Tip For Telemarketers - Know Your Customer, Know Your Product

Lately, we seem to be receiving more telemarketing phone calls than usual. I thought that I had already opted out of receiving them, but I will have to double check. Maybe it has been a year and it is time to renew my request to be left alone. None-the-less, it amazes me how unprofessional some telemarketers are.

First off, if you're going to mention that your business is going to be in my area for a "free demo", make sue that you can at least pronounce the name of the area correctly. There's nothing quite like receiving a call from a non-local business who is intending to win customers in a new market, and they can't even pronounce the city's name correctly. It makes it fairly apparent that they have never been here. And since they obviously don't have any interest in at least learning how to pronounce where I live, why should I have any interest in their crappy product?

The next tip that I have has to do with the product that you are attempting to sell as a telemarketer. I was recently contacted by a telemarketer trying to sell me a copy of a newspaper subscription. The newspaper was titled the "Morning News" and I had never heard of it before. I asked them what city it covered, and they had no idea. They fumbled and stuttered for a few minutes and could not produce an answer, so I could not produce an interest.

Come to think of it, these two "tips" are important in nearly any sales position, telemarketing or not. If you don't know the details, it looks like you don't care to learn them. And if you don't care about selling it, why should I care about buying it?