If you are looking for ways to build your business offline and you expect to make telephone calls to many people, telemarketing (tm) skills can improve your chances of success. The same holds true when you're working online. The one common denominator in both cases is there is no face-to-face contact.

Many people today work from home as well as in the office. I believe it's called telecommuting. If you're a tm or sales person, you accomplish many tasks contacting prospects and customers as well.

Do you know where to start? Are you provided contact lists of prospects to call? How do you qualify the prospects? Do you know what a gatekeeper is? Are you expected to close the sale or forward the prospect information to the sales organization? If your working in an office or home, is the telephone properly setup, do you use a headset and most important of all are you using acceptable contact software on your computer?

SET UP

If your working online trying to develop and grow your business you must at times speak to your customers, clients and prospects by telephone. If working in an office and you're responsible for any telephone activities involving prospects, client and customers, you most certainly use the telephone.

Most everyone has a computer and a telephone in the home/office environment. Is it set-up properly? The telephone should be next to your workstation on a desk close to your monitor. It is very difficult to hold a phone to your ear while using the computer keyboard to make online entries.

That's why a good reliable headset is worth its weight in gold. Your company should provide you with a reliable and comfortable headset especially if many calls are being made in the tm program. If you have to purchase your own, Radio Shack has a wide range of headsets and prices.

It's worth it to make the expenditure for your comfort and ease of use with the telephone and computer. Headset instructions are simple to follow and connect to most any desktop phone.

Let's face it; if you're doing tm for the local storm door company or selling software/hardware/services consulting for a company, you need the best telephone skills that you can muster. Now what do you need to track all those good prospects that you have? You can use a note pad to record all your contact information.

But, that becomes unwieldy and really old fashion. What you really need is a good up to date contact software program that helps you to keep track of your prospects/customers. There are a myriad of programs out there that can help. Some good ones are Contact Plus and Telemagic and Act.

They will do the job for you. But search the web for more information and check with your company to assure that they are providing you with the best available contact software program.

Now that everything's in place, what next?

PROSPECT LISTS AND SCRIPTS

So now you have everything in place, right? What's next? What you need now to compliment your workstation is a good reliable prospect list. Or, as it is sometimes called, a suspect/prospect list.

Everyone on the list is a suspect that, based on your findings and conversations can turn into a sales prospect and then hopefully a client/customer. This list includes people who are possible candidates for whatever you are selling or marketing. It could be just a survey that you're doing that could turn into sales in the future.

Depending on you needs these list are available at various costs to you or your company. Even with your online business you will eventually talk to one of your clients or a possible prospect to your business. No matter how many emails you send back and forth, to be successful you must talk to someone eventually.

O.k., so now you have a list that should contain contact information. What do you do now? It doesn't make any difference if your doing tm for the local screen or garage door company within your local home geographical area or nationally. And, if contacting corporations to sell services or products is your thing, the premise is the same.

You need a good accurate list! Make sure that the list you have has the right contact information and is not outdated. What good is a contact list if the people listed have moved, changed companies or have phone numbers that are not accurate or no longer listed? More about prospect/contact lists later in this book.

Now comes a very important part. What are you going to say and ask when you speak to contacts? What you need before you start is a good tm script. Of course, knowledge of your product or service whether it's online or off is the most important aspect of any tm program.

How can you ask your suspect/prospect the right questions or more importantly, answer their questions correctly without detailed knowledge of your product or service? So, before you start sit down and write out what you are going to ask and at the same time develop some key prompt notes as part of your script that will enhance your ability and knowledge on the phone.

It is very difficult and next to impossible to conduct a detailed successful program without a script. Many telemarketers have contact lists that require hundreds of calls over a certain period of time. Time is money and most companies running tm programs have time constraints placed on the tm program so that they get prospect information in a timely and efficient manner.



About the Author
A semi-retired consultant living in Florida. Mr. Stearns has over 30 years experience in computer sales and service. He is the author/publisher of JBBusiness News at http://www.jbassociates.biz