Telemarketing Question

[johnp]

Has anybody ever used an offshore telemarketer, maybe from the Philippines with success? If so, then do you have any recommendations?

The telemarketer will be calling on recruiters in the human resources industry.

I'm currently thinking about either using an offshore telemarketer or finding someone on CL to help with my telemarketing. I'm leaning more towards finding a US based person.

Thanks

 

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[Blueskies4me]

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you just want information or an appointment you can outsource to offshore pretty inexpensively with decent results. If you need something that requires cultural relevance and a responsive answer specifically geared to your company, I would consider offering an intern position with a local college. Craigslist may or may not be helpful. People just aren't into following through on their commitments. So what usually happens is you hire someone & train them to do what you want and they either flake out and stop showing up or produce poor results and need to be paid. I would also consider hiring someone that can track and record their calling so you can critique their technique and also prove they called as many as they said they did. I worked with a lot of college interns and they seem to have the perspective that #1 this is part of the college experience not their "career" so are much more likely to have a better focus and show up regularly and #2 they are excited about the idea that if they make an appointment they might get paid on top of college credit.

Also be realistic about your expectations if you've never called in this industry before. Not sure about availability of HR Recruiters but I know that company HR people can be VERY hard to reach. HR policy change over is insurance companies bread & butter so you can be sure that they get 100's of calls about reviewing new insurance plans. You may have to have a high volume of calls before you get the results you want, so don't be upset that it's your product. Know that it's essentially a numbers game. 200 calls will produce about 10 positive solid leads and maybe 10 soft leads, the rest will be hang ups or no answers or whatever.

Hope that helps.

 

[johnp]

Thanks for the info. It has been awhile since I made this post. I figured all of this out. I'm not outsourcing. I took Jordan Belforts Straight Line Program and read Spin Selling, everything makes perfect sense to me now. I know what I need to do.

Also be realistic about your expectations if you've never called in this industry before. Not sure about availability of HR Recruiters but I know that company HR people can be VERY hard to reach

I was cold calling HR people back in the spring. It was my first attempt. I'm pretty sure that I did everything wrong. I didn't qualify my leads. I didn't have a script. I didn't know who I was calling. And my pitch sounded shady.

I would basically call a firm and say, "may I please speak to a recruiter" then go from there. Not the best way to do it looking back.

I still converted people. At the time I played the "I'm a founder card..all that I really want to do is help you." I figured that if I made it sound interesting and like something that could benefit them, then they would give me the time, and it worked for everyone.

But now I know how to call..and I don't plan to go anywhere near outsourcing. My new plan now is to work on my script myself for awhile then I'm going to start hiring people.

 

[Blueskies4me]

But now I know how to call..and I don't plan to go anywhere near outsourcing. My new plan now is to work on my script myself for awhile then I'm going to start hiring people.

This is great...the owner is always better qualified to make the call and it sounds like you are taking the approach as "I'm the professional not a sales agent" which is 90% of winning a decision in your favor. Good luck.

 

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[DennisD]

I would basically call a firm and say, "may I please speak to a recruiter" then go from there. Not the best way to do it looking back.
I still converted people. At the time I played the "I'm a founder card..all that I really want to do is help you." I figured that if I made it sound interesting and like something that could benefit them, then they would give me the time, and it worked for everyone.
But now I know how to call..and I don't plan to go anywhere near outsourcing. My new plan now is to work on my script myself for awhile then I'm going to start hiring people.

It's been 3 years since this threat started. If you're still around @johnp do you think you could give an update? Where are you with this?
Can you maybe expand on the lessons you learned since you started?

 

[johnp]

It's been 3 years since this threat started. If you're still around @johnp do you think you could give an update? Where are you with this?
Can you maybe expand on the lessons you learned since you started?

@DennisDuty - Are you living in the future? I think I started this thread this year haha

If you're still around @johnp do you think you could give an update? Where are you with this?

Still around. But if you're living 3 years in the future then that puts you in the year 2017, so I'm not sure if I"m still around in your time.

Can you maybe expand on the lessons you learned since you started?

I stopped calling for now. We are putting the finishing touches on my payment gateway. I think we will be done in a few weeks, so then everything will resume in the next 3-4 weeks.

Things I learned - real quick list.

- Script - I should have written and followed a script (without reading off it). It's much easier to use a script. I had no plan when I called the people and I found that to be very stressful. In hindsight, I should have written a script and fixed the script as I went along.

- The way that you talk to people can have a huge impact on them. For example, I would basically explain to the people that they were getting exclusive access to the network. I could have lowered my voice to create scarcity when I did that. I didn't do a great job with the tone of my voice..I was nervous.

- Offering something for free seemed to raise red flags in their mind. It could have been my pitch. But I noticed hesitation in everyone's voice. I had to remind them that my intensions were good and that I was only trying to help them. But at times I could almost hear them think, "What the hell does this guy want from me?"

Now I see that it's important to establish trust in 3 main things: myself, my product, and my company

-Following up - I had a few people try to get off the phone with me. I got their contact details and attacked them from every angle. Gmail, Linkedin, etc..it helped big time.

