The Great Guns Marketing Blog

I was interviewed last week by a journalist who was reporting on the recent CMI research which states that women executives are paid less than men and that it will take almost 100 years to close the gap. To be honest, I did a rubbish job on the interview – I hadn’t slept all night thanks to my newborn baby and the journalist was a bit of a twit, so I certainly wasn’t on form!

However, it did make me consider a few things. Most of our management team are women – not necessarily by design, in my business it just so happens that we have the talent weighted on the female side. This does mean however that from time to time we have long term absenteeism due to maternity leave and when a few people’s pregnancies overlap, it can call for some good business planning!

For women in senior positions, and I include myself in this, it has been great to have had the freedom to bring my sleeping baby into the office. I mean, let’s face it – all they do for the first few months is eat, sleep and poop! I’ve loved being able to do just a couple of hours a day and it has enabled me to continue relationships with clients and mentor my team. I’d love to be able to offer this to the rest of my team as most mums aren’t keen to put new babies into nurseries and of course, most nurseries only offer care in half day or full day increments which is often too long for new babies.

I’m not really sure what all the Health and Safety laws are around offering these exceptions and obviously it is not appropriate for all environments but certainly offering some kind of crèche that is close to the new mums and gives them the freedom to come back to work early for a few hours a day is the way forward. There will always be women who will want to take a year off and there’s nothing wrong with that, but for those of us who love our children and our jobs, being able to keep our hand in is not only great for the workplace but makes us much better mummies too!

Personally I think this could really make a difference on the pay gap.

Also, it is well proven that the most profitable companies are well represented by women both on the board and in management positions. Now, I might be stating the bleeding obvious but why would this surprise anyone based on the fact that probably a good number of any company’s clients are women, their staff will be women, shareholders will be women etc…? This means that if a company is to have empathy and understand clearly all the different areas they need to serve then surely both genders will need to be influencing and making the key decisions. Let’s face it, girls are better than boys at some things and boys are better than girls at other things! Let’s make sure that we fully take advantage of all of our talent and if we need to make exceptions then we should do, as exceptional people equals exceptional profit.

As a specialist B2B new business generation agency, we’re used to generating sales appointments for our clients. A meeting must be fully qualified to pass the Great Guns management checks, and we expect our clients to convert an average of 30% from our meetings to sale. Our telemarketing process involves us gaining as much information from decision makers as possible on every call to enquire such high quality of meeting.

Here are our top B2B market research questions our clients want us to ask:

1. Which decision makers are involved in the buying cycle (how many and all their contact details)?
2. Do they have a current solution in place?
3. Is this outsourced or internal?
4. Are there any areas they feel they want to improve with their current solution (requirements)?
5. What timescales are they working to?
6. What options have they considered?
7. If there is no requirement now, when may they be considering reviewing?
8. Would they be happy to speak to us when the time is right?

You may be asking why budget questions are not there. This is a sensitive question and one not many decision makers want to discuss at an early stage. If you feel you have a good enough bond with the decision maker then you can ask probing questions about how much budget they have. If you don’t feel it’s right to ask this questions however, if you know the options they are considering and timescales they are working to you can often get good feel of whether they are a suitable fit for the budget you need from them.

The Great Guns training team holds regular buzz sessions with our telemarketers to refresh skills. It provides an opportunity for team members to contribute and feedback their experiences regarding current telemarketing activity that we are undertaking for clients.

One topic that regularly gets raised, especially from our newest team members, is the role of ‘gatekeepers ‘ and this quite often brings about a lengthy discussion.

Firstly – what do they mean by the term gatekeeper? Ask the team to explain and a succinct description would be: “ PA’s, secretaries, receptionists…. those answering the phone who block me from speaking to the decision maker”.

OK, so turning this around, we always encourage the team to step into the recipient’s shoes and imagine themselves in situ.  For example – PA’s and secretaries are simply doing their job, quite often managing  extensive diary commitments, undertaking a varied workload and in many cases representing the senior management team at a high level – in addition to dealing with inbound calls and enquiries that can be distracting and interrupting. Empathy goes a long way towards building a relationship with someone with such a heavy workload.

In our Drill for Skills sessions we reiterate some simple do’s and don’ts…

Do

• Be polite and courteous and respectful.
• Listen, show an interest and ask questions that will help to qualify the prospect.
• Build a rapport – PA’s for example probably take over 20 sales calls a day, why would they put you through to their busy boss over somebody else?
• Recognise that the individual who answers the phone is an integral part of the sales process and respect them.
• Remember, if you can’t get them on side then you won’t get through to the decision maker.

 Don’t

• Be too forceful, pester or become a pain.
• Ignore the influencing power of the person answering the phone – they can be responsible for deciding who gets transferred through to the decision maker.
• Use the term ‘gatekeepers’!

