Know-How Exchange : Strategy

I was personally on the telephone for three years selling IBM mainframe system software by telephone, then spent two years as a product marketing manager helping to assist with telephone sales, and as an independent contractor I have worked on multiple projects for software vendors. It is not easy to sell software by telephone. A typical problem is that, although you might pay $45 an hour for professional telemarketing, the person actually making the telephone calls is typically a $15 per hour part-time person with a script. It is extremely likely that some form of telephone marketing (hopefully combined with e-mail and snail mail and good research) can play a role in your marketing effort. I'll be more than happy to chat with you by phone. Click on my username to see my profile, and send me an e-mail.

A quick word of warning. In my experience, the vast overwhelming majority of telemarketing projects fail to meet expectations. This is not because telemarketing does not work, is due to unrealistic expectations. As a general rule, everything takes twice as long and costs twice as much as you'd expect.

Telemarketing would need to be part of the overall sales system. For instance, maintaining and cleaning lists of prospects, generatings leads and appointment setting, but the actually sale/account management would be your sales team at the next stage after the call. You can also use indirect approaches where the product is too complex - for instance events, seminars and training and give the telemarketing team the role of selling these 'simpler' products which then bring potential customers closer to your business