The Simplicity of Writing an Effective Telemarketing Script

Hello Mr. or Mrs. ____________. My name is Tom and I write telemarketing scripts. Would you like to write an effective telemarketing script? (if no go to A, if yes go to B)


A. Follow a logical step-by-step line of questioning that limits conversation and insists on obvious answers. Ignore any response that does not follow format and lead back to the script. Stick to the script! Stick to the script like a robot, or a subhuman that can only read and dial. Do you understand this Mr. or Mrs. ________? (If yes, go to B. If no, you might as well just wing it.)


B. Execute the following steps with pointed precision:


1.- Write a one or two sentence introduction.


2- Write two or three qualifying or disqualifying questions. Ask these questions immediately following the introduction. If the prospect has initial broad qualification move to the next step. If not, politely end the call.


3- Write a set of bullet points that drill down on identified qualifications. Use these bullet points as objects of conversation. Allow and encourage the prospect to offer as much information as possible.


4- Close. Give your elevator speech, tailored by the information you just received. Get a commitment, at least for future contact, or a referral that may be interested in hearing from you.


It’s that simple. It really is.


The difficult part is in the execution of a script. Reading to people will garner nothing. The talent of making a cold call seem conversational, while keeping to the chronology of the script, is the X factor in making any presentation work.


Once again, success really comes down to quality of the person in pursuit.


For a solid set of hiring tips, please see my article “Hiring Good Telemarketers”. For a custom written script, particular to your industry, feel free to contact me at info@rdibizdev.com

How to Use Content Article Lead Generation to Earn Residual Income

By: James Lowe (Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/)


To have a steady income from your business you need to know how to generate highly targeted leads. Leads are the heart blood of residual income for your inter net business.


This article represents many thousands of dollars from my business experience. Read it carefully and learn from my experience and mistakes.


Good sales are joined to the hip of your business income in increasing your business profits. Anyone who does not focus on targeted lead generation will soon find their residual income dries up real fast.


Most online entrepreneurs end up quitting because they do not understand exactly how to generate leads. Success or failure is frequently a fine line, as little as one word or even one letter that draws interested leads to respond and buy.
A targeted lead is the name and information for someone who is interested in your product as a possible customer or team member. With target marketing there are many different types of leads.


The cream of the crop leads are qualified and know why they are seeking you out. Qualified leads are the names of people who have raised their hand with an interest in your business or product.


They have either requested information when seeing your content article on an article directory web site, independently run ad agencies helping you advertise or other on line or off line means of advertising. They are interested in buying your product, enlisting in your cause,or joining you in business.
These leads are your diamonds in the rough because they have the most targeted qualification. These people are the highest probability leads to buy or sign up with you.


Some leads will drive you nuts with intensive indecisiveness and just want someone to rant to. Let these time wasters go real quick. You will learn to recognize them fast, I promise you.


It is okay if someone has a lot of questions. These leads are sincere and very interested and are not interested in wasting your time or theirs and are being careful how they spend their money.


Another important aspect about leads is they must be current. Old leads soon forget they responded to an ad and will get very angry with you. Old leads will be cheap. This is like taking a medicine that is cheap and may or may not be the right thing for you. Let it go.


Few things are worse than buying leads and finding out they are not current. Old leads have incorrect contact information that results in wasted time and money.
Leads are generated in different ways. Offline leads can come from telemarketing, talking to people and advertising. If you like pain and angry people giving you a peace of their mind all day, this is a way to get leads. Well, maybe not.


Online leads come from advertising, email capturing and writing free content articles for article directories and other web sites. There are other ways to get leads though these are some of the more popular at this time.
You can buy leads. Buying leads is very risky. Almost all of my experience with this has resulted in no hungry leads. They are a bad risk. Many sources are rip offs.


Frequently, bought leads are not current. Sales men and women will tell you anything to get you to buy. If you do not believe me now you will find this out with experience. One time I bought 40 million leads for forty dollars. Not one sale from this. Get the picture now?


