It’s no secret that outsourcing is a great way to maximize the costs of time and energy for any savvy business owner or manager. More and more companies are taking advantage of the many benefits, in a variety of business fields.

Inside sales outsourcing is often one of the best solutions for businesses when concerned with lowering the cost of employment and maximizing the bottom line of profits. Because inside sales do not require leaving an office or making face to face encounters to complete the sale, it can be subcontracted to another region, or even another country. The major reasons for outsourcing could be pay, salary, benefits, and employment perks - differing from the standard where you are currently located and basing your operation from.

When a company outsources its business it transfers either the management or the daily functions of the business, or sometimes both, to another service provider. Some of the businesses that are most often outsourced are in the fields of information technology, customer service and support, market research, human resources, sales, accounting, etc. It’s a logical step for a business to outsource its inside sales department to maximize its potential.

Not only is outsourcing a way to save labor costs, but it is also a good way to capitalize on a more effective and more efficient use of resources. For example, land costs of owning office space in a certain part of a city, state, or country can be phenomenally higher than what the same office space and facilities would cost a business owner elsewhere. Everything from land cost to the operating costs such as certain utilities can be affected negatively or positively from where you are located. Rather than staying tethered to a region or plot of land and paying a premium for it, many businesses see the benefits of outsourcing to other places.

If you think about it, it wouldn’t make as much sense to keep a business running from Phoenix where you pay out the nose for air conditioning in the summer if you can pay someone else for the same work and not have to worry about allocating that capital towards such utility payments. Since once again, actual location for inside sales really doesn’t matter the same way it would for, say, a restaurant, inside sales outsourcing just makes sense.

Besides location benefits, an increase in quality can often be observed by businesses who have outsourced their product services. It is possible then to negotiate a new service level agreement with the subcontractor which could very well mean an overall improvement in quality from the way things were before, and access to a knowledge base that has more experience and skill. In these ways, outsourcing could be viewed as a catalyst to a fresh change that may not occur in a company otherwise.

Additionally, unlike dealing with internal services, the services that you are using your outsourced subcontractor for will be delivered under a legal contract which would have financial and legal penalties if they are not carried out to your satisfaction as laid out in the terms of agreement. Outsourcing then becomes more black and white and the individuals and the company fulfilling those duties are held more accountable in a way than they would be just within the company.

And of course, one of the last great benefits to negotiating your inside sales outsourcing is that it grants you access to a larger and more diversified talent pool for hiring workers, and a renewable source of skill sets to keep contributing to your company and its success.

Andy West is a writer for Inside Sales Lab, a company specializing in consulting services to improve inside sales with hands-on experience. For more information on inside sales outsourcing , please visit InsideSalesLab.com.

As an employer one of the most important things when it comes to running your business is to make sure that it is profitable. In order to survive as a small business or any other business for that matter, you have to make sure that the money that you are bringing in is enough to cover the cost of operating expenses such as payroll, rent and electricity. In addition to covering operating expenses, business owners also want to make a profit so that they can make a living as well. If a business owner is not seeing the type of profit that he or she would like to see coming into their business, it may be time to bring in an outside consultant to see where improvements can be made. Individuals such as telesales consultants specialize in sales and help to increase profits for business owners.

The main reason for bringing in telesales consultants is to evaluate the productivity of your current operations. There is always room for improvement when it comes to business operations, therefore business owners do not have to see a problem in order to call in a consultant. The idea is to bring in a consultant before your business is in dire need of some help. Consultants can prevent businesses from being in a poor financial situation because of decreased sales. They can also help each business stay on track and improve where there is the need. When it comes to consultants business owners are not required to implement each recommendation, however it is strongly advised to listen carefully to each recommendation and evaluate what is the best option for your business.

Telesales consultants are trained professionals who are experts in sales. Oftentimes consultants have been in the business for a number of years and bring their expertise from their work experience to the table when it comes to consulting. Most consultants have a bachelor’s degree at a minimum and typically study business administration, economics or marketing. These specific areas of study teach the skills and knowledge necessary to be successful in the business world. Most consultants take the knowledge they learn in the classroom and apply it to the business operations of the organization that they are consulting. In addition to the classroom knowledge, because of the fact that most telesales consultants are previous business professionals themselves, they bring experience and knowledge from their years in the business world as well.

