How to Be A Powerful Telemarketing Presenter

Posted on November 29, 2012 by

Often times, you may be wondering why your telemarketing campaign is not getting you the results you expected. Such a happening can be the cause of either that telemarketing just isn’t your company’s strong point, or that your presentations lack the necessary power in them to get your targeted prospects to bite your bait.

So how does one create powerful presentations in doing B2B telemarketing? Isn’t my team competent enough to do lead generation for my business? The answer to that question may be yes, it’s just that your script may be the material you need to question. Telemarketing call scripts, unfortunately, sometimes limit our capabilities in performing lead generation telemarketing and getting our prospects to engage with us further. Continue reading →

Why Sales Leads From Customer Retention Need More Than Satisfaction

Posted on September 19, 2012 by

Don’t be confused by the title. Customer satisfaction still plays a key role if you want to use their loyalty and retention as a means of generating new sales leads. However customer satisfaction is never static (especially in financial planning and management). It can change over time so you need to do more than just determine whether or not a client is satisfied. You need to know what keeps them satisfied, how to keep them satisfied, and be on the look out for what could compromise that satisfaction before it hits.

On iMediaConnection, Tom Cates sums this up nicely, explaining three signs of customer defection. While his particular focus is on software companies, you’ll find it can easily apply to financial planning services and generating sales leads from your respective customers:

“You’re not on your client’s speed dial.”

“When your client has a support problem, a service question, or needs to talk over an issue, do they call your team first?”

This is perhaps even more critical in financial planning. Why would your clients consult anyone other than you? What’s the point of them maintaining business with your firm if you’re already losing out to a possible competitor? As Cates suggests, find out who that competitor is. But at this point, be careful. You don’t want to come off as jealous or overly competitive. Stay objective and determine if the specific issue that your customer wanted resolved should have been well within your expertise to handle or it could actually have been something else entirely.

“You’re client uses the F-word a lot.”

If you’re already dreading that you know this word, think twice. It could be the complete opposite:

“When a client says everything is ‘fine,’ nothing is further from the truth. This dirty four-letter word signals disaster and should be translated to, ‘Everything is not fine, but I don’t want to get into the details with you because it’s not worth my time.’”

Now there can be more ways to understand what a prospect means by ‘fine’ compared to what Cates is saying. After all, making assumptions will only compromise the interest and won’t bring you any closer to making financial planning leads. If you’re still afraid of no longer being considered worthy of your customer’s time then don’t just press for more feedback. Reflect on your company’s past actions and see if you’ve actually acted on the feedback they’ve given you before. Don’t waste the efforts of those who listened and recorded your customers’ concerns when you never made any significant response to what was said. Still, make sure you keep encouraging them for feedback. Don’t be afraid to contact them every now and then getting them to say anything beyond simply ‘fine’.

“Your client is uninvolved and disengaged.”

“But when a client begins to withhold important details, “forgets” to copy you on an email, or stops contributing their ideas, you should be concerned. Relationships are a two-way street, and if your client isn’t fully invested, they might be on the road to defection.”

As previously implied, don’t also forget to collaborate closely with your client. In fact, if you’ve already outsourced for your financial sales leads, then you should already know what collaboration entails. It means getting in touch. Speaking of which, it’s why there’s not much difference between outsourcing the process and doing it yourself. Either way, you need to constantly hear from your customers whether it’s through your provider or your own lead generator.

Customer feedback isn’t only for knowing their satisfaction, it’s to educate you on how to keep up that satisfaction.

Lead Generation for Insurance Companies – Fee or Free?

Posted on November 22, 2011 by

There are things in life that can be obtained for free; others always need to have a certain price tag attached to it. It is due to the reason that money can make the world go round. There are people that may not believe this statement but it is very much true. One can get stuff for free but it all boils down to the manufacturer of the product or service to spend money in order to produce it.

True that there are things in life that can be obtained with absolutely no monetary value attached to them but the quality of the obtained item or aid will not always be that good. For business owners, there will always be a need for paper bills and coins to make their company stable and even make it grow.

Insurance companies are among the many that needs to decide on whether to take matters for the benefit of their firm on either with or without spending cash. For instance, these companies should weigh the possibilities and consequences of free insurance leads or paying a service to generate them.

Let us look at both options to look at how they weigh on the overall financial growth of the insurance company.

Free leads

There are a lot of free insurance leads encircling the globe, especially on the Internet. Just by searching “free leads” in Google can produce over 400 million results.

However, a large fraction of these lead providers recycle their leads to a very great degree. Meaning a lot of other insurance companies have already contacted the leads that they offer. Ergo, they are no longer fresh.

Additionally, they are known to almost never update their lists. Therefore the chance of following ‘dead’ leads is very high. Insurance companies that follow these ‘dead’ leads will have wasted a ton of money and effort for their campaign.

Outsourced services

When we talk about generating insurance leads through paid means, nothing can beat the services rendered by professional cold calling agents. Telemarketing firms can take charge of the insurance company’s marketing campaign with utmost professionalism.

It is due to telemarketers having complete expertise in the subject of generating leads and even setting appointments with them; more so for insurance companies. They are adepts in keeping in touch with potential clients and piquing their interests with their grand knowledge of various insurance services.

Incidentally, they also use a well updated list of leads for their client’s telemarketing campaign. This will allow precision targeting to be attained in contacting leads. This means the possibility of following leads is put to a very bare minimum.

There may be some good that acquiring free leads can give to an insurance company but it won’t be that much of a big deal as compared to acquiring the aid of professional cold calling agents. If you are the CEO, decision maker, or even the marketing director of an insurance company, should you get outsourced telemarketing services and promote financial growth now or get free leads and save financial growth for later? You decide.

