You've Got to Be Kidding Me

By Brian Grinonneau





Here's an idea hatched in the minds of short-sighted corporate cost cutters: "Let's hire an overseas call center to handle outbound sales appointment setting and inbound service issues". In the immortal words of Johnny Mac, you've got to be kidding me.

Want an example? Try doing business with Spirit Airlines. That's the company with cheap fares but lousy customer service. A recent problem with a boarding pass resulted in on the phone hold times of up to an hour, only to be greeted by a representative named "Roger" who sounded a hell of a lot like Rameesh. Listen to this guy pronounce Seattle.

Let's get smart here. People in the U.S. (your customers and prospects) want to talk with someone who speaks pretty flawless English. Long Island nasal and southern twang is ok but a "no trace of an accent" midwestern dialect is preferable. Put an overseas caller on the job and blow this deal and all future deals once and for all.

Why do businesses with good street cred use call centers from India, Pakistan and other far away places? Think. It's in the bottom line. Man, you can have that job done for pennies on the dollar. Problem is: the job is so poorly done that you have killed a sale and taken customer care to new lows.

Next time you get a come on email or sales call from an overseas call center, ignore it. Or if you prefer, hire the company and put them to work. It makes it so much easier for smart companies to use professional U.S. telemarketers and show you what ROI really means.

Sales Appointment Setting: A Matter of Geometry?

by Brian Grinonneau


Amazing isn't it, the number of smart business types trying to fit a square peg into a round hole with their approach to sales management. It doesn't fit! It never will. Open up to some new options.

A sharp sales rep wants to sell. That's all. No cold calls. No prospecting. No scheduling meetings. No paperwork. He wants to get in front of the client and perform. (see: close the deal) Problem is: overwrought sales management thinks that you need to push the cocky sales staff to build a skill set that focuses more on the mundane tasks of sales planning. Ridiculous! Delegate the job to someone else.

Before you say it costs too much to bring on new staff to work for the sales reps, you need to really consider the ROI. MaSM studies in late 2007 show that sales productivity can more than double and cash flow is akin to ocean waves when using appointment setters.

A sales appointment setter is an introvert who prefers making a connection by phone and setting the stage for the performer. The sales star is an extrovert focused on the gratification of the sale and the money and bragging rights it brings. Two distinct halves of the sales equation that make for one hell of a result.

Sales appointment setting brings real meaning to the most overused word in business today: synergy. Pair up sales appointment setters and even the most average sales reps and you've got a team that will blow away quotas and projections. ROI will finally mean something.

Doing what you've always done and expecting different results just doesn't work. You know that. It really is the square peg, round hole theory.

Don't Make Sales Reps Schedule Appointments

By, Brian Grinonneau

Having sales pros cold call and prospect is like having a star baseball player stock the concession stand. It’s a lousy use of talent and terrible waste of money. Sales stars shine when selling. Let them sell!

A sales super achiever wants to meet with prospects, determine a fit, suggest solutions and close the deal. It feeds his competitive nature. It assuages the hunger to perform.

A sales super achiever hates making endless calls to find the right prospect with whom to meet. The process dampens the spirit and kills motivation.

Those who think a salesman should be a prospector and sales genius can stop here. The paradigm shifted a few turns back.

In today’s sales world, an account rep must exploit strength--not work on weakness. Forget about a well-rounded rep, focus on a super star that closes the deal and brings home fists full of cash.

Appointment setting, telemarketing companies will set any sales staff on a course for success. Highly qualified sales appointments are scheduled with those who have an interest in your solution and have the ability to buy from you; appointments that are the result painstaking prospecting and hours of dialing.

A December 2007 MaSM study found that appointment setting firms can double the productivity of a sales staff because it can concentrate only on selling and not the mundane associated tasks. When qualified sales appointments are scheduled, closing ratios climb and cash flow improves.

Don’t make sales reps schedule their own sales appointments. They hate doing it and aren’t very good at it. Leave the job to professionals who love doing it and are good at it. Sales stars shine when selling. Let them sell!

90% of Some Marketing Budgets Spent on Appointment Setting

By Sally Johnson

It’s important enough to focus on and I can’t stress it enough… Telemarketing is used to set appointments because it works!

Some businesses are so aware of how effective this is that they spend as much as 90% of their marketing budgets to have telemarketers set appointments for their salespeople. Getting their sales reps in front of the right decision maker increases the liklihood of a sale, and businesses know it!

That’s because the sales person is able to have an uninterrupted and exclusive time with the prospect. This undivided attention gives a good sales person the chance to present the features and benefits of the product, answer objections and close the sale. It’s much harder for the prospect to say “no” when they are face-to-face with the presenter.

In fact, it increases the sales rate dramatically and businesses know this. Cold calling is a drudgery compared to having a standing appointment already set for an in-person meeting with the decision maker. Telemarketing is used to set appointments and businesses have found it to be worth the expense.

Sally Johnson has been in the telemarketing business for over 20 years and now enjoys written and researching new industy trends.

Outsourcing some sales efforts can boost the bottom line

Hotel & Motel Management, by Howard Feiertag
Lots of outsourcing is going on these days in all areas of hotel operations, so why not take a look at what could be helpful in this area with regard to sales?

We all can offer suggestions on how salespeople can be more productive with their time. After all, the most important role of a salesperson is to make more sales, and that relates to bringing in more business, not making more sales calls.

But at many properties, we see job descriptions referring to the number of sales calls that need to be made. If it's not reflected in a job description, we know about managers telling salespeople to go out and make more calls. However, it is not the number of calls we make that creates profit for a business, but the dollar amount of business actually being collected.

In order to bring in more profitable business, we first need to know who to call. This is where we get to the term "prospecting," which means finding out who is in a position to provide business to a property. The most successful salespeople are those who concentrate only on calling qualified prospects. Sales personnel would be more productive if they spent their time making contact and building relationships with those who have been qualified to book business with them.

All too often, salespeople spend a good amount of time making "cold calls." This term refers to calls being made on just about anyone to determine if that contact could be considered a prospect. The cold calls are made to "qualify" if that contact would have any business for a property. These calls are made by phone or in person.

We need to consider if the amount of time spent by a salesperson making cold calls to find qualified prospects is as productive as that person spending the time making calls on only those already qualified. Most sales personnel already know the answer to that question. So, the next question is, if they do not do the cold calling to find qualified prospects, how will that get done so that the salesperson has only prospects to call?

This is where outsourcing comes into play. Companies that will do cold calling for a property--often at a much lower cost than having a salesperson do it--are becoming more prevalent.
In addition to prospecting (lead generation), some companies provide a variety of sales activity functions, such as database cleansing, sales missions, trade-show follow-up services, direct mail follow-up programs, customer satisfaction surveys, customer opinion polls, internal employee surveys and mystery shopping.

Howard Feiertag is on the faculty of the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Va. He can be reached at howardf@vt.edu.