Telephone Marketing at its’ WORST!
20 Apr 2008
On the rare occasions when I am in my office and not too busy, I ask for all cold telephone calls to be put through to me. I sometimes record them and play them back to the owners or directors of the companies for whom these people are working. That can generate me some excellent enquiries for training.
Here are a couple of examples of what I experienced in the last couple of weeks…
From a CCTV company…
They: “Is that Mr King?”
Me: “Yes”
They: “How are you today?” (I simply hate that question from a total stranger on a cold call)
Me: “Absolutely awful thank you”
They: “Wonderful”. (That’s not unusual either - they often don’t listen)
Me: “I’m glad you're pleased I’m sick. Who are you from and how can I help you?”
They: “I’m calling from the XYZ Company - would you be interested in buying CCTV?”
Me: “No thank you”
They: Hung up!
Here is another...
They: “Good morning. Are you the owner?”
Me: “No – who are you calling from?”
They: “Can you put me through to the owner?”
Me: “If you can tell me who you are calling from and what it is in connection with, I’ll see if they will take your call”
They: “It’s private. I can only tell the owner who I’m calling from”
Me: “So how do we get around this? I know they won’t take your call unless I can tell them what it’s about. Are you sure you can’t tell me?”
They: “Can’t do that. I can only speak to the owner”
Me: “Tell you what. Why don’t we pretend I am the owner. Your boss will never know I’m not. Then you can tell me what it’s about and then I can tell the owner and maybe they will speak to you”
LONG PAUSE before they hung up.
You would think that this standard of telemarketing would have vanished. But NO! – it flourishes. My secretary tells me she gets at least fifteen or more calls of a similar quality every week. It’s no wonder cold-calling irritates so many people and gets such poor results. Worst of all it reflects badly on the sales profession as a whole.
Next time you get an appalling cold call, and if it is from a large organisation, instead of putting the telephone down, ask for the sales director’s name. Call them, tell them how you felt and ask them if they would like to speak to me and find out how they can improve their results significantly. Pass me their contact details and I assure you I am very happy to pay you a generous commission on any introductions that result in me or one of my associates being hired to re-train their organisation.