The Truth About Buying Financial Advisor Leads

Posted on October 24, 2011 by

For sure, most would force you to use social media and other digital tools for your sales and marketing campaigns. They are firm in believing that such mediums are effective for critical tasks like financial planning lead generation. If truth be told, I would also suggest for you to engage in this undertaking, but only as a supporting channel. So to speak, more and more companies are now getting their representatives involved with social networking and other worthwhile Internet applications. But, giving all the focus and attention to this do not yield the same results as those with direct response avenues. Although some may argue that it costs measly money and even none at all, it still cannot bring the profitability that the company needs to stay afloat. It is therefore recommended that these novel approaches must be a supplement of direct marketing avenues.

What you need now is a fast, proven and reliable method that is tested and tried by time. The pressures coming from competition, financial crisis, price hike and other present challenges demand you to keep your sales cycle shorter. And, the scarce resources should be exhausted only to actions that have a history of achievements in the past until now. Any firm will be damned if the limited financial and nonfinancial supplies will be put to nothing. Among the various techniques at the present time, telemarketing prevails to be cost-efficient and effective. Instead of the uncertain ventures, efforts should be directed towards accomplished tactics like telemarketing.

Buying financial advisor leads is one of the diverse programs where telemarketing is most useful. Though a big help, it is the least popular owing to the besmirched reputation of the said undertaking when done online. Several companies have been victims of mediocre leads providers that sell poor-quality sales prospects. So, it is anticipated that some business organizations won’t show any spark of interest when it comes to outsourcing programs. However, they need to know and to understand the truth about this engagement before giving their opinions. Little did they know that the use of the telephone is remotely different and by far better than what is usual online.

No matter how critics panned out hiring third party to generate financial adviser leads, it remains a good option and probably the best solution for you if done properly. What you need to discover is the process that service providers undergo from the start till the appointment setting. First, outbound call centers must use an updated leads database for precision targeting. Then, their telemarketers must be exposed to extensive trainings and actual practices. While doing cold calls, they should be armed with effective call scripts in order to ask crucial questions and to state convincing sales pitch. The service provider must appoint a sufficient number of telemarketers who work at least eight hours daily for each campaign. And through the collaboration of the necessaries- advance technology, skilled workforce, proven techniques, accurate leads list, good management, every financial appointment made is certified fresh, qualified and targeted.

Let’s be honest. When you opt for this program, you’ll get the chance to take a number of leads, like retirement planning leads or investment leads, that is within your current needs and budget. This means avoiding the mistake of getting excess prospects that are of no use to your firm at the present time. Also, the quality of every appointment is of the least concern. This is so because trustworthy firms have strict quality systems. So, outsourced telemarketing will not just facilitate a faster, shorter sales cycle. Besides, it gives you security against unqualified leads. Take the risk of engaging in this campaign. Just look for the right partner to be safe.

The Reliability of Outsourced Telemarketing In Generating Accounting Services Leads

Posted on October 18, 2011 by

Along with medicine and law, accounting remains as an in-demand service whether the economy is peaking or at its lowest ebb. Hailed as the language of business, this function is used to determine a firm’s financial position, performance and cash flows. Aside from this basic form, accounting is of great help in budgeting, forecasting, investing and other relevant decisions. It is also engaged in top-notch missions, like auditing, management advisory and litigation support. With a limited pool of professionals, some companies seek the expertise of CPAs and accountants from accounting firms.

The need for accounting services is what forced professional accountants to form partnerships. Before, these organizations are flocked with clients from a variety of industries. However, today, the growing population of accounting firms has changed this situation. Though the established, big names in this service sector are enjoying their sales performance, small-and-medium businesses may not be on the same page. Even if their goals aim on providing solutions, these firms also need accounting services leads to continue their services.

In order to obtain qualified appointments with clients, there is a need for an effective accounting lead generation. However, there are three problems that hinder accounting firms to accomplish this responsibility. First, who would handle the task? They cannot sacrifice their own services just to concentrate on marketing. Their core competencies are still their lifeline. Second, what must be done? Generating accounting leads, like tax leads, bookkeeping leads, audit leads or cpa leads, requires a good program, budget and procedures. Only few can craft all of these requisites while doing their own homework. Third, how to implement this function? Well, it can only be answered when the two preceding queries are solved.

It would also come as a big burden for an accounting firm to shoulder this non-core function. Hiring additional employees, buying equipment and spending time in monitoring is not a feasible plan. In this case, the professional partnership has to look for another and better option. Actually, they can scout for a lead generation specialist in the form of an outbound call center. As they look for their partner, they have to consider the number of accounting service leads they need and the limit of their budget. If they need a small number of leads and that their funds are very tight, then the best thing to sign up for is an outsourced telemarketing.

Perhaps, some accounting service providers are not anymore new to outsourcing and not a total stranger with telemarketing and outsourcing. Several companies have been using cold-calling to get new clients, and win more sales. However, they could not do so in-house because of the large costs involved and the complexity of the function. Partnering with a service provider can remove these obstacles. How? BPO partners usually charge lower costs than the total expenses to be incurred with an on-site campaign. Apart from that, the challenges can be eliminated with the skills of the professional telemarketers, good management and quality systems, and technology used by a credible appointment setting company.

Accounting firms have to adapt with the changing times. They cannot rely too much on what they have, but focus their attention and ample time on their core competencies. One important undertaking that they should strengthen is B2B lead generation. To succeed on this function, they need to partner with the experts. Through outsourced telemarketing, they can use their limited funds to buy high-quality leads and appointments.