The Fear of Sales Failure

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Telemarketing Will Ignite Direct Mail Campaigns

Funny isn’t it? Two marketing forms, direct mail and telemarketing, that fell out of favor with ad gurus years ago, is back on top. Everything old is new again. And while the debate rages on between brand builders and direct marketers, the DM practitioners seem to cut a much wider swath through the commercial clutter.

Now, telemarketing appointment setting firms are joining forces with their direct mail brethren and the result is enough to make you take notice.

A daily newspaper in the Midwest published a special section recently showcasing businesses in the community. These special sections are a fine way of pumping up a sagging bottom line in the newspaper business not to mention building reader interest. A multi-channel ad campaign was launched and a telesales firm was hired to schedule qualified sales appointments for the paper’s ad reps.

Before the first phase of the sales appointment setting calls, the newspaper sales department sent direct mail pieces to a select number of prospects. Calls were placed and the telemarketing firm hit a home run. Those prospects that received the direct mail piece knew about the special section and were receptive to scheduling an appointment with an account executive. It was the closest thing to sales heaven some of these veterans had seen.

The second and third phases of the calling campaign had no direct mail component and the appointments were tougher to schedule. The awareness factor was missing. More education was needed.

When the numbers were tallied and crunched, appointments were set at a better than 2 to 1 margin with those prospects who got a direct mail ad first.

Telemarketing and direct mail work well independently, but when you put them together you’ll really stoke your sales fire.

First We Disqualify

Disqualifying prospects appears to run counter to everything a sales organization is trying to do. Why would you shut the door and snuff out a possible sale? The short answer is to make a lot more money.

When a telemarketing sales appointment company works for you they must deliver the most qualified prospects for you to meet and sell. The wishy-washy, tire-kickers might help you hone your sales skill but won’t put any money in your pocket. They’ll string you along forever incapable of making a firm decision no matter what. Their name on today’s call calendar will still be there 3 months from now. You don’t have the time. You can’t afford the aggravation

A superior sales appointment setter will ask the right questions to get a firm yes or a firm no. Anything in the middle isn’t acceptable. A prospect, with the authority to buy from you, who gives an emphatic yes to an appointment has a high probability of becoming a customer. Those who say no have given you the second best answer. The prospects that aren’t sure and are very vague about everything may never do business with you, or if they do will cost you more than they are worth.

Prospects who have trouble seeing your value, will have even more trouble paying for it. If, after months of trying to convince them of your worth, they finally agree to give you a “try out”, it will always be for the lowest price and service level. Problem is they’ll want to turn the ignition key in a Cadillac while paying for a Chevrolet. It isn’t a damnation of the client, it’s a finger pointed at the sales organization that won’t decide up-front that this isn’t a business relationship to pursue.

An appointment setting firm’s suggestion to dismiss a prospect early in the process sounds harsh but business is made up of a lot of harsh realities and most of them involve cash flow and sales. Decide now that in your pursuit of new, profitable business, you will rely on a company that will disqualify weak prospects in favor of those that will form long term, profitable relationships.

The Reality of Telemarketing

Forget what you think telemarketing is and embrace the reality that it is used by the largest companies in the world to introduce new products, gauge customer satisfaction and schedule qualified sales appointments.

Today’s telemarketing is the purest form of direct marketing and direct marketing is the shortest distance between two points for business success. With the overload of messages crashing into consumers, a clear voice that rises above the din must be found. Telemarketing is that voice.

To be sure, there are a few firms that still practice boiler room telemarketing tactics of days gone by. The majority, however, are professional organizations committed to your complete success.

When hiring a telemarketing firm, look for very specific attributes:

• Knowledgeable, well-spoken company representatives

• Expertise in telling your story

• Excellence in building the right list of qualified prospects to call

• No long-term contract

• A non-disclosure, confidentiality agreement

• Clear and understandable campaign reporting

• Open, meaningful communication

• Establishment of goals and measurement tools

• Interaction between your sales and management team and the professional telemarketers

• Pricing that is clear and fair

• The ability to analyze, test and refocus campaigns for your maximum result

If you sell any product or service, and want to put it in the hands of your best prospects, you should use telemarketing professionals. If you have a customer base and want to build loyalty and repeat business you should use telemarketing professionals. The investment will pay for itself many times over and become the centerpiece of your direct marketing strategy.

Sales Appointment Setting: What You Should Expect

A sales appointment setting, telemarketing or telesales firm can bring you more business than you ever thought possible. The best campaigns include a great list of prospects to call, a trained, professional calling staff and strict procedures for following up on leads.