 In fact here at Great Guns Marketing we have banned the ‘gatekeepers’ term within the office, instead using  ‘influencers’ – its much more positive and has definitely had a great impact on the success of our clients’ telemarketing campaigns.

Why role play is essential to efficient telemarketing?

Here at Great Guns we host many role play sessions on a weekly basis. This gives our telemarketers the opportunity to practice their approaches and objection handling in a safe environment.

In this “safe” environment our team can make all their mistakes and approach things from different perspectives without risking our clients’ brand.

When we first started role play as a training model many of our team found themselves completely out of their comfort zone. I found that people fell into two camps- those that love it and those that don’t.

The way I persuaded them that role play was a worthwhile exercise was to let them watch their colleagues achieve higher results than average – especially in the early stages of projects.

Role play should be a fun experience. I find that these sessions are always much more successful when our team are relaxed so I encourage loads of banter and creativity. I think it’s really important that we try and preempt as many objections and therefore prepare as many answers to objections as we can.

I know role play is critical because even the best telemarketers – myself included- find it difficult to come out of a client brief, pick up the phone immediately and sound fluid, professional and competent. Carrying out these sessions prior to project start not only gives our team the great opportunity to build their confidence but also gives our account managers the opportunity to ensure our guys have really understood our clients features and benefits.

I personally carried out a role play session this week on a project. The exercise was 40 minutes long and the transformation that took place in our telemarketers and their ability to present the client was incredible. When the session started they were rusty and their voices sounded quite monotone. By the time the session had finished they sounded like they had worked for the client for years and their personalities really came through in their tone. This was because our team members were now comfortable with the subject and able to combine this with their natural telemarketing abilities to successfully represent the client.

At Great Guns Marketing we offer Telemarketing training. If you don’t currently use role play with your team and want help in developing techniques, call Great Guns Marketing 01256330571.

The ABBA Debate

23rd September2010 

Automated marketing can take care of all your marketing needs so you don’t need a marketing department or an Agency.

Perhaps you disagree? Come and join us to debate this topical and contentious issue and put your views and questions to the panel.

        15.45 – Registration and refreshments

        16.00 – Welcome and introduction from John Stanton

        16.15 – Debate

        17.30 – Q&A

        18.00 – Networking – drinks and canapés on the terrace

Sales is all about results – largely measured by return on investment.

Here are some things to think about before you go steaming ahead with the sales process, which will help you to manage your pipeline and get more out of your telemarketing activity:

1. What makes a good client? Do you really know who you’re targeting and who you want to sell to? One of the first things you can do to make your time more productive is to only go after prospects you know will be your best clients. Profile them based on the industry, size of company, where they are in their buying cycle, what the potential opportunity is etc. For example, if you are a printing company, you may want to think about targeting companies that have a minimum annual print spend, have requirements for lithographic printing, are local to you etc.
2. Build a process to manage your database and gather this market intelligence as you are calling. If you set up you database correctly, it will prompt you to ask these profiling questions and record the intelligence. Some prospects will automatically drop off your radar as you identify they don’t have the correct opportunity for you, reducing your time and money in continuing to target them. Those that do meet your criteria for an excellent client will become apparent and you will put more effort into targeting them.
3. Decide the best way to engage with each prospect. This may be a multi-channel approach. In the first instance you should ideally speak to them over the phone, identify what their pains are, what their personal objectives and business objectives are and understand how they would like you to keep in contact with them. Don’t push too hard – listen to them and respond to what they want, when they want. If you can’t offer a solution to them at the time, be honest about this as it will earn trust and respect.
4. At the end of every conversation agree a next course of action. This may be to send them some information, to invite them to events you run, to call back in a few weeks or to put them on a mailing list. Agree this with your prospect and make sure you deliver to this agreement. We still find one of the best way of achieving appointments is by calling back when we say we will. If this is difficult for you to manage as you’re too busy to stick to your promises then maybe you need to look for support to carry out the telemarketing on your behalf. If you’re not very organised and miss your call backs then maybe you should look for a CRM system where you can set alarms to remind you to call prospects back.
5. Get the level of contact right. If you have followed the above steps then you will be giving your prospect just the right amount of attention as you are agreeing next steps with them. If you contact them too often then you are likely to drive a prospect away. Don’t take advantage of an agreement to contact a prospect again – this is a sign of their trust so don’t abuse it.
6. Give it some time. Stick to the principles and you will win quality meetings with great prospects.

Here at Great Guns Marketing we work alongside our clients to ensure their telemarketing campaigns are a successful part of their overall sales activity. Calling upon our 12 years of telemarketing experience we know how to get the best results.