When it comes to telesales, there are numerous areas where a business can improve. One of the biggest areas to improve in any business is the budget. Telesales consultants can evaluate the current business budget and give recommendations for where to improve. It is important to trim the fat when it comes to the budget and tighten up any loose ends. Errant spending and low productivity can wreak havoc on any business operation. By increasing productivity and keeping an eye on spending the budget can be brought under control.

Another area of improvement for any business is project management. If projects are not managed efficiently than that can decrease productivity and increase costs. Telesales consultants aim to evaluate the procedures when it comes to project management in order to increase productivity. Consultants will recommend a course of action in order to bring project management under control. The recommendation can range from retraining managers to putting together new employee manuals.

There are many consultants available on the internet; however it is important to make sure that you find the right consultant for your business. If a business owner is looking to improve in the telesales department then a consultant that specializes in telesales is your best option, just as a consultant that specializes in marketing is ideal for a marketing department overhaul. Either way, each consultant has a specialized expertise to bring to the table. Be sure you choose wisely.

Andy West is a writer for Inside Sales Lab, a company specializing in consulting services to improve inside sales with hands-on experience. For more information on telesales consultants please visit InsideSalesLab.com.

Many business owners feel that if they perform a certain business operation in-house then they will cut down on costs and save money in the long run. However, that is not always the case with most businesses. Just because a certain function can be performed in-house does not mean that it is the best solution. There are a lot of factors to evaluate when it comes to making sure a business operation is efficient and productive. One way to make sure that a business is running efficiently is to bring in a consultant to evaluate business operations and give recommendations for improvement. When it comes to sales, some recommendations may be to outsource telesales and other sales functions. This can help decrease costs and increase productivity among your current employees. Many telemarketing businesses do not have the resources and manpower to perform sales operations properly, therefore outsourcing may be the best option.

The first step to outsource sales is to evaluate your current operations and see if there is a need for outsourcing. If you are happy with your current operations than outsourcing may not be the best option, however if you see areas of improvement, outsourcing may be a great alternative. Sales are one of the most important factors in keeping a business afloat. Poor sales can mean the difference between a business surviving and a business shutting down operations. Because of this, it is important that the sales department is operating to its fullest potential. If it is not operating to its fullest potential than it may be time to consider outsourcing to another business that specializes in this area. It is important to consider all of the available options before a business owner makes a decision. It is also important to make the decision in a timely manner because the last thing a business wants to do is get so far too far in debt.

There are many businesses all over the world that specialize in sales operations. Because of the fact that a business specializes in sales, this particular business most likely has the resources necessary to be successful. Most businesses that do not specialize in telesales will not have the same resources as a business that revolves around this business function. Businesses that specialize in telesales staff employees specifically for sales. This means that the employees are fully trained to perform sales operations and have more experience than employees at other businesses that do not specialize in sales. When businesses outsource telesales, they are ensured that the employees working on their account are trained professionals who will devote their full attention to increasing sales for each business. The best way to increase sales is to have trained professionals who are specifically trained in this area performing the necessary sales functions for the business.

In addition to well trained employees working on their account, businesses will also see the benefits of increased productivity with their current employees when outsourcing telesales. By eliminating sales, employees will have the opportunity to focus on different business functions that they are more comfortable with and have better training in. When employees feel comfortable in their job duties, productivity is increased and business operations are able to run smoother. With smoother business operations and increased productivity, businesses will most likely see profits increase. In addition to increased profits, if an employee is happy with their current position, it will mean less turn over. A low turn over rate means less cost in advertising and training to hire new employees. Overall you will see a benefit for your business when outsourcing telesales.

Andy West is a writer for Inside Sales Lab, a company specializing in consulting services to improve inside sales with hands-on experience. For more information on outsource telesales , please visit InsideSalesLab.com.

If you are a business owner or manager and telesales is part of your company, then you should be aware of the many benefits of telesales outsourcing to help bolster your business and maximize its profits and prosperity.

Because telesales are not reliant on a physical location or direct face to face contact with the clients, there is no reason not to save huge percentages of money on time and labor costs by outsourcing to more effective and more efficient places, people, or companies than you may currently be tethered to.

