Guest Article: “Using Social Media for Sales Prospecting,” by Anita Campbell

Using Social Media for Sales Prospecting
by Anita Campbell

One of the hardest things for a sales professional is getting the right people to listen to you. Cold-calling is difficult, especially if you end up pitching someone who is not interested in spending money, or doesn’t have the authority to make decisions. That rejection is unpleasant, unhealthy, and it’s now unnecessary.

Social media offers the ability to reach out to people who are already talking about what you’re selling. All you have to do is find them, and that’s easier than you think once you’re using the right platforms, and using them in the right way. Imagine how your leads could grow if you placed your product in front of people who are already looking for it, and are in the mindset to spend. Not only would it be easier to turn prospects into leads, but you’d be saving everyone’s time and energy by reaching out to people already in the market for your product. That’s what social media can do for you, and your potential customers.

Twitter
Searching for conversations on Twitter that are pertinent to your field is fairly easy because the majority of Twitter’s content is public. It’s made even easier by using the Advanced Search feature of Twitter. Before diving in, though, the first thing to do is brainstorm all the related topics of conversation you could insert yourself into that could potentially yield sales. You may find that multiple topics are relatable to your products or services. For example, if you’re a wedding planner, you may want to search conversations about photographers, bakeries, and invitations. Giving a soon-to-be bride advice may help her realize the number of decisions she must make, and that she needs your help.

Once you have a list of topics to search, use conversational wording in your searches to get better results. If you sell cars, search for “what car should I buy” or “buy a car” (don’t forget to specify a location!) as it will reveal a larger number of people asking for advice about what car they should buy. As a car sales professional, you’re an expert in the current market and what products are available, so why not offer advice? Be helpful in addressing their questions and needs, and create a conversation around what they’re looking for, and they may seek you out when they’re ready to buy.

LinkedIn
If your business offers services, or your sales are B2B oriented, a good choice for social networking is LinkedIn. Not familiar with the site? It’s a social network aimed at companies and professionals, and gives them a place to connect with one another. While another great option for professionals is a business networking site, LinkedIn offers several features not found in other places.

One of these features is the Answers section, which is a way for professionals and business experts to give and receive business advice. Using the Advanced Answers Search feature, you can find questions that contain keywords related to your services. Answering these questions will give you the opportunity to share your expertise and knowledge, as well as information about the products or services you provide. By showing other members you have superior knowledge and great products or services, you may be able to foster connections with those asking questions, and explain how your business can help their own.

Quora
Just like LinkedIn Answers, Quora offers great opportunities for using questions and answers to reach prospects and encourage sales. While answering questions on LinkedIn offers the chance to connect directly with businesses asking questions about specific products or services, Quora allows you to position yourself as an expert in your field.

Quora is also similar to Twitter in that it’s designed for users to follow people who are thought leaders in their industry. The site organizes all the questions you answer under your profile so anyone who visits it can get a comprehensive view of your expertise. Because of this, answering questions regularly and on-topic with your products is important if you’re looking to attract certain prospects to your profile.

By using Twitter to get involved in current conversations, LinkedIn to answer direct questions from businesses, and Quora to showcase and promote your expertise, you’ll be on your way to developing the most strategic sales prospects for your business.

Anita Campbell is the Founder of the Small Business Trends website and CEO of BizSugar, an online community of small business owners.

Book Review: Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed

Whether you own your own business or are a salesperson responsible for generating your own sales, marketing is a major part of your business life.  In a world flooded with marketing messages where each marketer is trying to scream louder than the next, finding effective ways to get the word out to your target market is becoming increasingly difficult.

Author Patrick Schwerdtfeger  offers some sound advice and gives some solid help to  those in need of finding strategies to compete in a highly competitive marketing world in Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed: Leverage Resources, Establish Online Credibility, and Crush Your Competition (Wiley & Sons:  2011).

As the title indicates, Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed focuses on utilizing online resources and social media to find and reach quality prospects.  Schwerdtfeger contends that by learning to effectively use online marketing you can successfully compete with your competition—even the largest competitors—on a shoestring.

The book is a quick, easy read as it is broken into 79 chapters, each just two or three pages long. 

Naturally, such short chapters means that there is far more breadth than depth to the book.  That, however, doesn’t mean the book has little value as a serious resource for those seeking to learn how to increase their marketing effectiveness.  And although perfect as a beginner’s guide to internet marketing, Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed is likely to have some very useful tips for even highly experienced social media marketers.