Here are our top 5 tips on how to run a successful telemarketing campaign:

1. Ensure you have good quality, clean data.  Much of the early work that goes on in telemarketing campaigns is identifying the right decision makers and checking what opportunities exist within companies. If this work is carried out with some data cleansing activity up front then the telemarketing activity can focus on speaking to the right people at the right time, making it much more effective.
   
2. Make your message relevant. Think about what keeps your target decision makers awake at night. Have a few solutions to their problems ready to discuss, and make them compelling rather than the same as everyone else’s.  This is what makes them want to meet with you.
   
3. Don’t push an appointment too early – give it time. A good appointment should come naturally. If you’ve found a pain, you can offer a solution and they like you then they will naturally want to meet with you and do business with you. Stick with the telemarketing activity and it will pay off, don’t throw the towel in too early!
4. Have the right attitude. People want to talk to people who sound interesting, listen and are passionate about what they are discussing. If you sounds like you don’t want to be talking to prospects then they won’t want to talk to you. Enjoy it and your prospects will enjoy talking to you and open up more, giving you all that important information you need to find their pain.
5. Have strong case studies to back up your message. It takes more than just one conversation for people to trust you, you are starting the “relationship nurturing” process when you are telemarketing so have some good case studies to back up your messaging and treat your prospect with respect.

Here at Great Guns Marketing we are passionate about the art of conversation – and for those of you who know me, you will know how much I like to talk!

This ethos is shared by the team of Great Guns telemarketers who excel at conversing via the telephone on behalf of our clients.  As an organisation we firmly believe that talking directly to prospects (and customers too) must be at the heart of our clients growth strategies and not undertaken in isolation from broader sales activity.

Here’s our top 5 reasons why picking up the phone is an essential part of the sales mix:

1. Talking builds relationships: People buy from people and connecting directly instills confidence and trust. This should be part of your relationship nurturing process.
2. It’s two-way: Prospects want you to listen to them and they need assurance that you understand their business.
3. It’s information rich: Talking provides opportunities to gather critical data, to identify decision makers and to understand specific needs.
4. It drives efficiency: Telemarketing focuses efforts on the right contacts. Find out instantly if a lead is an opportunity, ascertain quickly if you are targeting the decision maker.
5. It increases your ROI: By openly discussing options and solutions you can overcome barriers to buy. This will increase conversion rates and the ROI of your lead generation spend.

As August approaches the murmurs that it’s always a ‘dead’ month are getting louder and louder and I personally think this is a deafest attitude. Whilst I know that things do tend go a bit slow due to staff, prospects and customers taking time off for summer holidays, this is no excuse for shutting up shop and sitting back waiting for September to come round the corner.

Here are my top 10 reasons why August is a great time to keep your foot on the pedal and build your new business opportunities:

1. Be positive. People really only ever take a maximum of 2 weeks holiday . What about the other 2 ½ weeks of the month when prospects and customers are at work and so are ‘open for business’?
2. Promote. There tends to be less ‘noise’ from your competition so it’s a good time for those who do promote to get their message heard.
3. Pick up the phone. Typically many ‘gatekeepers’ and PA’S take some annual leave. Why not find out when they are away and pick up the phone? In many cases the decision maker you need to get through to will be answering their own calls and managing their own inboxes.
4. Use your time wisely. Undertake those things on your to do list that you haven’t had time to do, such as updating your prospect database (don’t forget we are offering 10% off our data cleansing services for new orders undertaken in August).
5. Innovate. August is a great time to softly test new ideas, messages, campaigns. Gently dip your toes in the water, reflect and learn.
6. Get ready. Making the most of August will make September a more successful month.
7. Recruit and train. August is a great time to recruit new staff – be it school, college or uni leavers or even those parents looking to get back to work if their children are starting school in September.
8. Smile. Fingers crossed this year we will have some sun. When the sun is shining people smile, feel more upbeat and are generally more positive and therefore receptive to new ideas and proposals.
9. Enjoy. We get a bank holiday! I know some think this is costly for businesses to honour however in my experience we squeeze 5 days work into 4 so lets all be thankful for that extra day off.
10.  Think ahead.  Its only 4 months until xmas, start planning now!

So don’t write August off. Be realistic about what can be achieved. Plan and budget accordingly, and most of all don’t panic – there are always sales to be had, you have to get out there and find them.

 In my new role as VP of the Institute of Customer Service a colleague of mine commented that the term ‘customer service’ doesn’t sound inspirational, believable or exciting!  My belief is that customer service for many of us in the service sectors will become our main USP and the thing that makes the most difference; we are becoming fanatical about it here at Great Guns!  I am keen to change the term to reflect this and was thinking of calling it ‘Customer Devotion’? I would love your views on this.