Some other methods are better because they are current, qualified leads. Notice the word method from the previous sentence. Make the lead chase you is absolutely the best way to get them. Be so honest with leads that it hurts and you are afraid to lose the sale.


These other methods provide the best opportunity to get quality leads. They simply bring you leads that are qualified. People are responding to the honestly presented business, they know what it is and they are ready to either buy or sign up. They are almost friends.


The cheapest way to get good leads is to pass out business cards with your business clearly stated on them. This is slow and definitely works. Cheap quality source for business cards are available to you online.


Probably the highest targeted leads come from those brought to you by content article lead generation to earn residual income. You blow your horn in your niche article about the advantages of your product in an intensely truthful way, giving all the good and bad.


You can write articles yourself or have professionals write them for you. They are cheap and can be changed, if you wish, before submitting them. This method takes longer to get leads but they will chase you if you follow the rules.


Content articles stay on the internet virtually forever. So, you will have a permanent, quality free ad once the article is submitted to publishers.


These leads are the highly targeted keys to making a good income. Targeted leads are the fuel to earning a top residual income. Am I harping on this enough so you are starting to believe me?
Press releases are very good for generating leads but cost more. If you are serious about your business have a pro do it for you. Have them submit them also for best results.


Good leads, who know exactly what you are up to, generate sales and sign ups to make a residual income. They will generate valuable word of mouth advertising for you. No advertising is better than satisfied customers, none. Got it?
I do guarantee you that good or bad leads will make or break your business. Entrepreneur business, or cause, owners need to understand what a lead good is and where to get, not find, them. Let them find you for best results.


Successful business owners take the time to generate targeted leads, who chase them, to be sure they are good. The next step is to take the leads, give them honest information, and turn them into steady residual income.

Five Ways to Improve Your Lead Management

Source: http://www.marketingprofs.com/6/moreau1.asp
by Robert J. Moreau
November 14, 2006
Marketing departments perform many tasks throughout the year: hiring good talent, keeping quality employees, choosing the right communications strategy, improving ROI, and generating higher quality leads for Sales. With increasing competition and diminishing budgets, achieving these goals is becoming increasingly difficult.

Fortunately, there is a crucial step that marketing departments can take to have a positive impact on the outcome of their initiatives for the year: deploying an effective lead-management process.

I'm not a big fan of sports analogies, but I recently heard one that I think would help put this into context. Think of an NFL quarterback... say Dan Marino, who holds over 25 NFL passing records. Over his career, Dan completed 4,967 passes to over 30 different receivers. Many would say his success was due to his tremendous talent and work ethic, and that would be true. However, Dan's success was also largely dependant on his receivers' ability to be in the right place, at the right time, and catch those passes. Without such receivers, many of those 4,967 would have been incomplete.

A similar relationship exists between today's Marketing and Sales departments, with Marketing as the quarterback and Sales as the receiver.

However, according to a recent Gartner study, "up to 70% of sales leads are not properly leveraged or are completely ignored, thus wasting marketing program dollars."

Article continues below
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The marketing-to-sales process is often not closely examined prior to the development of a lead-generation program designed to drive meaningful results. In my professional experience, over half of all business-to-business organizations have a suboptimal or nonexistent lead-management process. Surprisingly, that is the case regardless of the size of an organization, whether it has $500,000 or $500 million in revenue.

How can you identify whether an effective lead-management process can improve your bottom line? Ask yourself these questions about your marketing and sales departments:

Is there a consensus from sales and marketing to what a "qualified" lead is?


Does Sales complain about (or neglect) the leads it receives?


Can you confirm that Sales has followed up with each lead it has received?


Is there a process in place for Sales to provide feedback to Marketing?


Can you differentiate between what type of leads close the fastest, and for the highest amount of revenue and profit?


What combination of touches provides the most effective leads for Sales?


