment with the most qualified decision maker. They do not outsource their work, as most other companies do.

I can be reached at "zsmith@easleadgen.com" to discuss further if you are interested in how they can help you.

-Zach

Links:

• http://www.easleadgen.com/contactus.html

posted 10 months ago

I agree with Zach, calling needs a specific mindset that's best left to a pro. We hired a biz dev specialist to make the initial calls, and I'm speaking with many more qualified leads now than when I manned the phone myself.

Links:

• http://www.aastudios.ca

posted 10 months ago

Hi Anthony

In my opinion it has to be sales people making their own calls and building their own relationships from the start.

Let me know the results.

regards

John

posted 10 months ago

A trained inside sales team is the best. You have more control over who they call, what they are using as the lead, and how they qualify the leads.

Good Luck

Kevin Sasser
www.thesaleswars.com

posted 10 months ago

In my mind, sales people should be cold calling no matter what other marketing resources are being used. Cold calling is not only a great place to basically practice and fine tune things, but it allows sales people to get a better grip on what is going on in their market.

In cold calling, like all forms of communication, there are four elements that are required to ensure success. What you are talking about is only the first one - who, the communicator, the controller.

You will also need to consider what they say to whom for what purpose.

Have a great day

John Chepyha
"Achieving more, easily on the phone"

Links:

• http://www.effective-cold-calling.com/Answers

posted 10 months ago

depends on who is target market...

Found Wayne Berry is Good for Telemarketing material ... www.topgunba.com.au

We use SEO / SEM mix depending upon requirements. Really depends on who you are selling too

Links:

• http://www.maxsearch.com.au

posted 10 months ago