Third in a series of articles, we’ll discuss various issues and practices associated with modern ways of selling over the phone.

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The New Telemarketing™ is a set of selling practices designed to accomplish several things:

(1) To sell more goods and services than its predecessor, the “traditional” style;

(2) To be less offensive than its predecessor to buyers;

(3) To be consistent with a customer service style of communicating;

(4) To help in recruiting and retaining qualified phone representatives and managers; and

(5) To repair and reform the image of telemarketers in business and consumer communities.
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One of the main problems with traditional telemarketing is that it is designed as a one-way communications medium.

Scripts, which are commonly used, and by the way, which are necessary, are monologues. They operate from an authoritarian premise that says:

“Me talk, you listen!”

Of course, if that sounds primitive, it is. Modern folks don’t want to be talked down to, or even to be talked at.

They crave participation, and their generation, being the best educated ever, has been weaned on participative communication.

They were asked their opinions at home and in countless classrooms, by indulgent parents and teachers, and they expect to be conferred with, and their advice solicited, during calls.

Getting them to sit still to hear and then respond to a phone lecture that can last two minutes or more is fruitless. Hey, they can’t turn off their cell phones without remorse, or shut up at the movies, an official one-way medium, so why are they going to kick back and allow us to have all of the fun?

They aren’t, and the spray-and-pray format, where callers spray their features and benefits, praying some of them will resonate with listeners, is less and less attractive to fewer and fewer people.

So, a conversational model of telemarketing is required.

But how do you craft one that is efficient, where all control isn’t ceded to the prospect?

That's where The New Telemarketing™ comes in. It is designed differently, from the ground up, to appeal to buyers and sellers.

And we’ll explore this more intelligent and effective design in future articles.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of www.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®, You Can Sell Anything By Telephone! 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