Know-How Exchange : Advertising/PR

Hi Telemoxie,

Absolutely yes, and it was when they began the introduction with "Your colleague Mr. John Smith suggested I call you, he is familar with me and our company and thought that maybe we can help solve your problems like we solved his."

Then they begin a nice conversation asking me questions and LISTENING to my answers and questions.

But, the key to getting my attention is that somebody I know suggested they call.

I hope that helps.

I received a call from a competing labortory in effort to have me send our samples to them instead of our current.

She was very unobtrusive, down to Earth, repectful of my time, tokk "no" for an answer, and did not try to pressure.

She gently counterd with an offer to take me to lunch and a promise to meet and beat all curent pricing NAD provide free equipment. I said sure, and we ended up switching.

Had she been cheesy, flirty, pushy, etc, she would have lost me.

On the whole, the telemarketing calls I receive for my business are much nicer than those I receive which are aimed at me as a person/consumer. The ones aimed at me as a person come at inconvenient times (dinner) and generally are a much harder sell.

Telemoxie,

I have received one call from a tele marketer that really stands out. He just so happened to call me one day when I was out of the office on a sales call. His voice mail message was so positive and upbeat concerning the opportunities he felt he could bring me based on what his company had done for others that I was moved to call him back. Three things moved me about this call.

1.) He got my name right which very rarely happens. Most people even when they see the name Deremiah type written just figure someone must have made a mistake and mean't Jeremiah.

2.) He left a short but concise voice mail telling me a little about what his company had done for others in my industry and why he felt that would be helpful toward my career development. (In other words he sold me on whats in it for me)

3.) He added that even if I was not interested right now in his offer he would be more than happy to talk with me at a later date when I was ready to move forward. (no pressure reply from me made me feel he was not over powering and that I was still calling the shots)

What happened? I called him back of course!

Is there anything else I can do for you Telemoxie before I go to Disney World tomorrow? I would love to help you.

Your Servant, Deremiah, *CPE

I used "aimed at" to differentiate between calls made to my business and calls made to me as a consumer. I work from home, so get them both in the same place.

So I guess they are not aimed at me, but are people trying to talk to me (or maybe more appropriately, people trying to sell me something). And I notice a difference in how hard a sell is used depending on whether they are after me the business or me the consumer.

Hi telemoxie,

I have my fair share of telemarketing experience targeting business executives, so I pay attention to the telemarketing calls I receive at the office. Usually they are not very good. They don’t know enough about me, the firm and our situation. Occasionally, a telemarketer’s call will stand out in some way.

I recall one where the telemarketer not only used a business colleague reference but also referenced an event I had attended. He went on to let me know exactly why he was calling and why I should consider his proposal of a meeting. I didn’t set the meeting, but only because his offer didn’t match my need at that time.

I think with telemarketing the standard should be “FIRST DO NO HARM” meaning don’t negatively brand your company through telemarketing. Smart informed messaging with terrific personal tone goes a long way to avoid negative vibes.

Hope this helps,

- Steve

Dave, I've got two examples of telemarketing "success" for you.

First, there is a young man who called my office and left me a voice mail three times, at about 2-week intervals. I know he had some kind of script as a foundation to work from, but he managed to sound relaxed, natural, casual, genuine, etc. The message, in essence, was, "Hi, Shelley. I'm Joe with Acme Products. I think I can help BirdNest save some money if you're planning to spend money on PCs, servers or other network products. Give me a call so I can tell you what equipment we provide." Normally I ignore unsolicited vendor calls, but I did call Joe back to tell him we might be ready for him in six months. He thanked me and said he would follow up with me then. Even though he called more than once, he was able to convey a low-pressure marketeer approach.

Second example is from our OWN attempt to telemarket.

Almost a year ago, we needed to recruit beta testers for BirdNest v1.0. With absolute sincerity, our team was able to call 300 people and say, "Hello, George? I'm Jason and I'm with BirdNest Software. We've looked through about 90,000 EPA records for companies filing compliance reports, which is how we found you..."

That intro worked well for us. About 35% of the people we talked to agreed to test our product!

Sorry I don't have time to offer you more detail...

Shelley