If you think about the benefits, telesales outsourcing just makes sense. When you outsource, you form a legally binding contract with another subcontractor who assumes legal responsibility for that task. You get to set the terms, you get to set the level of performance, and they are legally bound to fulfill their obligation to you, with appropriate legal and financial repercussions if they fail to meet your standard. This can actually be surprisingly quite a lot more effective, efficient, and lucrative than using inside services for the same things.

Additionally, outsourcing saves you time. When you farm out the responsibilities to others, it frees up your time and energy to tend to other parts of the company. Telesales outsourcing is the most obvious of the responsibilities that can be delegated to someone else because it is so easily set up, trained, monitored, executed, and assigned elsewhere. Many, many companies have successfully made this move for their business, and have reaped the benefits for a long time now.

It is possible to outsource to another city, another region, another state, or even another country. Whatever suits your needs best. This simple change can save your company a lot of money in office space, facilities, utility bills, and the additional labor costs and time expenditures necessary in devoting capital towards all these things. The money saved on such things can be truly astounding, and more than worthwhile.

Often times, when business owners decide on telesales outsourcing, this move alone can act as a great catalyst for change within the company. The quality can increase in the service that is rendered and the smoothness in operation overall can go up. Outsourcing can mean a breath of fresh air and a change for the better which may not have happened without it.

One of the many great things about telesales outsourcing is that it opens up a massively more diverse and widespread talent pool for you to choose from. Rather than being restricted by the geography and demographics of your physical location wherever your company sets up shop, telesales outsourcing really opens the world up to you and you then have the ability to essentially choose from anyone in the world to be the right person for the job.

Along those lines, when you have more people to choose from, you have a stronger skill set, a larger knowledge base to choose from as well. You can end up with workers who are far more competent and efficient than anyone you could have hired from within the confines of your community. When you outsource, you have a better range of people with skills such as foreign language skills or useful areas of expertise.

Also, beyond a larger skill set from your potential employees, outsourced workers can often have more experience in the field. And of course above all else, your outsourced work is again guaranteed with a legally binding contract carrying financial and legal penalties if it is not conducted according to the terms that were agreed upon.

All in all, if you consider the savings on building leases, utility bills, labor costs, and also the greater talent pools to choose from, with more skill sets, knowledge, and experience than you can find from your office alone, telesales outsourcing just makes sense.

Andy West is a writer for Inside Sales Lab, a company specializing in consulting services to improve inside sales with hands-on experience. For more information on telesales outsourcing , please visit InsideSalesLab.com.

Have you ever wanted to increase your closing ratios? The first thing that will improve the number of people most people ever close is to actually have enough contacts. I’m not talking about just more advertising I mean actually picking up the phone and making contact. Most of us spend time coming up with the next neat idea and we think our way out of work. If you don’t have the contact taking place, first and foremost don’t even study what you may be doing wrong. DO ENOUGH wrong and eventually you will get some right!

The second thing you have to understand is why are you looking to connect with people? Really what is your why? It has to be deeper then the money. It has to be more or it’s just a job. Your why has to be deep! Do you believe in your product or service enough that you know it will make a difference in your client’s life in some way? Do you know for a fact that you are marketing a better way to accomplish X? Do you know that you know it will be a benefit to your client and IF you can get your client to see that you will make a sale? That will put you one more step closer to your goal!

Third, are you expecting to make solid connections or do you just wait and hope they happen? I’m not saying it’s all in the power of your thoughts, I don’t believe that. What I am saying is when you pick up the phone to talk to a perspective client if you are expecting to connect with that client versus hoping to connect your posture and tonality will be completely different. One says I know what you need and I can help. The other says I hope you let me help and please don’t say no. Closing is a game of posture and it starts with that first connection.

Fourth, are you responding or reacting to you clients when you connect. Responding means you are in control of the conversation reacting means your client has control. Look at it this way who’s asking the questions? You should not feel, fearful or intimidated when your client questions you at all. You smoothly handle the question and objection and confidently start leading the conversation again. Reacting show’s your client they are in control and you are not confident. It will certainly slow the closing process if the closing even takes place.

