Compensating Telemarketers

[selfgen]

I would be interested to here how thoses of you that use telemarketers compensate them for their work. I have one retired lady that calls for me. I provide the leads and she calls from her home and sets appointments.

Currently I am paying her $10 hourly and then a $10 bonus per sale. I pay her cash.

I have thought about going straight commission and just agreeing to pay her $35-40 per sale.

What do you think?

 

[AtlantaLife&Health]

How many sales is she generating for you per week? How many appointments is she generating you per week?

 

[kheyknee]

The model that works best for me matches the incentive with what the telemarketer controls: booking the appointment. If you are providing this list, all the telemarketer can control is the number of appointments booked.

If you tie her incentive with your closing ability and the qualify of the list you selected, she may lose interest over time.

 

[selfgen]

How many sales is she generating for you per week? How many appointments is she generating you per week?

it varies. sometimes she sets 4-5 per week. sometimes -none, just 10 hours of calls, plenty of notes, but no appointments.

 

[Montana2]

The model that works best for me matches the incentive with what the telemarketer controls: booking the appointment. If you are providing this list, all the telemarketer can control is the number of appointments booked.

If you tie her incentive with your closing ability and the qualify of the list you selected, she may lose interest over time.

Great answer!


As far as getting nothing some weeks, then a lot others; we all know "this is a numbers game" we have heard that many times. It seems to me that if you got, on average , three appointments for each $100 spent, that would be pretty darn good.

More would be better , but it could be less.

And if you have faith in the woman, and she is taking copious notes of her calls, it is about as much as you can do.

P.S. Is she available to work for me?

 

[Stephen]

I Pay my assistant $5 for converting a lead that I paid for into an appt. $7 for cold calling and generating a fresh lead, And a weekly bonus based on my success. Usually $50-$200 it always works out as long as both parties are on the same page and fair with each other.

 

[dmarbell]

How can you tell if someone is good on the phone? Is there an objective way to tell is a telemarketer is going to set good, solid appointments?

Seems to me you could pay so much per hour, so much per kept appointment, and then so much per sale and be way ahead, with a good appointment setter.

Danny

 

[ronmelton3]

I pay her cash.

I think the IRS would like to talk to you.
Oh, by the way, we pay our girl 8% per life sale and $15 for Medicare sales.
For MA's we pay $15 for renewals and $30 for new sales.

 

[arnguy]

Selsgen, do yoiu withhold taxes and issue a W-2? Just an inquiry on behalf of the friendly people at the IRS.

 

[joshril]

I've had success with an hourly plan plus an incentive based on the number of appointments set. I think it's crucial to have an hourly rate of pay to get the better quality telemarketers.

In fact, if you can find someone with a lot of experience, paying someone $12-$15 per hour can be a winning proposition. Think about it this way.

Telemarketer A is paid $10 per hour and generates 1 lead per hour on average.

Telemarketer B is paid $12 per hour but generates 1.5 leads per hour on average.

Telemarketer C is paid $15 per hour and generates 2 leads per hour on average.

Assuming all 3 telemarketers call 15 hours per week, this is what it looks like:

Telemarketer A - 15 leads - Total cost: $150 - $10 per lead

Telemarketer B - 22.5 leads - Total cost: $180 - $8 per lead

Telemarketer C - 30 leads - Total cost: $225 - $7.50 per lead

(Obviously there are a lot of variables here, but there is a case for paying more for a higher quality telemarketer with experience or potentially investing in Callfire or Mojo to increase the total leads/appointments generated)

Additionally, if you're only paying per lead, what's the incentive for the telemarketer? To generate as many leads as possible... So, you will end up with much lower quality leads.

Paying a commission based on your sales is also not ideal because the telemarketer's rate of pay is based upon your closing abilities as mentioned above. Most quality telemarketers would not be interested in this.