Thanks for dropping by!Posted by Maxine on October 7, 2008
Welcome to my telemarketing, marketing and general ramblings. It gives me something to do during tea breaks or whilst I am on hold! Feel free to comment and ask questions or Sign up to the Maxxy newsletter for telemarketing tips and news, or subscribe to the rss feed. I hope you can benefit from some of my tips and experiences.
Regards, Maxine
Why a Blog could be the death of your business!Posted by Maxine on August 14, 2010
I am sick to the back teeth of small business owners going on and on about blogs as if they are the holy grail of profitable income.
They are not!
They can enhance and develop a business. They can increase sales volume (referrals, SEO, and generally bringing in more new traffic and enquiries) They can defend price and enhance value. They can reduce churn. They can increase conversion. And probably a few more things that I haven’t mentioned.
But … A blog is not the only thing you need for a business.
A blog is not a foundation to build a business upon.
Uncle Wordpress and Auntie Blogspot did not come along and wave their magic wand and make all that tedious market research and financial planning go away!
Here is a reality check for small business owners thinking about or just starting on their blog journey.
… Do you know who will buy from you and at what price?
… Do you know what your costs are?
… Do you know how you will get those sales?
… Do you know how much it will cost you to acquire each sale?
… Do you know what your marketing messages are to different groups of people?
… Do you know what is perceived as special about your business?
… Do you know what your cashflow forecast looks like?
… Do you know what your personal income looks like and is it forecasted?
… Have you actually prepared even the most basic of basic business plans?
If the answer to these is No then Stop Right There! Don’t even think about blogging or you will get sucked into a world of waffle that will take you completely off your business path. Before you know it you will be faffing around with photos, plug ins, themes and categories and not be able to pay your business or personal bills.
Look at some of the successful people around you who do not have blogs – think about builders, solicitors, accountants, hair dressers who have respectable, stable, profitable businesses without having to blog as it’s not essential for them.
Also think about the time, effort and energy that goes into blogging. Ask yourself whether your goal should be to work yourself into your business more given your current workloads and other activities on your business plan or whether you should be working yourself out of your business more?
So this is a plea to small business owners to get the basics of their businesses in order before blogging. Otherwise it’s a distraction that will not enhance or develop anything. It could have a very detrimental consequence and your business could die!
Introducing the PMT tag!Posted by Maxine on August 13, 2010
From time to time, possibly around the same time of the month, I usually get a bit stroppy and animated about something so I thought I would be kind enough to share some of these views. I’m afraid I have to do this in my quest to eat less chocolate.
… oh, I can feel a rant coming on… must go… back soon!
Telemarketers Required, Full Time or Part TimePosted by Maxine on August 6, 2010
To work in an office base in Huntingdon with some occasional home working or on site work for clients in the Huntingdonshire area.
Flexible hours and variable income by type of campaign being worked on.
Awareness of accounting, finance, and IT jargon and terminology an advantage.
Training can be provided but must be highly results motivated and client focused.
This role has the potential to develop into a Regional Manager role.
Please contact us if you would like more information.
Huntingdonshire Business NetworkPosted by Maxine on July 30, 2010
Maxxy has undertaken to support HBN with marketing assistance and I am pleased about this as it is a good opportunity to support local businesses in Huntingdon and Huntingdonshire in a friendly and relaxed way.
HBN is a non for profit organisation which means you will not get sold to for this, that and the other, neither will you be asked for referrals. It’s purely for practical support and collaboration with like minded business people in Huntingdonshire.
The group meets weekly every Friday afternoon from 1-2 currently at the Commemoration Hall in the High Street, Huntingdon but moving to The Indoor Bowls Club on St Peters Road from 3rd Sept 2010
The reason for the move was to provide better facilities (such as disabled access and free car parking whilst still maintaining easy access to Huntingdon Town Centre and from the main access roads). The move will also help to cater for larger groups of people attending the monthly seminars which are becoming more and more popular.
If you wish to contact HBN you can either call 01480 718082 or email me at marketing@hbn.org.uk or visit the main hbn website at www.hbn.org.uk
Make light work of Receipts with ReceiptAngelPosted by Maxine on July 26, 2010
I thought I would share this small but powerful gadget with you from Receipt Angel.