Schwerdtfeger’s book is laid out in logical order—starting with a section to help you define your business model.  Chapters cover the basics such as developing your value proposition and elevator pitch to creating an e-mail list and writing your business plan.

All of these basics are in preparation for getting into the real marketing meat of the book.  Within 30 pages Schwerdtfeger has you researching keywords and writing positioning statements, understanding the strategy and content development of a website, including how to create content to build trust, increase your mailing list, and even drive revenue.

From there the book goes into developing a blog, optimizing your blog and website to drive traffic, understanding analytic data, and using shopping carts.

Schwerdtfeger than covers a large number of web resources that will help get your word out and bring in traffic such as blog directories, blog carnivals, and interacting with other bloggers.

Using email and articles, as well as forums and groups to market are covered in a number of chapters leading up to a discussion of four of the most critical social media platforms for the online marketer such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.  Schwerdtfeger dedicates multiple chapters to each of these four platforms, giving even the novice a good foundation for making them work effectively in their marketing plan.

For the serious seller or business owner who wants to maximize the potential of the web, Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed will not be the only resource they’ll need.  But it is an extremely helpful place to start as it covers a great amount of territory in only slightly more than 200 pages—and it concentrates on providing actionable guidance, not just introducing concepts.

Guest Article: “The Triangle” by Robert Terson

The Triangle
by Robert Terson

I was taught the Triangle in 1969 by Bob Trudeau while undergoing sales training.  Where Trudeau learned about it I know not, but he believed in it passionately and 42 years later I can say it meant more to my success as a salesman than any other tidbit of information.  We all tell a story in our own imitable style, and if today Trudeau listened to my rendition of the Triangle, no doubt he’d hear an altered version; but I hope he’d be pleased that I’ve passed on the Triangle to hundreds of people, in speeches, sales seminars, and airplanes flew to and from work.  I’d reach for pen and paper, draw a triangle, label each side, and tell my story.  The triangle is a sturdy geometric figure, if all three sides are solidly connected; otherwise all you have is a wobbly structure which eventually will crumble into a pile of naught.

Mental Attitude
The first side is Mental Attitude.  You must possess a positive mental attitude made out of titanium.  Anyone can be up when she’s winning, when everything is running like a well-oiled machine and success is the norm; show me a salesperson who is alert and grinning, enthusiastic, ready to forge ahead and make that next call after she’s gotten her teeth kicked in for a month-and-a-half and I’ll show you a Champion.

Work Habits
The second side is Work Habits.  I don’t care how talented you are, if you possess the selling acumen of Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, and Tom Hopkins combined—no one defiles Mother Law of Averages and gets away with it long term.  You must always do the work.  For a salesperson, that means making the calls, giving presentations.  There is no compromise.  Given the choice of a salesperson who gives six presentations a week and closes 60%, or one who gives ten presentations a week and closes 40%, I’ll take the latter any day ending in “Y.”

Salesmanship
Side three is Salesmanship.  If anyone knows your business better than you, best take a hard look in the mirror and ask why.  If anyone knows the intricacies of selling techniques better than you, time to challenge yourself again.  There are no excuses, no alibis.  It’s your business, your choice of making a living; you must know every aspect of your business—backwards, forwards, and sideways.  You must know selling techniques to the subtlest detail.

The Triangle is the lever and fulcrum of successful selling.  Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough, and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.”  If your Triangle is sturdy enough, you’ll move the world.  Everything you need to know, all the answers, fall under the purview of one of its three sides.

You can count on the Triangle; it’ll never let you down.  You also can count on utter failure unless all three sides are functioning in a robust manner.  It’s sort of like love and marriage: “…you can’t have one without the other[s]…”

Draw a large triangle and label its three sides.  Frame it and place it where you’ll see it every day.

Are you ready to move the world?

Robert Terson spent 40 years fearlessly selling advertising to small businesspeople; his passionate purpose as an author and speaker is to enlighten and inspire you to be a far better salesperson than you are now.  You can learn more about and from him at SellingFearlessly.com

“Your Call Is Very Important to Us” and Other Lies

The automated call answering machine has certainly changed the nature of interacting with companies.  Whereas in the past when calling a company you might get a surly representative, now you often get an automated lie.

How often do you call a company and once given any option other than “sales” are immediately put on hold (funny how you can almost always get immediately through to the sales department isn’t it)?  If your calls are anything like mine, and I’m sure they are, you experience this on a far too regular basis. 

