Telemarketing – Use all information to your advantage

Wow!  I just love receiving telemarketing calls.  I would guess that I am clearly in the minority; but for me, it is always an opportunity to study their sales style and learn something.  Last Friday, I received a call for “the owner”.  The telemarketer and I bantered back and forth as I tried to learn who I was talking to and as she tried to reach “the owner” without revealing too much.  Finally, I grew frustrated when she did not provide concise answers to my questions and blurted out “we are not interested”.

At that point, she completely caught me off guard, by asking if my name was Melissa.  I replied yes.  Then she wanted to confirm that I was the owner of the company.   The tone of this particular call might have been different if she would have asked to speak with me by name rather than asking for the owner (which is so impersonal).

I would guess that she had not read an article in our eBook titled “Utilizing Contact Information”.   The telemarketer failed to use the information that she evidently had at her fingertips and lost the opportunity to persuade me to talk further.

So as you are making sales calls, always use the information you have to your advantage.  Ask for contacts by their first name – rather than by their title.