Hello, This is XX calling
from XX (company); may I have a
moment of your time please....?
Statistics shows that Telesales
responses fetches 4 times more
than mail-generated leads. And
you would think that the cost
could be exorbitant, since large
corporations have spent millions
of dollars prepping up their
telesales centers. Well, it's
Yes and No. If you are running a
large corporation and looking to
expand sales exponentially at a
faster pace, yes.
But if you run a small business,
you too can have a piece of the
telesales pie. There are
approaches which from my past
experience have proven workable
and more importantly profitable
to say the least.
The one of the critical issues
is to examine suitability of
your business for the telesales
channel of distribution. There
are industries which telesales
has become the norm in
generating escalating revenues &
profits but there are those
which do not leverage upon
telesales, not due to budget
constraints but that there are
more appropriate distribution
channels. Take for instance, the
very familiar credit card call
industry. You will see rows and
rows of telesellers calling
round the clock to solicit card
applications.
Conversely, if you are in the
fruits wholesale distribution
business, it is highly unlikely
that you would resort to
telesales as a distribution
channel.
You will also need to analyze
the function of telesales as
marketing tool in your business.
You can activate telesales
activities for expanding
revenue, as a sales support tool
as well as build rapport. Call
supporting activities for the
credit card businesses, the cell
phone businesses for instance,
would center around after-sales
services. Calling clients on
service evaluation after sales
would be building rapport and
generate feedback for product
and service enhancements. These
are very diverging objectives
which separately achieve
different purposes altogether.
The pitch and script would be
highly diverging as well.
The "recency" of your call list
is critical as well. Lists from
events and campaigns must be
called within the month to
ensure higher recall rate. The
sooner you call your prospects,
the higher the recall rate and
the better the chances of
closing the sale. The catch is
of course the National Do Not
Call List. So ensure that the
potential clients you call are
on this list.
Finally, your success largely
depends on The Reward,
essentially the effectiveness of
your incentive scheme.
I shall share below an example
of my past execution of
telesales as a sales generating
tool. In this instance, our
discussion is centered on the
small business, with tight
operations and marketing
budgets.
For effective telesales, you
could consider training one or
two existing staff to spend 30%
to 50% of their time conducting
telesales out of a potential
client listing generated from
your many events and campaigns
as well as existing client
lists. And Viola! Leveraging on
existing manpower resources, you
have created a new channel of
distribution!
Handpick staff, who have tact
and are able to take rejection,
and practice, they will start
converting the leads to sales,
and start earning! Remember,
Telesales is a prolong activity
channel which yields results
over time.
Persistence and positivism is
essence.
In terms of rewards, on top of
their usual salary, you should
incentivize your telesellers
with a generous percentage of
telesales revenue generated by
them. This is especially viable
for business costs which run on
incremental variable revenue
model. For instance, if your
business is leveraged upon total
fixed cost, and any revenue
above your fixed cost is
variable revenue or profits.
Hence, any amount generated by
your telesellers is essentially
variable revenue on top and
above your normal fixed costs
and fixed revenue.
By: Yoshiko Choy
BusinessFast4ward.com