One way to understand cold calling is to review the results of being cold called yourself. I usually hear tele-callers out and my personal experience has been that about a quarter of the time they have been able to get me great deals.
Just within the last 6 months, my team and I have been cold sold:
1. Bandwidth. We need to buy a lot of it. The deal gave us - hold your breath - twice the BW for 90% of the price! From the same provider! If that was not enough, we have later negotiated a road map to reduce the price to 20% of what it was for a small increase in purchasing.
2. Printer ink. We had never analysed what HP was gouging out from us in cartridge costs, till a telecaller advised us to. Well guess what, a color cartridge that was marked as good for 450 pages actually measured in at 23! We have setup a CISS system now that seems promising in terms of printing cost.
3. A small finance deal at a good interest rate.
A decade ago we were cold sold a solution that resulted in a major business line for the next 5 years! I do believe hearing out telemarketers can be a very profitable exercise.
Telemarketing is effective for the person being called because the sales stance changes. When gauging interest, a telecaller is more likely to put his best offer on the table. For example 1 above, we regularly asked for discounts from our existing service provider. These requests were always channeled back to our existing relationship managers. It took a telecaller intent on getting his foot into our door to let us know the price level attainable.
However there are caveats. The examples above are all business solutions. I cannot remember a single time I was cold sold a residential service successfully. My private numbers are on DNC. I think business telemarketing is more effective for the following reasons:
1. Just the name of the business can give you a lot of information about what it does. With all the information available on businesses, providing a targeted solution is much easier. Residential information on the other hand is restricted under privacy laws.
2. Due to the lower ticket size of sales, residential telemarketing is often done by bureaus, hence are rarely personalised.
This is not to say residential telecalling cannot work, just that it should be restricted to larger ticket sizes and to cases where good information is available.
Any thoughts on above?
Just within the last 6 months, my team and I have been cold sold:
1. Bandwidth. We need to buy a lot of it. The deal gave us - hold your breath - twice the BW for 90% of the price! From the same provider! If that was not enough, we have later negotiated a road map to reduce the price to 20% of what it was for a small increase in purchasing.
2. Printer ink. We had never analysed what HP was gouging out from us in cartridge costs, till a telecaller advised us to. Well guess what, a color cartridge that was marked as good for 450 pages actually measured in at 23! We have setup a CISS system now that seems promising in terms of printing cost.
3. A small finance deal at a good interest rate.
A decade ago we were cold sold a solution that resulted in a major business line for the next 5 years! I do believe hearing out telemarketers can be a very profitable exercise.
Telemarketing is effective for the person being called because the sales stance changes. When gauging interest, a telecaller is more likely to put his best offer on the table. For example 1 above, we regularly asked for discounts from our existing service provider. These requests were always channeled back to our existing relationship managers. It took a telecaller intent on getting his foot into our door to let us know the price level attainable.
However there are caveats. The examples above are all business solutions. I cannot remember a single time I was cold sold a residential service successfully. My private numbers are on DNC. I think business telemarketing is more effective for the following reasons:
1. Just the name of the business can give you a lot of information about what it does. With all the information available on businesses, providing a targeted solution is much easier. Residential information on the other hand is restricted under privacy laws.
2. Due to the lower ticket size of sales, residential telemarketing is often done by bureaus, hence are rarely personalised.
This is not to say residential telecalling cannot work, just that it should be restricted to larger ticket sizes and to cases where good information is available.
Any thoughts on above?
