Hiring Telemarketers

[honestagent]

John, I notice you pay an hourly rate and not per appointment? Why do you not pay per appointment? I was thinking of hiring somebody to help me with calling on seniors and I would pay per 'qualified' appointment versus and hourly rate to avoid a crap lead. I was thinking somewhere between $15.00 to $20.00 per appointment.

Thoughts....

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

If I get crap leads I fire my marketer so how can I lose? I also pay a week behind. If they work this week from the 18th through the 22nd I don't cut a check until the 29th so I get a chance to call and verify all the leads. Just how much do you think I'm paying a marketer who ignored the marketing contract they signed and gave me bad leads?

 

[honestagent]

You evidently have formulized a working system that's efficient and I can genuinely appreciate that; hence my question. So here's another silly question for you then if you do not mind, please.

Okay so you're basing the hourly pay off of the law of #s so a true hustling aggressive marketer is going to get 3 qualified appointments or leads at the rate of 60 calls in 1 hour (which I am assuming 60 calls in 1 hour is an aggressive telemarketer's average give or take a bit a little from 60) - and of the roughly 60 calls, 3 qualified leads or appointments should be set. Is this correct? In othe words, John, is 60 or roughly 60 calls in 1 hour a true barometer of an aggressive working 'doing it right' telemarketer?


(funny, all of this time that I've been calling, I have never kept a ticker. Some days - rare thogh - I was on the phone for just a few hours and I was good. And other days, damn, I could be on it the whole damn day only to get 2 if I were lucky. Hence my querry John. And okay, I will admit too that I took some breaks but not many - which is why I am asking the above question/s. Thanks in advance. )

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

60 dials per hour is about what it takes to generate 3 leads, 40 will get you 2 leads and another under 40 is horrible. Ironically, a chatty telemarketer can harm you but bs'ing with people. It's easy to spend 15 minutes shooting the s**t with people who are interested and now the time is chewed up. Call, get the info, say thank you, onto the next call. I also don't have my marketers waiting for machines to pick up - about 5 rings then hang up and go the next call. No messing around with gatekeepers - get to the next call.

 

[trvlnut]

How are your telemarketers getting past the gatekeeper to speak with the owner?

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

They don't. If it's a gatekeeper they ask to speak with the owner. If they put up a road block it's onto the next call. They are calling a list of 1-4 employees so there's not many gatekeepers. If you're calling larger businesses it'll be endless gatekeepers and a nightmare.

 

[honestagent]

60 dials per hour is about what it takes to generate 3 leads, 40 will get you 2 leads and another under 40 is horrible. Ironically, a chatty telemarketer can harm you but bs'ing with people. It's easy to spend 15 minutes shooting the s**t with people who are interested and now the time is chewed up. Call, get the info, say thank you, onto the next call. I also don't have my marketers waiting for machines to pick up - about 5 rings then hang up and go the next call. No messing around with gatekeepers - get to the next call.

Hey John, I genuinely really appreciate your data; it helped me so much today just with tracking my own #s while on calls so if I ever get to the point where I can get somebody to help me, I now can gage much better and I thank you immensely!

 

[senior-advisor-indiana]

So you are only using the telemarketers for leads and not pre set appointments? I would like to hire one good telemarketer for setting me appointments. That way I could be running 5 appts a day without calling. I am gonna try and set myself 3 to 4 a day and then copy my script and look for marketers. Currently I am using my career offices' telemarketing for pre set appts. Its about a 80% closing ratio. But very slow weeks most of the time.

 

[J.R.]

If calling yourself (not paying someone) I totally disagree with the idea of hanging up to voice mail. I often call brand new businesses (I get the list of new biz licenses taken out in my area) When I call and the machine come on, I leave a voice msg. What are we talking about here? An extra 40 seconds? Some of these entities are in the very first stages of start-up and they don't have an agent for anything insurance-related.

Very true, but I give new owners 3-6 months before I call them.

No I don't get many call-backs. But I get some. Friday the owner of a new franchise (out of Oregon) called Pizza Shmizza called. The guy is building the store and he wants to get a group policy for his staff (once he hires them and opens the restaurant). He was happy that I called and left a msg. We had a great chat about New York style pizza, etc. I sent him some 'sample' quotes (thank you, BenefitMall!) and I have no doubt that he will get his policy from me when he opens next month. Had I just hung up, it would have been an opportunity lost.

I left about 350 messages in the past month for internet leads and received 3 calls backs who could not be helped due to health reasons and the fact they couldn't afford anything above $100 a month. Good luck with that one. Essentially, I don't think I wasted time because I learned a very valuable lesson. From the time I call somebody to hanging up after I leave a message I'm right around 55ish seconds (gotta love the 7-8 ring answering machine people). I spent about 5ish hours total leaving those messages and got a very bad return. That could have been spent on 2 appts. and 3 hours of telemarketing generating 4-6 leads w/ the average. I now don't leave any messages with internet leads. Telemarketed leads are a different story and produce better results but the same BS

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

I always leave messages on Internet leads. About 12% call back and I'm guessing I get in touch with another 25% or so.

I know I keep saying this, but I tell them NOT TO CALL THE OUT OF TOWN agents that contact them. If they don't recognize the calle ID...don't talk to them.