Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

I was a relationship oriented telemarketer for about 12 years.

Regarding the Do Not Call legislation, this typically deals with business to consumer calls and I was a business-to-business outbound marketing guy. as a person who made his living for years on the telephone, I signed up for the do not call list the very first day, and I encouraged people I knew to do the same.

Regarding everyone hating cold callers: it depends on who you call, why you call, how you call, when you call, what you are calling about, and so forth. My personal goal was for each person that I called to thank me for calling. If I did not personally believe the person that I was calling would appreciate the phone call, I would not call them.

Regarding traditional approaches to telemarketing: I do not recommend traditional approaches and I certainly do not condone most telemarketing practices. For years, I would not refer to myself as a telemarketer, since the industry in general has such a bad reputation.

I do not believe that social media can replace telemarketing as a tool to sell highly qualified targeted accounts.

There are unfortunately a number of tactics which work quite well on the phone, but which many of us would consider unprofessional, unethical, dishonest and rude.

Clearly there is still a need to create and to find opportunities using the telephone. Please do not be discouraged by one single book. Believe it or not, there are a large number of highly apical salespeople who use the telephone effectively, professionally, honestly.