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

***************************************************************** 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. *****************************************************************

Traditional telemarketing is a one-size fits all method. It presumes that everyone has the same needs, and a solution, pre-selected by the seller, will be appropriate in every conversation.

The New Telemarketing™ operates from the premise that calls need to be custom-manufactured. This means certain elements need to appear in all calls, but there are some unique aspects that need to be customized to the tastes and interests of each listener.

Moreover, even if listeners were, in fact, the same, and had identical needs, they want to be treated as individuals, and the ritual of eliciting their individual needs constitutes a significant buying satisfaction, in itself.

Specifically, a New Telemarketing™ call will get the prospect to say these three things:

(1) I have a need.

(2) My need is important, and worth addressing, now.

(3) I want your help in addressing it.

When a customer utters these things, she is qualified and motivated, and she realizes it from monitoring her own admissions along these lines.

From this moment of acknowledgement, the buyer pushes for completion of the sale, and the seller doesn’t have to push, at all.

This is a defining moment in a New Telemarketing™ call.

It feels as if the customer is freely choosing to buy, instead of forcibly being sold.

And the conversation feels like a customer service encounter and not a contentious selling situation.

In future articles we’ll discuss the mechanics involved in getting customers to agreeably disclose they have a need, it is important, and they want our help.

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®, 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.