Once on hold you can predict with almost certainty what will come next—that all too familiar phrase, “Your call is very important to us.”  Of course after being on hold for a few minutes and having heard that message three or four times, you can’t help but think that your call is obviously not important enough to answer.

Our first contact with the company is a lie.  Nice going company.

Oh, but that is hardly the only lie we so often encounter before we even speak to a company representative.  Many times that initial lie assuring us our call is very important is followed up with another standard lie–that the company is currently experiencing unusually high call volume.  With many companies you’ll hear this message every time you call–no matter the time of day or night or the day of the week the call is made.

So our first contact with the company is greeted with two lies before we even speak with a human.

Do you feel wanted and appreciated yet?  Do you feel that your business is important and valued?  Do you feel that you are anything more to the company than a checking account?

And once we reach a human what happens?

In many cases the same type of standardized lie continues.

Have a complaint?  “We’ll investigate and get back to you.”  Often nothing but a stall hoping you’ll just go away.

Want to speak to a manager?  “I’m sorry, he/she is unavailable but if you’ll give me the details of what this is about I’ll have him/her return your call as soon as possible.”  Many times this is nothing but an attempt to keep you from speaking to a manager or is designed to give the manager the call details so they can decide whether they want to return your call or not.

My personal favorite, when asking for the name of a manager, an address to send a complaint to, or a phone number to the corporate office the response is, “I’m sorry, we are not allowed to give out that information.”  This may not be a lie—it may simply be company policy not to have actual lowly customers bothering those important people in the company who are far too busy and too important to be bothered with customers.

Of course it isn’t a lie every time we encounter these statements, but many times, probably more often than we care to know, these are simply lies designed to get rid of us or to block us from getting the resolution we desire.

It has gotten to the point that most of us expect to encounter some or all of this BS from many of the major companies we deal with.  We have come to accept the idea that many companies couldn’t care less about their customers despite their protestations and claims to the contrary.

I’m concerned that I’m noticing many of these same tactics that allow major companies to save big dollars by purposely under staffing or avoiding customer service issues being adopted by more and more small companies.

Large companies may be able to survive and even thrive based on sheer size and marketing ability, but small companies cannot afford to alienate and drive away their customer base.

Although virtually all of us will put up with automated answering machines, most of us prefer to speak to a human.  Few of us are willing to accept the impersonal and often downright rude behavior we get from major companies when dealing with smaller companies.  Many times we have chosen a small company specifically because we expect more personal and professional treatment.

Small can outwork, outperform, outsell, and out service big—but not by mimicking the most egregious mistakes and outrageous behavior large companies commit.

Many customers will stay on hold for 10, 20, even 30 minutes waiting to speak to someone at a big company while few would ever consider doing so when calling a small company.

Some will accept the response that the individual can’t give out the name of a manager or the address of the office when dealing with a major company but would never put up with that when dealing with a small company.

Many customers will resign themselves to having to invest large amounts of time and energy to resolve an issue with a large company but expect—demand—immediate resolution when dealing with a small company.

Selling small’s biggest asset is its ability to connect with prospects and clients on a truly personal level.  That is something that is very difficult for large companies to do because they usually have so many points within the company that touch the customer that it is very difficult to keep all of those touch points personal and in alignment with customer wants and needs. 

Add that difficulty with the large company’s desire to keep costs to a minimum by maintaining insufficient staff levels and you have a great opportunity for a small company to compete very successfully—as long as that small company avoids those large company mistakes and issues.

Personal relationships and service sells, and mega-company indifference is a perfect weak spot for small companies to capitalize on.

Are you taking advantage of the lies and indifference of your big competitors? 

Or are you one of the growing numbers of small companies mimicking those lies and the indifference, trying to cut a couple bucks of costs? If you are, you’re giving up one of your major advantages over your big competitors—and you probably won’t have to worry about saving those couple of bucks very long because your big competitors will drive you out of business.

Embrace your big advantage—your ability to get personal, to react quickly, to make the customer experience one they enjoy instead of one they just have to put up with.

Ancestory.sales: Do You Know Where You Came From?

McCord Family Crest

I really haven’t been too into researching my family tree, but recently I decided to do a bit of research and made some interesting discoveries about both my father’s and my mother’s families.

I always believed my father’s family came from Ireland—part of the potato famine exodus.  Wrong.  We came almost directly from Scotland with a very brief, less than one generation, stopover in Belfast.  I discovered that in 1689 my great-grandfather 9 generations ago, who was the chieftain of a clan on the Isle Skye, was killed at the Battle of Killiecrankie Pass in Scotland while fighting for Charles II even though he and the clan were strict Scot Presbyterians.  Who could have guessed that? 