The benefits of using this are huge and you can find out more on their site at http://www.receiptangel.co.uk
It would seem to me to be a much better idea than sticking primary documents in the post to your accountant or bookkeeper for contingency purposes as well as efficiency.
You can use this for Business Cards too, to import into your CRM systems…and..and..It has a whole follow up process for following up with contacts from networking and events!
Groovy eh?
Just thought I would share and hope you like it 
There’s a presentation on their site that shows some screen shots and explains it much better than me.
PS – I am not affiliated with ReceiptAngel, I just like it!
Cold Calling tips for contacting Large CorporatesPosted by Maxine on
Cold calling large corporates is a whole different ball game to telemarketing for other smaller sized businesses. Expect to experience the following differences:
What can you do to improve your chances of calling the Big Guy
Good luck
Telemarketing Apprentice Schemes or Lack Of!Posted by Maxine on July 24, 2010
I have been stewing on this for a while now as there are currently no options to recruit Apprentices for Telemarketing in my region. This is because there are no appropriate courses and according to my local college it is “a protected industry”.
Like, Just what does that mean? “Protected Industry” ?
Do businesses not need to sell then?
Do they not need to get feedback on their products or services from their customers?
Do they not need to make money?
Should they ride out the recession without picking up the phone to get more orders or just rely on direct mail, spam emails, internet marketing, and advertising?
An apprentice could undertake a college course in Marketing, or Customer Service, or Business Administration, even Astronomy but not actual Telemarketing.
OK, so perhaps there are people out there who believe it is not a proper job but this is an opportunity to learn so much about business from being “at the sharp end”. What I mean by that is that all the business administration in the world doesn’t prepare someone for actually asking for the sale whether face to face, by phone, or by email. I have come across so many highly educated and well prepared business people who have done everything by the business plan and invested lots of money in their business set up only to come to a grinding halt when it comes to actually getting the sales in. In most of these cases it is because they lack the skills and therefore lack the confidence.
I have just been browsing through apprentice courses that are available and what hits me is that out of 80 odd pages of courses at different locations there were only two that related to sales. There is one (just one!) about 35 miles away that includes telesales through a private training centre rather than a college.
It begs the question if we are shy of sales in our business administration courses?
The structure of many medium sized organisation will have functional responsibility for areas such as Finance, HR, IT, Sales and Marketing, Operations and Customer Service.
There is a huge range of other courses from Gaming, Astronomy, Dance, Life Skills etc and yet it seems odd to me that there is next to zero available relating to Sales.
I would be really interested to hear peoples views on this as I would dearly love to be able to employ people with training and development in mind.
Is twitter helping to fill the TPS gap?Posted by Maxine on July 8, 2010
Many of us know about the TPS (Telephone Preference Service) and up until fairly recently if a phone number was registered then that was that… no other option but to consider other marketing routes.
But twitter can be great for filling the TPS gap.
Typically any data list usually has around 30% registered on the TPS.
Yes, some companies totally ignore this rule but the professional telemarketers respect this. After all, why waste time cold calling someone that doesn’t want to be cold called as regardless of the offer/pitch/opportunity chances are there will be some negativity towards actually being called.
So, lots of social media can help to fill the TPS gap but twitter in particular can be a bit faster for turnaround times and because it is so social people tend to respond well where they feel they “know” a bit about you via tweets.
I don’t advocate spamming people either via phone, email or social media. I could convince myself that I am not doing that on the basis of feedback that I usually get along the lines of “Oh we are on TPS but we don’t mind people like you calling” … but unfortunately we are not to know that!
Anyway, back to the point. Twitter can help to find people who may genuinely have an interest in the products or services being promoted. 140 characters or less doesn’t present much risk to people and gentle approaches are usually absolutely fine!
30% of a list can be a big chunk of wasted opportunity… are you wasting it?
It’s all in the tone!Posted by Maxine on July 3, 2010
I have been reminded this week that successful telemarketing results vary so much by tone of voice, especially in the initial call opening. I’m sure we have all heard the saying “It’s not what you said but how you said it!”