Finally, are you confident that what you are actually doing for your clients will even get you to your final goal? You work for a reason, either self employed or employed by someone else. Will marketing your product or service actually get you out of debt? Will it actually give you the time freedom you are looking for? Will you have the time with your family you want? If what we are doing leads us to where we want to go then we naturally work with a spirit of excellence. That confidence that comes from that spirit of excellence is attractive in the market place and will help to build stronger connections with our clients.

If you want to increase your closing ratios first you have to have plenty of connections in the first place. Then do you feel confident in that your product or service will fill whatever need your client has? Are you expecting to connect with your clients are you just making random sales calls? If you expect to connect and you are responding versus reacting your time just got more productive. Your time will stay productive and your closing ratio’s will stay up if you are confident in your career. Does your career lead you to an outcome you are looking for? If so you just got another step closer to better results.

Stacy O’Quinn is a Husband, Dad, Founder of the 6 Figure Income Club. You can see his complete story from 116,000 dollars in debt to almost debt free at http://www.moretimegreatmoney.blogspot.com

Leads in the technology sector are not discovered simply by a reference or a cold-call. Leads are nurtured from simple possible interest in services right until the final purchase decision. In traditional lead generation, the target could be anyone from a low level employee to a CEO, and you can span the entire range of B2B. In technology sales, however, the target market is almost exclusively B2B, and the target individuals are usually decision makers high up the corporate ladder. Identifying the target isn’t always difficult, but reaching them can be.

As a sales representative in the IT industry, you need to identify and reach the key influencers, evaluators, and recommenders, or you stand no chance of moving towards a sale.

Even when you do get to speak to the key decision makers, unless you completely understand the clients internal structure and can distinguish between Line of Business (LOB) and Technical Contacts, you will not gain success.

Regardless of how well you know your own products, to sell them you will need to understand the systems and processes of your potential clients. In order to accomplish this, you will need not only a broad understanding of enterprise software & enterprise technologies, but also a broad understanding of the underlying business issues and goals of your potential client. Unless you fully understand this situation, you can’t fully understand how your products and services can fit their needs.

Enterprise prospecting is a multi-stage process that allows a company to systematically narrow in on the correct individuals to speak to in an organisation, and subsequently discern the current or future fit for their services in the organisations they wish to prospect. Enterprise prospecting consists of several distinct stages which, when implemented effectively, help grow basic leads into full opportunities, and allow a business to target their full sales pitch on companies with a definite need and a definite interest. This means sales time is spent closing deals, and not trying to find them.

Stage 1 - List Development
While it seems a very basic starting-point for enterprise prospecting, effective list development is often overlooked. Effective list development can be the key to the success or failure of an enterprise prospecting campaign. If you don’t define the basic parameters of your target audience properly at the beginning, the rest of the prospecting process can be futile. Simply, if you are talking to the wrong customers, it doesn’t matter how good your sales process is, or indeed how good your product is. Enterprise prospecting is about finding potential customers with the right budgets and/or needs that make them possible future leads. Once the criteria for the target audience is established, a list of companies that meet the basic target criteria (geography, industry, systems in use, turnover, employees, etc.) should be drawn up. This can be accomplished from existing data, internet searches, purchasing from list brokers, or utilising a professional lead generation agency.

Stage 2 - Account Profiling
From the outline list of companies developed in Stage 1, the next step is to profile the data. Even if you used current data from your own databases, the details on the lists must be re-verified to help progress the campaign as smoothly as possible. Nurturing a lead for weeks, only to find that an internal change in the company has rendered them outside your target market is an expensive mistake.

Once the basic details are re-verified, the main process, major account profiling can begin. The first step in this process is to profile the companies to ascertain suitability for your companys solutions. This can vary greatly between companies, but here are a few examples:

- Company A is using suppliers X, Y and Z and is therefore a suitable target.
- Company B utilises a Unix operating system and is therefore suitable.
- Company C has no customer complaints department and is therefore unsuitable.

After each companys information has been verified, the next step in this process is to determine the key decision makers in the target company. Key contacts may have been established as part of the list development process, but they need to be re-verified. In addition, their responsibility needs to be established. An IT Manager will not necessarily have the decision making power over IT Infrastructure projects, so may not be the key contact for your prospecting.

The establishment of key individuals and their responsibilities allows prospecting efforts to be as targeted as possible, since prospecting to the wrong person is a waste of time and resources. However the key contact for a company could still be several people in the organization, depending on the project. For example, if you are prospecting for an ERP system, IT, Finance and Data managers could all be relevant key contacts.