Is there a mechanism for Sales to pass leads back to marketing for further nurturing, or do they simply get dropped?
Outlined below are five of the most common ways companies can improve their lead management.

No. 1: Communication, Communication, Communication

Though the sales and marketing departments' view of the world may be at odds with each other, you must create an environment where they can communicate—often, and in a non-adversarial way. Marketing can spend $10,000 or $100,000 generating leads, but at North American businesses on average up to 70% of that investment is completely wasted as a result of no follow-up by Sales.

No. 2: Consensus on a Process

There is little value to a Marketing-generated "hot lead" if Sales views it as a "cold unqualified lead" and declines to follow up. To optimize your lead-generation initiatives, Sales and Marketing must agree on the following:

The formal definition of a qualified lead
When and how leads will be transferred to Sales
How quickly Sales will engage qualified leads
What type of feedback Sales will provide marketing on leads
What type of metrics Marketing will give to Sales on efficacy of campaigns
No. 3: Know the Sales Process

In most effective sales organizations, the sales force adheres to a standard set of practices that pertains to sales stages, training, forecasting, quota, bonuses, activity levels and how they pursue and generate leads.

A considerable amount of time is spent training and developing these sale processes, yet Marketing rarely has a firm grasp on how or why salespeople perform their duties. Yet, without that knowledge, how can marketers possibly expect Sales to take them (or their leads) seriously?

Ask yourself, when is the last time a member of your marketing team was seen in the "sales pit" or on sales calls? If you can't remember... it's been too long.

No. 4: Develop and Implement a Lead Scoring System

Frequently, marketers classify leads as "A, B and C leads." Unfortunately, all Sales hears is "A and F leads." As a result, up to 70% of leads are ignored. And while this system of lead classification may work marginally on smaller ticket items with short sales cycles, what if your sales process is 6, 9 even 12 months or longer?

What happens if an "A lead" is transferred to Sales but is not ready to buy for 12-18 months? Does this lead automatically become an "F lead" and is callously discarded, even though the prospect will most likely buy in the future?

To help alleviate this challenge, develop a lead scoring system that takes into account (1) your average transaction size, (2) sales cycle length, (3) how your salespeople are measured and (4) how Sales treats delayed opportunities.

No. 5: Nurture Leads Not Ready for Sales

Below is a general template of an optimal lead-generation process; we refer to it as the RubiconWay. It incorporates the previously mentioned elements and a Lead Nurturing cycle. The nurturing of leads takes place both prior to and post sales force engagement.


Click to enlarge

Prior to sales force engagement, leads are engaged via multi-touch campaigns until their score is high enough to be handed over as qualified opportunities. If a qualified opportunity is not ready to immediately buy within a designated timeframe, the lead is handed back to Marketing to be further nurtured and measured against a lead scoring system that takes into account the purchase timeframe variables.

* * *

By implementing these key strategies, your marketing organization will be well on its way to optimizing lead generation, maximizing sales revenue, and improving marketing results.

Eric Edwards, President of Rubicon, contributed to this piece.

“Technology for Enterprising Telemarketers ”

by, Thomas Hannon, Managing Partner, RDI Inc.











I was sitting at a kitchen table in my underpants.

My one room apartment had no air conditioning and it was August in Chicago. I was afraid that my five-year-old computer (this was in 2000) was going to over heat and I’d loose all the info I’d gathered so I was saving like a madman to floppy disks.

That all sounds like the opening for a late night infomercial but it was how I started my business. The telephone I was using was a 1980’s electric blue princess model and my internet connection was at Kinko’s.

The point of this story is not to sell you on an MLM scheme but to emphasis the real need for technology. Today at our company we could not get by without wireless technology, relatively modern computers and a powerful internet connection. In the beginning, that was all unnecessary, and the small investment in those tools would have crippled me.

Here are some quick tips on saving money while investing in technology:

Stay behind the times: Do you really need the latest version of everything?

