To the degree that you work in an environment where telephone prospecting is a viable business activity (such as a business to business market), telephone prospecting calls can be a very useful tool for the purpose of further qualifying prospects.
Of course, any reference to make a telemarketing call assumes that such a call would be subject to the condition of being qualified as permissible by all applicable state and federal laws. (See www.ftc.gov and www.fcc.gov for more information on telemarketing rules. www.the-dma.org is a good resource too).
To succeed with telephone prospecting, a commitment must be made to achieve a call volume that is sizable enough to cover either,
- your entire market
- a manageable segment of your market.
Also, a sufficient amount of time specifically dedicated to calling must become a part of your regular work schedule. The amount of time required to make calls is determined by:
- The total volume of calls needed (determined by the size of your market or selected market segment).
- How quickly you are able to make those calls (i.e. dials per hour and average length of time spent on each call).
- How often you plan to cycle through your list (i.e. how often you plan to call the same list on a repeated basis – once every 60, 90, 120 days etc.).
Allocating time to make calls can occur on a variety of schedules. Some examples are:
- Daily – dedicate two or three hours each day to calling (i.e. 10 – 15 hours per week).
- Weekly – dedicate one or two workdays each week, or a combination of mornings and afternoons for outreach via the phone.
- Monthly – find a week or two in a month that you can substantially dedicate to calling.
- Quarterly – dedicate the first two or three weeks of each quarter to calling.
The speed at which you make calls is derived by a combination of:
- Dedicating specific, uninterrupted time for calling.
- Being organized when you call (i.e. having your list pre-selected, pre-sorted and ready to go).
- Utilizing a concise call script (i.e. one that is limited in length and has a focused set of objectives).
In other posts we will discuss in more detail what is needed in order to optimize the total volume of calls and the speed at which calls are made. But, for today, the point to note is that having dedicated an organized schedule for calling is important. Without such a schedule, it is easy to put calls off or to allow other distractions to get in the way of making calls.
Originally posted 2009-06-18 04:32:23.