Cleaning, verification, and enhancement of your data should be done systematically, and requires the skills of an experienced operative to acquire the relevant data without falling foul of corporate data restrictions such as policies. In addition, the person doing this enhancement must be experienced in enterprise prospecting and sales lead generation. Although the object is to gather data, and not to speak to key individuals at this stage, invariably you do sometimes get put through to the key contact. This could be your only opportunity to speak to them, so you have to be ready to nurture the prospect as the opportunity arises.

Another vital process of major account profiling is to establish internal relationships. Without knowing the internal relationships in the company, a prospector will find it difficult to target the correct areas and correct individuals at the correct times. If the IT Director reports to the Finance Director, you would target your prospecting differently than you would if the IT Director reports to the CEO.

The account profiling process will leave you with a list of highly qualified leads. This will save you time by helping you avoid chasing leads that are only marginally qualified or completely unsuitable for your products.

Stage 3 - Sales Lead Generation
Once the major account profiling has been completed, the sales lead generation process begins. Each company must be prospected as an entity. The relationship between the key contacts in the company (who reports to whom, etc.) must be established, and the decision-making abilities of each discerned. The sales partnering relationship begins here. Get off on a good foot here, and your job later will be much simplified. Remember, not every company may be a good prospect now, but if your list development process was correctly specified, they are in your target audience, and may be a prospect in the future.

Once the introduction of your product/service is completed, and the establishment of possible needs/requirements is completed, all leads must be classified to allow them to be tracked. You need to know what leads are ripe for your sales team to try to sell to now, which leads may be ready in a medium period (6-12 months), and which leads are possible future buyers, but with no definable time scale. Use a customer relationship management (CRM) system in some form to record all contacts with each of your leads. This will allow you to track the effectiveness of your sales process and to eliminate redundancies.

Correct classification of your prospects is key. Without this, your sales team will expend efforts on what are not current possibilities, while red-hot leads in other companies may slip by. Strategic Selling is part of the overall approach, not just part of the closing.

Stage 4 - Lead Nurturing
Not all Leads are ready to close directly after the lead generation process. In fact, very few are. Most leads enter into the nurturing process, where you have made the client aware of your services, established a possible need, and you decide the optimum time period before follow-up contact should be made. Again, this is where the expertise of the individual is paramount. Follow-up too soon, you risk annoying the customer, and being eliminated from any future sales. Follow-up too late, and even if the decision hasn’t been made, you may not be able to get your services on the table for consideration. It is a fine line, and one that is difficult to judge. However, getting it wrong at this stage costs your company medium and high-probability opportunities. 3rd party agencies in this area can be an excellent source of expertise without the need for in-house up-skilling and the associated problems of staff-retention and skill-set acquisition.

Following the four stages of enterprise prospecting will get you on the right track. However, even if you do effectively complete the list development, account profiling, sales lead generation, and lead nurturing stages, sales can still leak from the pipeline quite easily. In fact, this is the most expensive stage at which to lose a sale, as you have already invested the time and effort to develop, profile, prospect, and nurture the lead all the way to the point of sale. If you are exploring the route of enterprise prospecting, you should also ensure you reduce leaks from your sales pipeline.

Conclusion:
Sales lead generation in any sector, but especially in the IT Sector, is the critical method of driving revenue, increasing sales, and growing your company. However, the sales lead generation strategy is only as effective as the analysis, design, and implementation stages that are undertaken to put the strategy into action. If you take the time to properly analyse your own company and products/services, design a solid SLD Process, and implement it on a phased basis with on-going review, you will be on the right track. If you carefully manage the process on an ongoing basis, and ensure you have effective sales pipeline management, then you should see a significant increase in leads being nurtured and indeed closed sales.

Constant review of the process is essential. A process that works today will not necessarily work in six months. The market is constantly shifting, and just as your products and services must evolve, so must your sales process. You must manage all partners in the process (marketing, account profiling, etc.). If carefully managed, your sales lead generation strategy will be a key part of your recipe for success.

