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SECRETS OF TELEMARKETING SUCCESS

Howard Tinker interviews Jenny Cartwright – Australia’s Telemarketing Guru

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The following information is based on 16 years of research work and telephone selling experience by Jenny Cartwright, Australia’s award winning telemarketer and trainer. That means the ideas have been proven and tested before sharing them with you. You simply choose the ideas that are relevant to your product or service. Following a successful career in face to face selling as Sales and Marketing Manager of Telford Hotels for 5 years and International Sales Manager for Centralian Hotels for 3 years, Jenny changed direction to telephone selling. From 1991 – 1997, through direct mail and telemarketing campaigns, Jenny successfully promoted Tom Hopkins and Anthony Robbins on four of their visits to Australia and also Zig Ziglar, Sales Congress 91,92,93,94,95,96 and 97, James Rohn, Denis Waitley, Harvey Mackay, Michael Gerber and Jay Abraham. Since 1995 Jenny has been conducting in-house customised sales, telesales and customer service training for companies and individuals around Australia. Examples of some companies she has trained are Australian Casualty and Life, Macquarie Corporate Telecommunications, People Telecom, Tourism Tasmania, Prudential Corporation, Phillips Components, The Real Estate Institute, The Valuer General’s Department, APS Chemicals, MSA, National Investment Institute, Hexal Pharmaceuticals, ID Warehouse, Delaney Kelly Golding, Acorn Australia, APS Chemicals, R.M. Smith &Son, Phytomedecine, Chandler Macleod, Australian Associated Press and ING Life. Jenny was selected to conduct the outbound telemarketing public seminars for the Australian Teleservices Association this year. Jenny has been an active member of Business SWAP (Salespeople with a Purpose) for 18 years, a member of the International Coaching Federation of Australia, Australian Teleservices Association and Chatswood Chamber of Commerce. She was awarded "National Salesperson of the Year" by the Business SWAP organisation in 1993, “National Business SWAP of the Year” in 1996 and 2004 and “Telemarketer of the Year” in 1995.

Secrets of Telemarketing Success © 2006 SALES AND TELESALES SOLUTIONS

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THE SECRETS OF TELEMARKETING SUCCESS

Howard Tinker from Life Tools Australia interviews Australia’s Telemarketing Guru – Jenny Cartwright

Sales and Telesales Solutions

Howard: I’m sitting with Jenny Cartwright who is the leading

telesales, telemarketing trainer in Australia. I heard about Jenny four years ago and finally, I got around to talking to her. Basically, this was because I wanted to give you the opportunity to listen to somebody who really knows how to “sell” and to do it in such a way that people come back, time and time again, to buy more things from her. To put you in the picture, Jenny has promoted (via telemarketing) international speakers such as Tom Hopkins, Anthony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Jim Rohn, Harvey Mackay, Michael Gerber, Jay Abraham and Dr. Deepak Chopra. She has trained telesales in-house for companies like Macquarie Corporate Telecommunications, The Real Estate Institute, Hexal Pharmaceuticals, Phillips Components, Australian Casualty and Life and Chandler Macleod. Hopefully, I’m going to learn a lot today myself and pick up some great tips for you all. So Jenny, how about you introduce yourself, and tell me about how you began working in this interesting industry.

Secrets of Telemarketing Success

© 2006 SALES AND TELESALES SOLUTIONS

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Jenny: Thanks, Howard. I began my career in sales approximately 30 years ago. My first sales position was Sales Manager and then I worked as a National Marketing Manager for the Telford Hotel Chain. From there, I moved on to being the International Marketing Manager of Centralian Holidays. At that point, my life kind of stopped as far as my Sales career was concerned, because I got married and had children. I shouldn’t say that my life stopped, but explain that I had to consider the future and what sort of business I would like to be in. I saw an advertisement in the paper to promote a well-known Sales Trainer from America called Tom Hopkins. He was coming over here to do a performance at the Darling Harbour Convention Centre and there was an opportunity to promote Tom via telemarketing. Well, I had previously done a lot of appointment making for face to face sales in the past, so I thought I’d be able to handle this telemarketing job. I attended the interview for the job and I was told this position was a commission based only job and no salary would be forthcoming, so I’d have to find my own leads. They asked me if I’d ever done telemarketing before. I said “no”, but I was willing to give it a go. I found that within the first three months, I’d made more money than I’d ever made in my life on a “commission only” basis. I also found that other people in the office where I was working at that time, were not doing very well in the selling department. I started to look at what they were doing and what I was doing and I became interested in the whole concept of telemarketing.


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After telemarketing Tom Hopkins, an opportunity arose to handle the telemarketing for the first Anthony Robbins Personal Development Seminar to be held in Australia. I was very interested in that area of work too and very passionate about how it could help other people. At that time, nobody had heard of Anthony Robbins.

Howard: This must have been a while ago?