Appointment setters will:

· Make twice as many calls as your average sales rep
· Set an average of (1) qualified appointment per hour
· Disqualify those that will waste your time and effort
· Double the productivity of your sales staff
· Help build a prospect data base
· Provide valuable feedback about your position in the marketplace
· Bring you a strong ROI
· Obtain referrals
· Reduce sales management headaches
· Help you make more money

Appointment setters will not:

· Close the deal--They set the stage and let your pros shine
· Force sales reps to attend scheduled appointments
· Improve a salesperson's presentation skills
· Turn a poor prospect list into a good one
· Provide vast product or service detail--They spark interest

Your success depends on getting in front of the prospect that has the interest and authority to make a buying decision and for that reason you have to learn more about how a professional sales appointment setting firm can help. Those who do make more money quicker than they ever thought possible

Monday Inspiration

"You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down." Mary Pickford

"A smart salesperson listens to emotions not facts." Author Unknown

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." Aristotle

"Two sure ways to fail... Think and never do or do and never think" Zig Ziglar

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity."

Sir Winston Churchill

Sales Tips: Questions

Questions are your best friend. You need them to gather information, establish trust and build a long, profitable relationship.

Here are some that should be in your information gathering “sales vocabulary”:

What made you want to explore these options now?
What do you expect to happen as you move forward?
What problems do you forsee?
What challenges have you faced in the past?
What successes have you had?
What is the most important outcome for you?
Can you help be better understand that?
What steps will you take next and how soon?
What does that mean?Is there anything else we should talk about?

Asking questions shows you are engaged in the project and tells you how interested in you your prospect is.

Call Centers: Inhouse or Outsource?

If you are running sales appointment setting and lead generation services in-house, you are leaving money on the table. That’s why some of the biggest companies in the world like Microsoft and Wal-Mart outsource some, or all of their call center functions to professional appointment setting firms like ours. We help you make more money.

Call center outsourcing vs. in-house call center activities:

• In-house call centers can’t afford to pay appointment setters enough and performance suffers because of that. We pay our professionals well.


• MaSM talks to the right people at the right time. It isn’t about more calls it’s about meaningful conversations that turn into sales.


• You need qualified sales appointments set for your staff—not an unlimited number but one that allows your reps to present, negotiate and close.


• Appointment setters function much better when working on your project 2-4 hours a day, not 8. It becomes a case of diminishing returns.


• Provides a significant return on investment that is trackable.


• MaSM professionals dial the phone three times more often than most in-house call centers scheduling many more qualified appointments.


• Focuses on disqualifying poor prospects to maximize your closing ratio.


• Allows you to do what you do best: close deals.


• Drives new revenue without having to expand or provide additional office space, computers, telephones or employees.


• Gives you the ability to have trained, skilled and experienced personnel to fulfill your call center needs with the ability to utilize appointment setting; phone sales; lead generation and lead qualifying; list and database scrubbing; database building; surveys; market research; seminar registration and fundraising.

If you have you’re an in-house telemarketing department, we ask that you run a test campaign with MaSM. We are confident that you will be pleasantly surprised with the outcome—you’ll make more money in less time.

Sales Appointment Setting: It's Ugly Out There

Sales appointment setting is an ugly process. Picking up a phone and convincing someone you don’t know to spend time with you sends cold chills down your spine no matter the thickness of your skin. Is it really any wonder cold calling ranks number one with a bullet on the most hated list for salespeople?

Fear and loathing of prospecting and cold calling has killed a bright future for many a shining salesperson. A lack of prospecting leads to a lack of appointments and a lack of new sales. There is only so much you can do with referrals and the accounts divvied up when Joe in the corner office retired.

Weak sales managers, and there are a lot of them, stand over their minions forcing them to do what they hate, call and call more. The basic premise is right that more calls will ultimately lead to more sales, but the methodology is all wrong. It isn’t just quantity; it is quality that counts. Garbage in, garbage out.

Strong sales managers know account execs have to talk to prospects with a problem to solve—those who will invite you to meet them and help make their pain go away. They also know one of the best ways to get in front of these prospects is to use the services of a professional sales appointment setting firm. It makes sense on a whole lot of levels. These pros will dial the phone three times more often than your in-house reps, have more conversations and schedule dozens of high-quality appointments, fast. They use the right lists, use the right words and make your top sales reps twice as productive.

Those who don’t consider outsourcing appointment setting are leaving money on the table. They think that given time, sales reps will learn to make cold calls and set appointments with the accounts you want most. That same line of antiquated thinking would suggest you should always be working on your weaknesses.
Wrong! Work on your strength and find professionals to take care of the shortcomings.

Sales appointment setting firms will bring you a trackable, meaningful ROI. They bring waves of new revenue, build morale, reduce management oversight and let sales reps do what they do best, present, negotiate and close deals.

Outsource cold calling and appointment setting to those that do it best—the ones that don’t think the process is ugly or painful but rather enjoy setting the table for your sales team.