Enterprise prospecting should be part of an overall integrated marketing/relationship marketing strategy. There are many facets to the process of driving sales. Just as direct and targeted sales lead development work can drive revenue, so can more general marketing efforts. Direct mailing, email newsletters, website promotion, search engine optimisation, and, where appropriate, trade shows are all elements of the general marketing process that should also be explored to get your products and services in front of as many key decision makers as possible.

Michael Kelly is the managing director of TSL Technology Marketing. TSL is a IT Lead Generation company focused on helping software companies generate new business in Europe and North America. The company provides a range of IT lead generation and IT Pay Per Lead services. Contact: Michael Kelly, TSL Technology Marketing +353 91 444 124 mkelly@tsleads.com. More information http://www.tsleads.com/

There are 3 basic ways to pay for a voice broadcasting campaign, and one of the most frequently asked questions is “which way is cheapest for me”. As you may suspect, there is no one-size-fits-all answer, so let’s discuss the different methods used to charge for broadcasting, and highlight the benefits and potential pitfalls of each.

Pay Per Live Transfer

With the pay per transfer method, a set fee ($x.xx) is charged for each call that is transferred to you as a result of the listener pressing “1″ in response to your recorded message. The fee should not vary depending on the length of the transferred call, costing the same whether you’re on the phone for less than a minute, or for hours. This method is the easiest to understand, and has the most predictable costs of any of the 3 methods.

However, one pitfall of this method is since it cannot be used if to deliver messages to answer machines (obviously, a message on an answer machine cannot “press 1″ and turn into a live transfer…), it is limited to broadcasters who are delivering their message to live answered phone numbers only.

And despite the exact cost predictability associated with pay per transfer, it is not always the least expensive method. If your message and/or calling list results in an above average response rate (with more than about 1% of the live deliveries resulting in a “press 1″ transfer), it is possible that paying on a per minute basis might be less costly in that instance.

And a final pitfall is not with the pay per transfer method itself, but with some voice broadcaster’s ads and websites claiming extremely low (we’ve seen as low as $2.00 per transfer advertised). In every case of this that we’ve seen, the voice broadcaster is actually charging per minute, but claiming that you “might” obtain an effective cost per transfer that low. So, when speaking with any voice broadcasting company who advertises a pay per transfer cost, make sure that is exactly how they really charge you.

Pay Per Delivery

With pay per delivery charging, a set fee ($0.xxx) is charged for each delivered message. This method can be used for live answered as well as answer machine delivered broadcasts, so if you’re delivering to answer machines this is one to consider.

Again, this method is very predictable in terms of cost, but in some instances you may pay less using pay per minute.

Some other pitfalls include broadcasting companies who are charging you “per dial” or “per connect” (be careful of the word “connect” - some companies use this word in a misleading way, to simply mean a “dial”). You don’t want to be paying for calls made that don’t result in an actual delivered message, to either a live answered phone or voicemail. Often, calling lists will have 30-40% of their numbers that don’t result in delivered messages.

Another pitfall is that some companies may charge you extra per minute for transferred calls. For cost predictability and transparency, it’s best to keep it simple, and pay only for each delivered message.

Pay Per Minute

This method is the least predictable in terms of total cost to you, and also contains the most possible pitfalls, yet in some circumstances can be the least costly.

The problems in predicting cost with this pricing method include;

- Call timing - what increments (whole minute, six second, one second) are used to time (and bill) each call.

- Number of decimal digits used - the number of digits used to compute the billed cost of each call. (If only two digits are used, every call will cost an average of 1/2 cent more that you predicted.)

- Rounding - for each call cost calculation, is the result rounded to the nearest digit, given the number of digits used, or is it rounded up to the next highest digit. “Rounding up” can also cost as much as 1/2 cent per call more that you expected.

- Connected or System Time - the call timing may include dialing and ringing time (system time) or just the time connected to the dialed phone number. Using system time can add 18 - 30 seconds to the billed duration of each call.

The mathematical complexities of these variables are compounded by the fact that the representative of the broadcasting company you are considering may honestly not know exactly how they do this billing, or worse, may mislead you about their methods. The results of various combinations can be extremely surprising. These variables can have such a great effect that, for example, it would be easy to set up a 1.5 cents/minute plan that actually costs more than a 4 cents/minute plan.