Jenny: Yes, it would have been 15 years ago, because it was just after I gave birth to my first child. I started to promote Anthony Robbins and I was doing really well. The company that employed me said they wanted me to work five days a week, and not just the two days that I was currently working. This arrangement did not suit me so it was suggested that I start my own company and work from home as an offshoot to their company. That’s how my company, Jenny Cartwright Promotions began and how I built my business around telemarketing. I studied what made people successful in this business by looking at what “I” did and my approach and compared that to what other people were doing. After attending an Anthony Robbins course myself, I discovered that what I really wanted to do was to teach telesales & telemarketing. Immediately following the course, I started to develop the first telemarketing course in Australia and consulted with TAFE to develop their telemarketing courses. What happened then was that I had to promote myself and


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my own training seminars all over again, as well as promoting other people’s seminars.

Howard: So where do you begin to telemarket and establish

clients? The question for a lot of members at my coaching groups is: where do I begin? I’ve got a product or maybe no products, but an idea. How do I get customers when starting out?

Jenny: Well, when I was starting out, I started with no client

database either and so I established my own. I opened the Yellow Pages and thought about who would want to attend Sales Seminars. I thought of Sales Managers and/or their teams. I didn’t just sell one ticket to attend my training sessions, I sold maybe 10 tickets to the whole team. I rang companies who I thought might have a Sales Team. I would then ask to speak to the Sales Manager. Sometimes, my call wouldn’t get transferred through because there were some very good “gate-keepers” but that didn’t deter me. I would ring to find out the name of the Sales Manager and ask to be transferred through. If they said “no”, then I would ring back the next day and say with authority “I would like to speak to Mr. ______please.” Usually, they would then re-direct the call.

Howard: So, this is your trick for getting around the “gate–

keepers” is it, to speak with authority?

Jenny: Yes, and I’ve got another idea – a better one.


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Howard: Go on, please tell us what it is. Jenny: If you can’t get through the first time, then ask for

the Sales Department. Salespeople aren’t usually trained to be good “gate-keepers.” You would ask the Sales Department for who you want to speak to and they will then tell you that you have the wrong department and then proceed to transfer you to the person you initially asked for. If this technique fails, you can always ask for the Accounts Department, because usually they are even less effective at “gate-keeping”. They would tell you that you’ve got the wrong number and transfer your call.

Howard: That’s wonderful. That secret is worth thousands of

dollars already.

Jenny: Another thing I did differently than everyone else was that I considered everybody that I called had a value to me. If they said “no, not interested”, or “no,” that to me meant “no, not now,” but I never thought, “not forever after.” I would maintain a record on every single person that I called. I did notice that other telemarketers would throw out the client’s card that stated their address and contact details, if the client said “no” on the first call. By losing the clients details this meant that there was never a follow up call. I treasured every single client card that I had recorded and diligently filed the card so that the customer could be called again for the next seminar I had to promote. The reason for doing this is that the customer may not have been in the


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right frame of mind on the day you called and had you called at another time they may be in a better mindset. There’s a little phrase you can always use in sales, which is, “You may not be interested now, but so that you will be well informed in the future, I’d like to call by to give you some information on what I do.” It takes the sting out of the “hard sell”. I portray the attitude that I’m always there to help them; I’m never there to sell them. Well, maybe I am there to sell them, but I always come across as if I am there to help them. My philosophy is that, if you help enough people to achieve what they want, the sales will automatically come to pass.

Howard: That’s a wonderful philosophy, isn’t it?

Jenny: Yes, I have a mission in life which is to help others to get what they want. That is written on my business card, my letterhead and all of my promotional material. With telesales it’s not a “hard sell” if you are there to help them buy, and not just sell them.

It’s a good idea to start a telemarketing conversation with a great offer. I am amazed at how many telemarketers call me and start their conversation with a closed question, which is a question that can receive a “yes” or “no” answer.

Howard: What’s an example of that Jenny?

Jenny: For example, a real estate agent will ring you and say, “I’m Joe Bloggs from XYZ Real Estate, how are


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you today?” Your thoughts may then be, “Ok this is a telemarketing call.” Next they’ll say, “We’ve got a lot of buyers in the area, but we’ve got nothing to sell. Would you be thinking of selling your home in the near future?” This real estate agent is really doing some prospecting but he’s asking me a closed question which only gets a “yes” or “no” answer and he has offered me nothing. Most times the answer is going to be, “No, I’m not thinking of selling,” and the telemarketer says “Ok, bye.” What if the real estate agent were to mail-out his promotional leaflet to create familiarity of his name and the business name, and was to follow up the mail-out 3 days later and offer something of value before asking the dreaded question, “Are you thinking of selling?” They could ring and say, “I’m Joe Bloggs from XYZ Real Estate. You have probably seen our leaflet in the mail recently. We have several ways we can help you which might interest you. I don’t expect you’re thinking of selling your house are you?” They most likely will say “No” and you will say “That’s fine but we would like to forward you a list of houses that have sold in your area recently so you are aware of what your house is really worth at any given time. This information would be valuable to you, would you agree?” You offer them “something”, and they’ll most likely be willing to return the favour and possibly offer further information. Even if they’re not thinking of selling, the Telemarketer would have earned the right to ask them if they know of anybody else that could be thinking of selling.