There’s a statistic somewhere that shows that around 35-40% of what is said is perceived based on tone of voice, inflection, and speed.. ie; how it is said not what it is said. I cannot find the article to support that claim so I’m afraid it’s just one of those stats that has stayed in my head. I also remember reading somewhere that tone, inflection and speed of voice are all things that stimulate the right side of the brain (the emotional bit) rather than the left side of the brain (the fact, logic and content bit) so in this regard, the tone of voice is important to convey the feelings and emotions associated with the call rather than just concentrate on the content. Of course both are needed… something interesting by way of content but no matter how appealing and beneficial the content will be it will be lost if the tone of voice makes the recipient switch off emotionally to what is being said because of the way in which it is being communicated by tone of voice.
Different telemarketers can all say exactly the same thing but the tone of voice will often be the deciding factor between a successful call and a non-successful one!
My tips:
The “Smile as you Dial” school of thought…
I know this sounds a bit 80’s but it’s so true that being in the right frame of mind for a telemarketing call, really influences the chances of success. When people talk on the phone they imagine what the other looks like. If you have a “smiley voice” it’s much more likely that people will engage in conversation with you.
It’s not possible for every person to adopt the same tone of voice as it’s part of our personality and make up as individuals. However, we can learn to experiment with using different tones in a conscious way.
A good exercise is to have a phrase written down on a piece of paper then use a recording device to record your voice saying this phrase in a number of different ways experimenting with tone. Record a selection and then play them back to yourself and see how you sound. Try this with a big smile on your face and see how different you sound. Try again sitting up straight and being confident. Then put your favorite one into practise… and see what happens.
(Then come back to this blog and post your comments )
Good luck
Pay-per-lead Telemarketing can be just the ticket!Posted by Maxine on June 28, 2010
Pay per lead telemarketing can work very well in some circumstances especially where clients want to pay on results only but don’t want to pay out as much as they would do on "commission only" (by this we mean actually processing the order and payment and getting paid once the end client pays).
The main risk with pay-per-lead is that the prices are higher than for set rate telemarketing usually yet no guarantees that the lead will result in extra paid revenue. The quality of the lead is then questionned.
To mitigate the risks of poor quality leads, qualification criteria should be agreed (that is what specifically makes a lead a well qualified lead) and then the telemarketing resource and the client can work to the same standard.
When considering the cost of what you are prepared to pay for each lead, also consider conversion rates of how many leads that are quoted for actually are taken up by the end client. If you don’t already know this then some quick analysis going over previous quotes to assess how many were taken up should be a good indication. This is all part and parcel of calculating the overall ‘cost-to-acquire’.
Once you have your price that you are prepared to pay then you can consult with a telemarketing agency. Some like us, will require a short trial at a fixed rate beforehand. (Ours is very low from just 7 hours!). This trial is usually the only reliable way to determine the price per lead that the telemarketing agency is prepared to work for. (We have to do this as all of our staff are payroll and it’s one of our conditions to ensure that people are not working at a rate equivalent to below the national minimum wage).
Pay-per-lead campaigns are sometimes looked down upon in the telemarketing industry as the sort of work that people take on when they are desperate ie; just starting out or not very good! It’s perceived sometimes that people who do this are unable to win hourly-rate work! We look at this differently and take the view that if people are confident with what they do for a living then there is a higher profit margin to be had and this can sometimes be a good match commercially between client and telemarketing agency. On the odd occassion there are comments made that client’s will start a telemarketing agency off with paying per lead but then later ‘reward’ them by moving to an hourly rate pay rate. This is upside down as far as we are concerned. If we have proved ourselves with pay per lead why on earth would we want to reduce our prices as a "reward"!
Pay-per-lead telemarketing usually is attractive to clients that are not particularly interested in sales pipeline for ongoing marketing and sales purposes and who just want to have instant leads and appointments. It is usually attractive from a cashflow perspective too and client’s don’t mind paying more if it makes a campaign self-financing in the medium term.
Bear in mind that pay-per-lead can often be used as "filler" work in between other fixed campaigns so there are little guarantees sometimes as to when the hours will be worked or how much time will be devoted to pay-per-lead campaigns so results can possibly be a bit more unpredictable than with a fixed rate campaign.
Feedback of calling lists is also something that is not usually provided as if the telemarketing agency is sourcing their own data and working at their own risk, there is value to be had in this pipeline that can possibly be sold elsewhere.
I hope this article has given some thoughts into pay-per-lead telemarketing and welcome comments.
