If it’s up to me, I’ll interview, train, and get new telemarketers on the phones within four hours.

That’s right, four hours. And about half of that time will be taking or making live calls!

It can be done, but to accomplish it you have to have your systems in place. Your scripts, including answers to common questions and objections, must be distilled, and pre-tested for effectiveness.

Your training must include a certain amount of drilling, sometimes referred to as role-playing, but there’s no playing involved.

It’s work, a realistic simulation of what will occur on the phones, imminently.

This is a make-or-break design, and lots of people don’t make it.

But the ones that do, tend to get results faster than anyone thought humanly possible, and they dramatize how it’s possible to cut basic training time, and costs, to a tenth or even a hundredth of what they are, normally.

What does it tell you if people aren’t able to accomplish their phone mission right away, if they’re unable to set appointments, or open and close deals?

Typically, they’re wandering from the presentation, or they’re so timid that they can’t project a winning personality over the phone.

The former is correctable; but the latter isn’t.

You should be with them, side by side, after they’ve been on the phones for about ten minutes, guiding them back to the text, reminding them of what you covered, in training.

Feed them “close’ likes when they stray, prompts, such as “So, what we’ll do is this…” and “Ok?” and any other phrases that they have been exposed to in your simulations.

You’ll be amazed how quickly they come up to speed, and in the alternative, you’ll be grateful for how little it cost to find out that they’re incapable of doing so!

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, is a popular keynote speaker, management consultant, and seminar leader and the best-selling author of 12 books, including Reach Out & Sell Someone® and Monitoring, Measuring & Managing Customer Service, and the audio program, “The Law of Large Numbers: How To Make Success Inevitable,” published by Nightingale-Conant. He is a frequent guest on radio and television, worldwide. A Ph.D. from USC's Annenberg School, a Loyola lawyer, and an MBA from the Peter F. Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University, Gary offers programs through UCLA Extension and numerous universities, trade associations, and other organizations in the United States and abroad. He holds the rank of Shodan, 1st Degree Black Belt in Kenpo Karate. He is headquartered in Glendale, California, and he can be reached at (818) 243-7338 or at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.