Secrets of Telemarketing Success


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Howard: So, what you’re actually saying is that you make yourself an invited guest, rather than an unwanted pest.

Jenny: Yes, that’s right.

Howard: That’s a brilliant idea, what a great way of giving before expecting to receive. Are you suggesting then, that people should do a 2 step campaign really? They do a mail-out and then follow up with a call, would that be right?

Jenny: I always found the best way to do telemarketing was

to ring people up first and introduce them to what you have to offer. Then, you would get permission to send information out. The key here is to tell them you’re going to ring them at a later date to follow up on the information you forwarded so you ask them how long they would need to look at the information and when would be the best time to call back after they had had time to read it.

Howard: I guess at that point, Jenny, you’re actually talking

about quite a targeted list, are you?

Jenny: It depends on what you’re selling. It’s always good to be able to have a targeted list. If you think about which clients are your major clientele, and then target those particular clients, that is a good strategy. But the way that telemarketing works is to ring first, send out the information, tell them that you’re going to ring them again to follow up after


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they read the material that you have forwarded them and so then they expect your call. When you ring back, you do not say, “Did you get the information?” because that’s a closed question which gets a ”yes” or “no” answer. You would ring them and tell them that you’d like to review the information with them. That way, they’re expecting your call, they know that you are going to call back and they know they’ve got to have read the information by a certain time, because you’ve given them that time frame. Most telemarketers say, “I haven’t got time to do that. Why don’t I just send the information and do the follow up?” Well you can do that, but it isn’t as effective. If you go the extra mile and you do the introduction call first and discuss what you have to offer, you then send out the information and then you follow it up. In my experience, I’ve got a 1% response from a mail out and if I’m doing a telemarketing campaign to follow up the mail out, I can turn that into a 20% response easily.

Howard: So, once again for a small business, or one and two

person managed businesses, they should not think of sending out 10,000 mail pieces because it would be hard for them to follow up with phone calls to all those people.

Jenny: Absolutely not! My philosophy is, if you’re going to

do a mail-out, don’t mail out more than you can follow up on the phone. A mail-out is very expensive compared to telemarketing but it does create awareness of your business. If we go back to the


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real estate example, putting a leaflet in the mailbox creates awareness of that agency, but do you really remember it? Perhaps, it’s just a very vague memory. A few years ago, when I was telemarketing the seminars, I would do a large mail-out and then follow up as many people as I could. Nowadays, I find the mail-outs don’t work as effectively, you get about 0.5% response. If you can afford to do the mail-outs, then it does create awareness but telemarketing is more personal, one-to-one and you can turn your response up to between 10% and 20%.

Howard: That sounds like relationship building to me.

Jenny: Definitely, and you can keep in touch with the people even if they say “no” the first time. When I was telemarketing seminars, I used to ring people at least five times. I would go back to the ones who said “no” the first time and go back to them a week later and say, “You know Mr. ______, I’m sorry to ring you again, but I really am very concerned that you are not going to attend this seminar. Many people in your industry are going to be there, such as ______ (give examples). And would you like the competition to become better than you? Think of the networking opportunities that are there, why not come to this seminar?” The fact that I tried again and the person might have been in a different frame of mind the next time I called, was very powerful. They’d say, “You’re amazing, you dared to ring back after I adamantly said no.” I’d say, “Well yes, I


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believe that’s my job, to make sure you do not miss out on opportunities.” I would honestly think that way too.

Howard: So once again, it’s coming from a position of wanting

to help someone get to where they want to be?

Jenny: I don’t believe in selling things to people if it’s not appropriate for them because if they’re not happy, they’re going to talk about you and tell a lot of other people how unhappy they are. I’d rather them say how happy they are, rather than how unhappy they are.

Howard: I think as well, particularly in my business, I offer a

30 day money back guarantee, so if I managed to twist somebody’s arm to take a product, then the product’s going to come back anyway, and probably in a condition that I can’t resell, so I’ve just wasted money. I’d much rather a long term customer who’s going to have repeat sales, than just a one off customer anyway. So, yes, it’s an important part of selling, thinking about building that relationship. And I have noticed that you’re not using “telesales” as a word as much, and instead you are using “telemarketing.”