Given the difficulty of predicting costs with this pricing method, here are some general guidelines about the types of broadcast campaigns that often can use per minute pricing cost-effectively:
- campaigns delivering a message to both live answered and voicemail numbers
- campaigns with a shorter than average (30 sec. or less) recorded message
- campaigns with a higher than average live answered response rate

Least Cost Solution
Unfortunately due to the billing complexities noted above, coupled with the different variables that are specific to your particular campaign and market, it is exceedingly difficult to accurately predict costs without actually running a test campaign. Once you do that, probably the best way to protect yourself is to use a broadcaster that has simple reporting so that you can easily calculate costs for the alternative scenarios, based on your actual broadcast, and to also make sure up-front that your broadcaster will allow you to change your pricing scenario, without penalty, once you have done some testing.

David Seldon operates LivePhoneLeads.com providing voice broadcasting services for businesses. Find more informative articles about voice broadcasting at Live Phone Leads.

Business people who are thinking about using voice broadcasting as a lead generation technique often fail to carefully consider whether they should broadcast to live answered phones, answer machines, or both. This is probably because they’ve read something describing one technique, or a friend has told them about their experience.

Even experienced voice broadcasters will often have tried only one type of delivery, simply because that is the method they’ve always used, they know it works, so they feel “why bother trying something different?”

The thoughtful broadcaster will be more curious, though, realizing that for a particular market, or a particular message, one delivery method will probably be a less costly lead generation solution than the other. It is impossible to accurately predict an outcome for every market and message, but this article will describe the fundamental differences that a broadcaster will experience between live and answer machine delivered messages.

The biggest attraction for broadcasters employing “live only” broadcasts is the immediacy of the experience. They are able to “strike while the iron is hot” by speaking immediately to all the respondents who press “1″ in response to their message. The “live only” broadcaster enjoys the fact that when they turn their broadcast campaign on, their phones begin ringing.

This attraction is also tied in with the biggest drawback to the “live only” broadcast - the fact that it is so easy for the respondent to reach over to their phone and press “1″. The problem is, it’s also easy for an uninterested party who just wants to complain and ask to not be called again. So along with the immediate gratification of receiving calls, and the knowledge that the broadcaster is “leaving no stone unturned”, comes the unfortunate fact that a good proportion of the live transfers have absolutely no value as leads.

Alternatively, other broadcasters may use the “answer machine only” message delivery technique. Their message will not have an invitation to press “1″, of course, but will encourage prospects to call a phone number, or perhaps visit a website, or both. The biggest difference a broadcaster will notice between the two methods is that with the “answer machine only” method, their phones don’t start or stop ringing along with the broadcast running or stopped, and their phones don’t ring nearly as much.

The volume of response to an “answer machine only” campaign will be much lower than for a “live only” broadcast. This is simply because it takes much more effort on the respondent’s part to hear a message, if interested, record or remember the phone number or website, and then to actually pick up the phone and call. This is seen as a large drawback by most “live only” broadcasters, who prefer to have lots of activity corresponding to their broadcasting activity.

Despite this, the biggest positive to the “answer machine only” campaign is that the amount of negative calls (the calls asking to be removed from the call list) is greatly reduced, and sometimes eliminated. Additionally, the quality of the calls that are made back to the broadcaster is usually much higher, that is, the caller is much more likely to be considered a good lead, simply due to the fact that they’ve gone to more trouble to call back, and are usually more aware of the contents of the broadcast message.

The savvy broadcaster should test, and carefully track results, using each method before deciding on one or the other.

David Seldon operates LivePhoneLeads.com providing voice broadcasting services for businesses. Find more informative articles about voice broadcasting at Live Phone Leads.

A typical attitude among new voice broadcasters or businesses thinking about using voice broadcasting is that a great majority of their responses will turn out to be good leads. In most cases this is far from true. Yet despite the fact that a minority of responses turn out to be good leads, voice broadcasting can be employed profitably in many instances, given a thoughtful approach and good business metrics.

If a broadcaster is delivering a message to live-answered phones only, and accepting press one live transfers to sales staff, we’ve seen many successful campaigns that obtain only a 15%-25% “long call rate”. (Here a long call is defined as a call where both parties are on the phone together for a minimum of 1 1/2 minutes.) And this is not to imply that all of the “long calls” turn out to be classified as good leads by the broadcaster. Far from it. Some broadcasters have told us that often only 1/2 or even less of the long calls are good leads.