Buy at EBay: Get last years version for 25% or less than what this years version would cost. The product can be found brand new and often with a guarantee.

Educate yourself and your employees: Spend some money and time learning the basics. Share that knowledge with your employees. This could save tens of thousands in IT maintenance fees.

Find free applications: Check for free stuff, shareware on the internet, before spending hundreds of dollars for boxed solutions.

Keep a clear vision of directness: This is most important of all; is that purchase for practicality or vanity? What do you absolutely need to get the job done at a superior level?

The answer to the above question is one that you already know. It’s just a great point to never forget:

In the cold calling business, it’s great people, not great machines that make all the difference.

“Hiring Good Telemarketers”

by

Thomas Hannon
Managing Partner, RDI Inc.

There is a tried and true method to hiring good telemarketers: Take all comers that can read and talk. Give them a script and have them start dialing, ASAP. Evaluate them over a day or two.

If they’re good, great! Hopefully they are somewhat disciplined in their attendance. If they are not good then you must go through the financial and emotional pains of firing that person and starting over. There is a better way.

A good hiring manager must identify three main characteristics in a cold calling candidate; tenacity, professional demeanor and persuasiveness. Use this simple test to evaluate your candidate:

Have your candidate takes notes while you go through a short, four or five point presentation. Look at their notes. This is important. It is a view into the candidates thought process. Are they efficient? Are they logical? Review the notes with the candidate.

The next step is to role play that presentation with the candidate. Take it easy on them in the first round. Hit them hard in the second. See how creative they are. Do they conduct themselves professionally? Are their improvised points tangential to the information you supplied? Do they quit when challenged or move ahead fluidly, without browbeating? If your candidate makes you smile at this point, it is a good sign.

Sometimes it can be difficult to get good candidates to even answer and ad but do not let that deter you from following through on the last step; Request that the candidate come back for a second interview. This is a good way for you to evaluate their punctuality and desire for the position. It also provides an easy way for the candidate to opt out of the hiring process, which will save them and you precious time.

Try this simple, cost effective process and your new employees will appreciate working with a company that cares about quality.

If you need a good employment ad contact me and I’ll send you one that has worked for me for years. I’m at matilto:info@rdibizdev.com.

Happy hiring.

“A Professional Approach to Cold Calling”

By Thomas Hannon, Managing Partner, RDI, Inc.

My boss was screaming, “They’ve got your money! Are you gonna let them take your money? Grab them through the phone and ring their necks till they give you your money!”

The required response was any sort of scream or violent flailing. I left the office and never went back. Of the three days I had been selling marketing services to auto dealers, I was already on top of the board. But the work environment was miserable.

A cold calling environment on any level must be disciplined. But yelling and banging gongs and ringing bells and over the shoulder direction during calls fosters an attitude that is less than professional. And how can you attract professionals to work in that kind of environment?

There are three simple actions an outbound cold call manager can take to keep production high while building a professional team:

1. Provide each caller their own space. This means a relatively sizable space with significant room between callers. The sound quality will be much better (great for the prospects perception) and your caller will feel more comfortable.

2. Limit surveillance to numbers. This applies to established callers beyond a training period. On a day to day accounting of the callers production, let the numbers speak for themselves. Only interfere when the numbers take a drastic or sustained decline.

3. Provide call support on a non TO (turn over) basis. TO is when a caller has a good prospect on the line, puts them on hold and then a manager picks up to close or spike the call. Don’t do it! Have your initial caller establish a follow through based on commitment. Have the prospect commit to a second separate call, at a specific date and time, either with themselves or with the manager.

While these simple actions may seem counter intuitive, they work well over time. Follow these directions and you will decrease costly employment turnover. A team sense will then grow. Reinforce pride in your team by treating them as the professionals they are.

Good Luck.

Feel free to submit any questions to info@rdibizdev.com.

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