Jenny: Well, a definition of “telemarketing” is a direct mail

piece. You’re talking direct. “Telesales” is actually persuading someone to buy over the phone. You are more like a consultant. So, if you want to get information from people, you can employ


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telemarketers to find out who the Product Manager is or whoever you want to talk to in a company. If your time is valuable, you don’t want to be spending your time, if you’re the creative one in the company, doing telemarketing. You need to employ someone else to do that. Now you can employ someone for $15 an hour to collect information for you. They can get people’s names, email addresses, fax numbers and any other information you need. If you are promoting training, for example, you could get the telemarketer to find out how many sales people they employ in the organisation. One person can do that without selling. They can be information gatherers only for the telesales person who actually does the consultative selling and that’s a very quick way to build a database from nothing. If you don’t have any clients on a database, you can build one very quickly using this technique. I built my database over 4 years from nothing to 3,000 customers. It is possible to do this by calling telephone numbers listed in the phone book. You can buy lists from companies like the List Bank or RP Data but they tend to be quite expensive and, in my experience, they haven’t been as up-to-date as they should be and sometimes contain a lot of errors.

Howard: So if you were going to recruit somebody to do the

telemarketing for you, what qualities would those people need to have?

Jenny: Well, initially I would advertise in your local area. I

think it’s important when you employ Telemarketers, Secrets of Telemarketing Success


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to compel them to work from your own office and not from their own home because you need to monitor they’re output. Especially, if they’re working on a commission basis, they tend to get into doing their own thing, rather than doing what they’re supposed to be doing if they’re not on site. If you advertise in your local area and in your local newspaper, you should get quite a number of applicants. Alternatively, you can advertise in the main paper in your city, for example, the Sydney Morning Herald in Sydney. In this instance, the applicants may not be local people that apply and you are likely to get all sorts of people applying. I recommend that you interview the person on the phone, because if they can’t sell themselves, then they really aren’t going to be able to sell your product or service either. You can hear on the telephone immediately if they are suitable for the job. The main qualities that you should be looking for in a telemarketer are a positive attitude and enthusiasm. Nothing sells without enthusiasm, and if they are not enthusiastic they are not going to be able to sell. In telemarketing, it’s not the words that they necessarily use, it’s how they say those words that generates the excitement in the customer to buy. The tonality is very important, so if you hear that somebody is not very clear on the phone, for example, they are talking in a very foreign accent which is not understandable, I wouldn’t bother to take the time to interview them. You can whittle the interviews down to about the last three just on the phone and then interview them face to face.


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Telemarketers have to be very self motivated and friendly. If they sound down in the dumps and boring, they’re not going to sell anything. So, it’s important to look for the qualities of enthusiasm, a positive attitude, empathy, friendliness and, of course, they’ve got to be knowledgeable as well. They also have to be able to talk about their product or service if they’re asked questions, so they need to be able to talk coherently and knowledgeably. When you advertise for telemarketers, make your ads creative. For example, “We are looking for positive, happy people who love to talk to others on the phone.” It is important to make a distinction between whether you want a telemarketer who is an information gatherer and a talking direct mail piece or if you want somebody that’s going to sell for you on the phone. Remember, there is a big difference between telemarketing and telesales.

Howard: You mentioned that to employ people for gathering

information, you would pay $15 an hour. What about if they were selling and you worked for commission only? I know when I spoke to Mike Graham who’s a very highly paid sales person, he insists on being paid commission only. So, what’s the best way to structure payment or incentives to the selling type of telemarketing?

Jenny: Well, if you can get people to work for commission

only, that is obviously the very best option. You would know how much you can spare from your product or service to give as a commission.


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Normally, I find they’re looking for between 20% and 30% commission, but that’s only if they go through the entire sales process from beginning to end. You might be just asking for a telemarketer to make appointments and they want to be on commission for the appointment. In that case, you could offer anything between $20 and $50 per appointment, without a set salary. Depending on your product or service, they can usually make three or four appointments an hour and, sometimes, if it’s for a very expensive product, you might only get one appointment an hour.

Howard: How many calls would a reasonable telemarketer

achieve in order to get one, two or three appointments in an hour?

Jenny: Well, if they are doing fairly quick calls, they are able

to achieve 15 calls an hour.

Howard: Right, and that’s 15 calls where they’re actually speaking to a person, rather than an answering machine?

Jenny: Yes, I should have said 15 contacts an hour. You can

do more calls than that but nowadays, 40% of contacts are going to be out.

Howard: Do you leave a message when you ring?

Jenny: I’m glad you asked that. Definitely leave a message, because it’s like leaving a leaflet in your mailbox. If


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you’re taking the trouble and the expense to call, why not advertise on the voicemail message. The voicemail message you leave should be your major benefit to the customer. For example, “Good morning Mr. Jones, my name is Jenny Cartwright. I’m calling to tell you how I could dramatically improve the performance of your telemarketers. Sorry to have missed you, I’ll call again tomorrow.” This is an impact statement – I call it an “interest- grabbing” statement. I would not expect them to return my call, because I’m doing the sale. So, I would then ring again the next morning and they’d be expecting my call. However, if they were out again, I would not leave another voicemail message, because that annoys people. I would keep trying until I got to speak to that person. You never waste a call. If the person is out, you could be getting more information from the receptionist or you could be leaving your advertisement on the voicemail.