This is why it is so important that a business consider their business metrics carefully as they embark on a voice broadcast campaign. For example, if their effective cost for a “long call” is $25, and 1/2 of them are good leads, and they can ultimately close 1/4 of the good leads, then the cost of a sale for them is $200. If the profit for a single sale is not substantially more than $200, their own business metrics may make it impossible to employ voice broadcasting profitably.

These numbers will vary widely among industries, and are affected by both the message as well as the target audience. For example, the hypothetical firm “Wonderful Web Widgets”, wanting to sell website services to small business, would be ill advised to send a broadcast to an “all businesses” list, because such a list would include large businesses (which they’re not targetting), as well as many small businesses that have not found a need to have websites.

Why send a message to beauty parlors and accountants if these industries aren’t normally interested in websites? This just increases the cost of the lower number of good leads that are obtained.

Another thing to consider is the mode of the broadcast campaign. The example above was about a live delivered message. What about answer machine / voicemail campaigns?

For most industries, the response rate for the live delivery - live transfer campaign is between 0.6% and 1.0%. Meaning that for every 100 calls delivered to a live answered line, there is less than 1 transfer.

For a campaign that leaves messages on answer machine / voicemail, the numbers will be significantly lower, because the prospect will have to have enough interest to write the callback number down, and then call it back, taking much more effort than simply “pressing 1″ during a live message. These numbers are impossible for us to track, since the calls back to the broadcaster don’t utilize our broadcast system, but broadcasters who use this method have indicated to us that the call back ratio is probably 1/4 to 1/3 of the live transfer rate for a similar message.

For a businessperson considering voice broadcasting as a lead generation system, the message is important, the calling list is important, and the basic business metrics are probably the most important factor to consider when planning a campaign.

David Seldon operates LivePhoneLeads.com providing voice broadcasting services for businesses. Find more informative articles about voice broadcasting at Live Phone Leads.

A businessperson using voice broadcasting (automated telemarketing) to generate sales leads must craft a pre-recorded message to produce qualified leads as inexpensively as possible. And the message has a very short time (45 sec. or less) in which to do this.

Every word counts. Here are the three worst mistakes we run into, quite often. We’re going to use as an example a hypothetical company, Wonderful Web Widgets (WWW) - who wants to sell a web based service to businesses that enables businesses to create and communicate with a list of prospects on the web automatically.

#1 - Use of the company name. Almost always a big mistake. When the message says “Wonderful Web Widgets” the prospect who’s listening doesn’t know that name at all, and they are not impressed or further qualified by hearing it. It is just a waste of time to state it. EXCEPTION - if your name is well known, or if you’re calling to a list of your customers, including your name is very important, as it quickly identifies you as a known entity to the listener.

#2 - Features instead of benefits. Prospects respond to benefits much more than the features of your product or service.

A feature rich message might say “our system uses a pre-programmed autoresponder sequence, with easy online management, with a simple javascript code placed on your website to generate the signup form.”

And a benefit rich message might say “our system produces sales for you by delivering a series of messages that you create to your prospects, completely automatically”.

Most prospects will find the benefit rich message much more interesting.

Discussing the features with a qualified lead may be necessary for a sale, but in the limited time available in your pre-recorded messages, describing features is a waste of time, and may also lose the interest of good prospects.

#3 - No qualifier. If you don’t include a qualifying statement, you will spend a lot of time and money speaking with unqualified prospects. This is obvious, yet many broadcasters neglect to include any qualifiers in their messages. For example, the WWW service described above might cost only $99 per month, but there is also a $1999 setup fee. The folks at WWW have learned that many prospects don’t buy when they hear about the setup fee.

In that instance WWW might put this into their message - “after a one-time $1999 setup cost, the service is available for only $99/month”. This message might sharply reduce the number of leads that WWW obtains from their voice broadcast campaign, but the quality of their leads will be higher, since they’ve heard the qualifier.

As you craft your own voice broadcasting message, don’t make these common mistakes. Avoid your company name, think hard about the primary benefit of your product, the primary qualifier for your prospects and stress those in your message.

David Seldon operates LivePhoneLeads.com providing voice broadcasting services for businesses. Find more informative articles about voice broadcasting at Live Phone Leads.