Let's talk about the fact that a lot of companies actually fail when it comes to telesales and telemarketing deployments because they fail to follow some of the key principles. So let's talk about what some of those failures are and how you can avoid those if you're looking to employ telesales and telemarketing functions. First of all, a lot of companies assume that if they just bring people in and stick them on a phone, give them a list and stick them in a cubicle that they'll be able to do fine on their own. And telesales and telemarketing is a really, really hard job and it requires a very specific skills set, a lot of unique DNA, which you won't find in another sales person, and also a lot of coaching. The first thing is probably the fact that telesales, because people who work in this kind of industry face a very, very high level of rejection, they have to have an extreme level of ego resilience and a willingness to rise above getting the phone slammed on them all of time and continue to make calls until they find the magic approach for getting through to potential prospects, warming them up and engaging them. So, a lot of companies hire the wrong people for this without testing and profiling to make sure that they've got the necessary DNA and that they've got high ego resilience. Second of all, once they hire them, they put them into a back room, give them a list and a phone and tell them to go to work and neglect to coach and manage them. Third, many times they fail to develop a rigorous process related to the planning, execution, and follow up to each telesales call. And without a strong process, you're just not going to make it in telemarketing and telesales. Fourth, many times companies fail to provide the effective, day to day and moment to moment management supervision that's required in order to effectively coach telesales and telemarketing professionals to a higher standard. Fifth, a lot of companies assume that they know how to do telesales and telemarketing but unless they actually have somebody who has this high level of expertise, which most sales managers don't, often times they find out that it's not enough to set up the function and the real magic comes from having somebody who understands the telesales and telemarketing process and who can really micromanage the deployment of that process, the hiring of the correct people, their coaching, the continuous improvement in the call methods and approach until the results are being gained. So if you're thinking about setting up telesales or telemarketing or outbound prospecting and lead generation for your company, you should consider whether or not you have the inside talent in your company with proven experience and track record to deploy this kind of function and really make it work. A lot of companies figure oh, this could be easy, it couldn't be that hard, and then they fail miserably. We've seen many clients that have taken that sort of approach and spent large amounts of investment trying to get their telesales and telemarketing functions to be productive and when they couldn't do it ended up just shutting it down and saying, oh telesales or telemarketing doesn't work for our business. Well the fact is, it can work for any business. Whether it be business-to-business or business-to-consumer, again, the best in class companies are using this sort of approach and methodology to improve their lead generation, drive higher efficiency into their sales force, reduce their cost and accelerate their overall revenue growth. We have many clients that have actually produced outstanding results using this kind of operation, including a construction company that hired us to come in and deploy a telesales activity so that they could get into major accounts where they could do multiple, ongoing construction projects. As a result of deploying this activity in their company, their sales have more than doubled in the last two years. Another company that we recently did a revamp on their outbound telemarketing activity for experienced a 500% increase in their close ratios as a result of doing a detailed assessment, modifying their call approach, hiring additional telesales talent, training them to the process and coaching them to success. So we've seen lots of companies that have been able to greatly increase their telesales effectiveness by bringing in consultants. Another example is a manufacture of consumer electronic displays that used Cube Management as a telesales consulting function in order to dwindle down the number of dealers that they were using for selling their products and really focus on the ones that had the best potential. Another example of a company that we're working with today is a software company that develops power quality systems for the utility and large manufacturing industry. These are all just some examples of how companies are using telesales, telemarketing, and lead generation across a multitude of industries in order to rapidly increase their pipeline, reduce their sales cycle and improve their overall sales efficiency. |