Howard: When I employed telemarketers to work for me, I

initially wanted them to work around 3-4 hours and that’s all I wanted them to work each day that they were employed. Sometimes, they wanted to work a whole day so they’d have a long lunch break and then start again in the afternoon. I had no experience, at that stage, of what was right or wrong. From results taken, we learnt that some days were better to work than other days and we didn’t know if that was the telemarketers themselves or whether it was that people actually responded better to telemarketing calls on particular days.


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Some days that we thought would be bad, turned out to be good days, and some days that we thought would be good, turned out to be bad days. Without giving too many of your secrets away what’s a good amount of time for somebody to sit working on the phone?

Jenny: I recommend 2 hour stretches at a time. I also

recommend that you should stand up every five calls because you’ve got to retain the energy, the passion and enthusiasm in your voice. If you work for a five or six hour length of time, your energy level will go down and the client will not buy. You need to keep that energy level up all the time. It’s a bit like a snowball rolling down a mountain, it builds momentum the longer it rolls. If you do telemarketing in a two-hour stretch, you can keep up that momentum as you can have a rest every two hours and then go back to work. If you employed a part time telemarketer, they could do two hours, have an hour in between to do their paperwork and follow up calls and then do another two hours, so a five hour day would ensure you got the maximum out of their time.

Howard: We used to split our telemarketing calls between prospecting and follow up calls to give us variety.

Jenny: That is an excellent idea. It is very important to do

the follow up calls, isn’t it? I know a lot of people who do prospecting and never seem to get around to


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doing the follow ups. In most cases, it is the follow up that will result in a sale. That’s why some telemarketers aren’t as successful, they’re too frightened to follow up in case they get rejected. So, it is most important to have a mix of prospecting and following up to be successful.

Howard: I’m getting some great ideas about what we can do

as telemarketers. I want to run a seminar late this year. We’ve got 300 people who have been involved in the inner circle and I was thinking about how I can make sure they come along to the seminar. They’ve all trialled the product, and they’ve all enjoyed it. I’m going to ring these people, tell them a little bit about the seminar, send out a brochure, do a follow up and see what happens.

Jenny: Ok, but that’s not all. There’s a lot more to it than

that.

Howard: Oh, great.

Jenny: There’s much more than that, because where some telemarketers fall down is that they have limited ability to build rapport. They blurt out what they’ve got to offer and ask immediately if the prospect would like some information or if they would like to buy? They don’t ask the prospect any questions about themselves. For example, a telemarketer from a hotel in the city rang me recently and she said, “Good morning, Ms. Cartwright, I’m from XYZ Gourmet Dining Club, at the moment, we have an


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offer that enables you to come and dine with a client for free once a week if you join our Gourmet Dining Club, would you like to join?” I was thinking, this lady has given me no reason to join the Gourmet Dining Club as she hasn’t asked me any questions about myself to find out my interests and if I could be a prospective customer. She could have asked, how often I dined out with clients, what kind of food I like to eat, how often I entertain? All of those questions would have given her more information on how to sell what she had to offer. However, she asked me nothing and therefore she didn’t secure the sale. She was probably doing that all day. So, one of the big things I do in my training courses to get people to a level where they really perform on the phone, is to teach them the questions to ask that get the best response. The customer should never, in that initial building rapport stage, say “no”, because you’ve asked them to talk about their needs by asking questions that cannot get a “yes” or “no” answer. The questions could be about what’s going well for them at the moment or what’s not going so well or, what’s most important to them right now or what is their biggest challenge at the moment. The type of questions that are asked in the rapport building stage are called open-ended questions. These questions find out what the customer really wants and begin with “What, Why, Where, How, Who, Which, When.” They open the prospect up and they tell you what is really going on in their life. Then and, only then, can you know how to fit your product or service to suit their needs.


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However, before the questions, we have to develop

what we call an “interest–grabbing” statement; one that expresses a major benefit for the customer.

Howard: So, is that like the answering machine statement

that you said earlier?

Jenny: Yes.

Howard: And it’s the equivalent, I suppose, of a headline on a sales letter or a newspaper that will grab the reader’s attention.

Jenny: Yes, it’s what your product or service is going to do

for the customer. It has to be a global benefit that will suit everybody because, at this stage, you might not know anything about them. It must be “interest- grabbing” and then you can ask the questions and develop a script. I don’t believe that you should read this script word for word over the phone, but use the script to impact and clarify what you have to offer.

Howard: Now, without giving away too many of your trade

secrets, would you be able to tell us another “interest–grabbing” statement?

Jenny: Ok, I do scripts for people all the time but I’ll use the

example that I did for Demand Management Systems. This one says, “Good morning Mr. Jones, my name is Donald from Demand Management


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Systems (here comes the “interest–grabbing” statement). “We assist organisations like yours to forecast their inventory demand and supply more accurately. This results in a more competitive market and helps your business save money.” Basically, the “interest-grabbing” statement should be a major benefit that you can provide to the customer.