- Gathering Intell - This is where I did a terrible job. I didn't take the time to ask enough questions about the people early on. This is probably because I didn't have a script and I had no clue what I was doing. Now I realize that the intell that I gather early on in the call can be used at various points of the call as I work through the closes.

- I did a terrible job of establishing myself as an expert and an authority figure. I was insecure in the first version of the product and I didn't know the industry at the time.

Bottom Line - I did nearly everything wrong. The only positive thing that I did do was take action. I hate the phone and I"m not really a people person. But someone has to do it.

I established some critical contacts with the early calls though. For example, I stayed in contact with the people. I put a focus group together and they helped me with future development of the product.

I have also had a few of the individuals contact me asking for help with sourcing. This tells me that I'm at the top of their, which is very good.

So yea, I learned a few things. And I expect to learn a lot more as I transition from a free to a paid service. Should be interesting. I have never called B2B asking them to pull out their card and sign here and here haha..

 

[wadza]

Sounds like you're on the right track. Cold-calling b2b is very hard these days so you need to use different types of prospecting... 'Predictable Revenue' by Aaron Ross is a good read on these other methods.

Outsourcing to Philippines, etc for something like this would not work. I'm running a call center in Australia doing energy brokering and any kind of language difficulties are met with an instant phone hang-up (don't know if it would be the same in US) and that's just from hiring people who aren't fluent english speakers locally here in Aus... outsourcing overseas just has fail written all over it..

 

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[johnp]

Sounds like you're on the right track. Cold-calling b2b is very hard these days so you need to use different types of prospecting... 'Predictable Revenue' by Aaron Ross is a good read on these other methods.

Good point, I also did not prospect. I called one guy who wanted to use my service, but couldn't because of the type of work that he did. If I had prospected, then I wouldn't have wasted my time.

Outsourcing to Philippines, etc for something like this would not work. I'm running a call center in Australia doing energy brokering and any kind of language difficulties are met with an instant phone hang-up (don't know if it would be the same in US) and that's just from hiring people who aren't fluent english speakers locally here in Aus... outsourcing overseas just has fail written all over it.

Thanks, yea I agree completely. I considered it for a good 24 hours then realized that there is no way that it's going to work. The people who I'm calling are pretty smart and sales savvy. They would catch on in a second. I'll find local people to do it after I figure everything out.

 

[DennisD]

My time machine sent me to the wrong date. Don't be surprised if you see a similar question in a few years.
I actually just saw the day you 'joined' and assumed it was the day the thread was started, my bad.

I am trying to figure out how to sell on the phone myself. It's a skill I've always wanted to develop. When I play any Tabletop Role Playing Games, my character is always the Charismatic one with the Barter and Speech-craft skills. That's who I want to be and it's who I'm taking steps now to become.

Now I realize that the intel that I gather early on in the call can be used at various points of the call as I work through the closes.

Do you have any specific examples? This is the type of stuff I'd love to learn but I don't see many practical examples to go off of.

 

[johnp]

My time machine sent me to the wrong date. Don't be surprised if you see a similar question in a few years.
I actually just saw the day you 'joined' and assumed it was the day the thread was started, my bad.

hahaha well glade to see that you are back in 2014.

Do you have any specific examples? This is the type of stuff I'd love to learn but I don't see many practical examples to go off of.

Well, for starters, I'm not a phone sales wiz. Everything that I say is strictly from my limited observation..take it with a grain of salt.

As far as an example goes, I don't have a really good one. I was simply referring to the fact that you can work something that you learn about the person into the call. For example, I asked this one guy a bunch of questions. I determined that he caters to very specific job orders for highly technical people. I stored that information in the back of my mind. Towards the end of the call he informed me that he wasn't sure if he wanted to invest the time. I then used the intel that I gathered early on to convince the guy that it actually made sense for him to use the service because he can now pinpoint candidates with extreme accuracy, my product saves him time. So I sort of looped the information that I had learned about the guy into the call to try to convince him one last time..I think this is just common sense stuff.

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This may sound nuts, to get a better feel for the sales call is to turn myself into a lead. I'll fill out forms online and have people call me up. I suggest trying this. If you don't want to use your real number then get a burner number.

Just yesterday I had this guy from web.com call me about something. As he was talking I realized that I was forming a picture of him in my mind.

I pictured a 30 year old guy. About 5'9, 190 LBS, buz cut, with a slight beard, waring a pair of jeans and a beat up black shirt, probably from Ohio. Why the hell did I picture that? The guy could have been an 80 year old women for all I know.

The call didn't go so well by the way. I got off the phone real quick, he creeped me out.

Forr some reason I got this vivid picture of a guy who I had never met. I actually saw this guy in my mind and it hurt his call. I think that it is important to also establish the right image of yourself in the person's mind. Do you want the person to think that your an expert or some guy walking out of a white rap van that sits on the corner of the street? It can go one way or the other.

 

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