Howard: So, I presume Demand Management Systems would

be calling a targeted list of people who hold inventory. Would that be correct?

Jenny: Yes.

Howard: And then the “interest–grabbing” statement has a

value for the people that may answer the phone.

Jenny: You might have an “interest–grabbing” statement that states that you help people to save more money. It may be that you help them to be more successful, create more sales or increase leisure time. You have to tell the customer what product or service you provide that is of major benefit to them in one sentence. Remember, no longer than one sentence. Then continue to ask questions.

Howard: This sounds a little bit like NLP (a science called Neuro-Linguistic Programming). I remember Anthony Robbins used to say, there are only two


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things that motivate people and they are: going towards pleasure or moving away from pain.

Jenny: That’s right.

Howard: And Anthony does that very well, both of those

things and he also talked about tonality. He’s an amazing guy for using his enthusiasm in his voice the way he does. He really gets people motivated. He knows how to do that well.

Jenny: That’s right, in my training course, I show you 5

ways to create that same energy in your voice, so that it comes across on the telephone. That’s what makes people buy; the energy and enthusiasm in your voice. You also have to bear in mind how the other person’s tonality is too, because if you’re too out of synch (not synchronised) with them, then you’re not going to be in rapport. You also have to think about the words that people are using. You need to listen for whether the words they use are auditory, visual or kinaesthetic and talk to them using their preferred style. After you’ve asked your questions, you’ll know what style they prefer because they will have been doing most of the talking. This is another technique to think about when telemarketing. There’s one more major technique to be looked at to be a success at telemarketing. You have to be able to have an immediate response for every objection. I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard many telemarketers say, “Oh, okay bye,” and hang up the phone. That’s


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because they got that same objection yet again, but they’ve never worked out a solution to overcome the objection.

Howard: So, mostly the objections that we are likely to hear

are money, time, relevance, whether or not somebody can do the job and whatever it is that we’re selling. These objections would apply in most instances. Beyond that, there aren’t too many other objections that most of us would raise. We could probably narrow it down to three or four objections that we regularly hear, so if we create a ready answer in reply to them, we would not lose a sale because we were prepared with a solution to their objection.

Jenny: That’s right. I can teach you a number of techniques

on how to overcome these objections on the phone.

Howard: When you do this Jenny, is it a one day or a two day course because it sounds like there’s a lot that you teach people? If you had a company who has 4 or 5 telemarketers, would you complete the course in a day?

Jenny: The usual time frame for a course is 1 day however,

it depends on the company’s budget. Most companies like to do a one-day seminar with follow up coaching a week later on a one-on-one basis, then again in another week’s time. I run a public seminar once a month for those companies that only


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have one or two telemarketers or not enough staff to justify organising in-house training.

Howard: Would it be okay for a person who manages their

own business and doesn’t employ any telemarketers to attend the training and if so, would they get value out of being at the training?

Jenny: Absolutely! I get a lot of Managers attending

because they would like to know what is involved in telemarketing techniques. They are then able to train their own people. However, when you start off in your own business, like I did, you need to do the telemarketing yourself. You are the best person to do the telemarketing because you’ve got the passion for the business and you’re the person who’s going to sound enthusiastic on the phone. Even if you can only do 10 calls a day, that will be enough to keep your business doing business. Trust me, if you don’t do the calls every day of your life, your business will decline in sales.

Howard: And do you do those training courses all over the

country or is it mainly around NSW?

Jenny: Most of the time I run the training courses in NSW. I do travel interstate, if necessary, but I have enough work at the moment in NSW. I also speak at conferences and provide telemarketing coaching. The best way to do telemarketing training is to attend a public seminar or have an in-house training course designed specifically for your business (if you


27

employ more than 6 people). Mostly, I provide each person an hour’s one-on-one coaching session at their workplace, one week after the training course, and also visit two weeks after and three weeks after the training for further coaching sessions. I’ve found that’s the best approach, as I can actually hear them on the job, give them feedback on how they’re going and show them ways to counteract anything that’s not going as well as it should with their telemarketing skills and techniques. They are actually putting into practice what they learnt at the seminar, they then get a week to practise on their own and then I visit and fine tune their technique. As you would know from providing coaching sessions yourself, it really reinforces the training for the telemarketer.

Howard: If you were working with me or my staff, it would be

like you had given us the basic training, then we would return to work and practise the skills taught in the training session for a short time. You would then visit us at our workplace to polish the “rough edges” of our technique and remind us of the things that we had forgotten from the training session that was held two weeks ago.


Howard: I can imagine that return visit would be very

powerful.


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Jenny: Yes it is. If I were to visit your office, I would want to see a list of questions that you have prepared in front of you. I’d also want to see your list of objections, your list of benefits (so that you can talk benefits and not features) and your goals listed in front of you stating how many sales you’re expecting to secure that day.

Howard: And maybe a bigger goal like, when I get this many

sales, this is what I’m going to reward myself with; something along those lines?

Jenny: Yes, that would be great.

Howard: I think that you and I are imagining the

telemarketers are enthusiastic and are going to “go for it”. However, I know, there are times when I have experienced the feeling that I don’t want to pick up the phone and call as I’m scared of rejection. You’ve got to get the people that you’ve just trained, to get on the phone without feeling scared of rejection, like I’ve experienced at times.

Jenny: And why would someone, like you, have fear of

rejection, Howard?

Howard: I don’t know, I think it can be a human characteristic. Beneath the facade that some of us carry, I think we’re all little teddy bears. At times, we can be very soft and vulnerable.


29

Jenny: But is your fear the thought that it’s a rejection of you personally?

Howard: When it’s my material that I’ve written and it’s me,

personally, then yes. There is a lot of my personal thoughts in what I write and sell. I’m not just selling shirt buttons, but I invest a heck of a lot of my personal thoughts into what I’m selling, so yes, I take rejection personally.

Jenny: You’re not alone. There are a lot of people like that

but the rejection shouldn’t be taken personally. It’s really an opportunity for you to express yourself in a better way next time. Never take it personally, because it’s about the person you’re talking to. It may be the frame of mind that they’re in on that day. As I said to you earlier, you can ring them one day and they’re in a foul mood and the next day they are approachable and would like your services. It’s really not about you, it’s about them. And what does it matter if they say “no”, because you know that you’ll probably make 20 calls to get a “yes”. And if you don’t continue to make the 20 calls you’re definitely not going to get a “yes”. So, as well as a skills game, it is a numbers game and you have to put those calls in each hour to give yourself the chance to reach the one or two customers that might say “yes.” In fact, start thinking that every “no” is getting you closer to a “yes.”

Howard: I’ve heard what you’ve said Jenny, but after six or

seven numbers, the phone simply develops a lead Secrets of Telemarketing Success


30

quality and it’s hard to pick it up to make the next call. Having said that, I did say to you earlier, when people ring and they ask me a question about a product, I “close” about 90% of those incoming calls, because I love the product so much. There is no question that anyone can ask me about my products that I don’t have an answer to. I absolutely love what I do and in a way, I don’t even care if they return the product because if they send it back, it’s probably because of their own issues and not me or my products.


Howard: And I’d rather that they trial the product.


Howard: The customers that don’t buy confuse me, because

I’m almost willing to give it to them to trial so that they get some benefit out of it because I’m confident of my product and I believe it would help them.

Jenny: That’s a good philosophy to have, but some people

don’t have knowledge of the product or service, especially telemarketers when they first start work in the business. They can’t talk about it and that is one reason that causes call reluctance. They might not mind the rejection, but they don’t have enough knowledge about the product to be able to sell it. If someone does ask a question that is not covered in their script, they do not know what to say. It is very


31

important to educate telemarketers about the product as well as the skills, so they are knowledgeable.

Howard: We gave the products to our staff who are employed

by us and they took them home and played with them. That’s how we got our staff to become familiar with the product and enjoy them. Our products were about accelerated learning and personal development, so they actually benefited out of the personal development product themselves and could relate their own stories about the product when telemarketing. The salesperson who really loved our product was the best telemarketer because she had a personal story and an interest in the product.

Jenny: Yes, that’s absolutely right. So that’s why I would

say, insist the telemarketers work in your office and be a part of your story, so that they have experience and knowledge of your company and can sense your passion and exude that feeling too. Don’t let them work from their home office.

Howard: Ok then, Jenny, some people are not going to jump

up and attend a seminar immediately. A lot of them are starting afresh, and I wonder if there are three or four steps that you could give us that could get them started, and maybe, as a result of them seeing the impact of doing it the right way, they would invest in themselves and have a full day with you to get the full story. So, if there is three or four


32

techniques that they really need to do to get started, what would they be?

Jenny: I think the first thing to do is to have clarity about

how to express your product or service on the phone and create a professional script.

Howard: And how do you write a script, because if people

haven’t done it before, it sounds like the sort of thing that an actor has?

Jenny: Well, some people don’t like to do it themselves, and

if so, they can brief me on the phone and I will write a script for them in a couple of hours. That’s probably the easiest way to create a script, because I’m an outsider and impartial. Sometimes, you’re too close to the product or service to be able to write about it or express it effectively, so I might be able to write a script a better way to assist with results, which is what you want to achieve.

Howard: And the script that you develop, would it be a

combination of all those things you told us before, like the introduction, ”Hello, my name is _____,” then the “attention–grabbing” statement and then the open ended questions, is that right?

Jenny: Yes, exactly and then you would continue with your

listening skills.

Howard: Well, that sounds overwhelmingly powerful and you can do that in a few hours at a training session?


33

Jenny: Yes.

Howard: Obviously the telemarketers would call you and

you’d ask them specific questions about their business and then from that you’d develop a script for them?

Jenny: Yes, they’d have to brief me on the entire business,

but what I would do is get the overall picture so I’d know how to explain it on the phone. You don’t need to get into too much detail on the phone; keep it brief and to the point. Finally, you need the overall picture, the major benefits and if you’re making appointments, you sell the appointment not the product or service.

Howard: Obviously you don’t provide a free service because

this is your business but if somebody wants to call you Jenny, to arrange a training session or get you to write their script what’s the best number to contact you on?

Jenny: My telephone number in Sydney is: (02) 9427 3479

and my email is: [email protected] I’d welcome the opportunity to assist all those that

would like to get into telemarketing. My entire business has been based on my willingness to assist others for the last 18 years. I still work in the field of telemarketing because I have to generate my own in-house training sessions and therefore I’m very much up-to-date with what’s going on in the


34

industry. I’m always delighted to help people get motivated and to get started. If you need a call centre set up for you, I am able to consult with you and help you get the call centre started. I would also be able to provide referrals to others who can complete the technical side of starting the call centre.

Another thing I omitted to mention was that you

need to have headsets for the Telemarketers that you employ, otherwise they may get RSI (Repetition Strain Injury) from continuously holding the phone in a certain position on their shoulder.

Howard: Headsets are great. We use them and I was thinking,

do I pay $100 for a headset or do I keep using the phone? I tell you, from experience, that headsets are very good and they make me more productive because I can type notes and talk at the same time.

Jenny: That’s right, and of course if you’re telemarketing,

the other thing you really need is a customer database, a customer relationship management system like ACT or Maximiser or Goldmine, those sorts of programs. If you’re going to be making 100 calls a day, you’ve got to be able to track all the people that you’re calling.

Howard: So, if writing the script were step one, what would

steps two, three and four be?


35

Jenny: Step two would be to recruit suitable people to do the telemarketing.

Step three would be to have a talk to me about

what you require, what you want to do and the equipment that you’re going to need so I can steer you in the right direction.

Step four would be to train the telemarketers on

skills, knowledge, technique and the products or services. Individuals could attend one of my public training courses so that they receive all the secrets of correct telemarketing techniques. The public workshop for Cold Calling is held once a month in Crows Nest. The course runs from 9.30 am – 4.30 pm, and the cost is $395 plus GST and a comprehensive workbook is included in the cost which is yours to keep. You are able to have coaching sessions afterwards, if you wish. I provide a teletrainer for one-on-one coaching. We act out role plays on the teletrainer, so that you can actually record yourself and ask yourself, “Would you buy from you?”

Howard: I don’t think I want to do that exercise.

Jenny: Everybody ends up completing the exercise in my

coaching sessions and they are amazed at how they change from the beginning of the coaching session to the end. They really like themselves by the end of the session when they realise what’s involved and


36

how easy it is to do it. It definitely reduces any call reluctance that might be lurking around.

Howard: That’s amazing.

Jenny: In some cases, if there is still call reluctance, you

may have chosen an unsuitable telemarketer and, basically, if they’re not getting results, you would cease their employment. You wouldn’t let them continue to work for you for longer than two weeks, because usually they continue to be reluctant. There is a bit of “churn and burn” with telemarketers, but if you employ a good one, treasure them, and pay them well to keep them.

Howard: Well, Jenny, that’s all I had to ask you. Did you

want to add anything that I haven’t asked?

Jenny: No, I think that’s all. I would hope that I could encourage everybody to have a go at telemarketing and if there are any problems at all, please give me a call. I know it works and it’s very inexpensive to do. It keeps you in touch with many more people than you could ever meet face to face and the bottom line is, telemarketing achieves results!


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COPYRIGHT This publication in its entirety may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic including photocopying and recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher. © 2006 SALES AND TELESALES SOLUTIONS All rights reserved. DISCLAIMER The strategies and tips in this E-Book are based on 16 years of experience of telemarketing award winner, Jenny Cartwright, both using and training telesales. They have been proven and tested on many businesses within Australia. Not every strategy and tip will work for every business so it is up to you to pick those strategies that are appropriate for your business. The author accepts no responsibility for the results from your applications of the strategies described in this publication unless you are being coached by her personally.

Thank you for ordering this E-book. We hope you found it enlightening and helpful.

When you are ready to seek more assistance with your

telemarketing training, consulting, coaching and script writing, please call:

Sales and Telesales Solutions on 02 9427 3479. CDs, DVDs, Books and Videos are available for training

purposes http://www.telesalestraining.com.au/telesales_products.htm To receive your free email “Top Telephone Sales Tips”

register at http:/www.telesalestraining.com.au

Jenny Cartwright Sales and Telesales Solutions 71 Coolaroo Road Lane Cove NSW 2066 Ph: +61 2 9427 3479 Fax: +61 2 9418 9069 Email: [email protected] Web: http://www.telesalestraining.com.au


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