I discovered that my great-grandfather 7 generations ago was an original founder of Derry Township Pennsylvania (Hershey, PA today—Mmm, chocolate!).  Lancaster County Pennsylvania?  Really?  Would never have thought that.

The family eventually moved to Tennessee and then onto southern Illinois for several generations.  Ah, McCord wanderlust from Scotland to Ireland to Pennsylvania to Tennessee to Illinois—now that’s a family trait I recognize since we then migrated to Ohio to Kansas back to Ohio for a bit and then on to Texas.

I discovered we have a family coat of arms (and from the looks of it, it appears my ancestors who designed it were as artistically challenged as are the current generation of McCord’s). We have a family motto: “One Way, One Heart” (certainly the implied unity of the family didn’t transfer down to the 20^th and 21^st centuries).  We even have a tartan design of our own—you could be wearing my family’s plaid right this minute.

On my mother’s side I discovered the Dunn’s were really from England–like they were supposed to be.  But again to my surprise, I discovered that my great-grandfather 8 generations ago, Hugh Dunn, was one of the four founders of Piscataway, New Jersey in 1666.  Later one was the mayor of Lockland, Ohio during part of the Civil War. 

Wow, original founders of Derry Township, PA on one side and Piscataway, New Jersey on the other.  Real honest to goodness American pioneers.  We must have lost that spirit since it doesn’t look like any of us has helped found another town in the last 350 years.

I found direct ancestors who had been killed by Indians when their settlement was raided, at least two who had fought in the Revolutionary War, another had been killed in the French and Indian War, and others who had been farmers, foremen for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, wagon makers, lawyers, and weavers.

I felt like Steve Martin’s character in The Jerk when while at work one day he opened the just delivered phonebook and there on page 73 he found his name.  With great pride he proclaimed, “I’m somebody now! Millions of people look at this book everyday!  This is the kind of spontaneous publicity – your name in print – that makes people.  I’m in print!!”   I felt like I had ancestors; that I came from someplace—finally, I’m somebody now.

All of this warm and fuzzy discovery got me to thinking about all the salespeople that I’d met over the years that felt that they weren’t really anybody—that there wasn’t anything that grounded them in an honorable and noble profession.  These were men and women who simply woke up one morning and found themselves in the unfortunate position of selling for a living while wishing they had a “real” job, one that demanded respect and honor like Marketing and HR and Finance—positions that business schools recognize and educators write real thick textbooks that cost lots of money and are as boring as hell about but that give the jobs a sense of dignity and a respected place within the business hierarchy. 

The more I thought about this assumed lack of a family history, the more I realized that we sellers have an incredible history filled with some of the greatest minds and most important people that ever walked the land.

I suspect that there’s been a good share of scoundrels in both the McCord and Dunn families over the centuries.  And we all know there’s been more than a fair share of them selling all kinds of stuff over the last thousands of years.  I’m sure the first flimflam man appeared about the same time the first real transaction between humans took place.  For all I know the first transaction would have made a modern day scammer proud.

But we sellers do come from a long, long line of great sales men and women.  We can’t review thousands of years of sales history, but let me point out just a couple of my favorite sellers:

Moses:  Moses may have invented the concept of identifying prospect pain points and then helping to resolve that pain—very effectively bringing to Pharaoh’s attention the intensity of the pain that Pharaoh didn’t realize he and his country were feeling prior to Moses pointing it out through a series of attention getting demonstrations.  Although it took a bit of time, Moses was quite successful in getting Pharaoh to buy the idea that if he let the Israelites go the pain would stop. Shortly after Pharaoh’s wise decision, Moses had to successfully deal with Pharaoh’s unfortunate case of buyer’s remorse.

Winston Churchill:  The world today might be a very different place if Winston Churchill hadn’t sold his countrymen—and the rest of the free world—on the idea that they could defeat Nazi Germany.  Shortly after Chamberlin’s massively disastrous trip to meet Hitler, Germany attacked Poland with the consequent chain reaction that turned into World War II.  In relatively short order Britain was on the verge of falling to the Germans, having been pushed by them back to the home island–and they weren’t  doing much better in Africa.  Despite what appeared to be certain defeat, Churchill’s defiance and determination helped inspire the british people to hold on against overwhelming odds.    He sold his countrymen on the idea that they could win when few thought it even remotely possible that they could survive for much longer—and by doing so changed the course of history (with a bit of help from a few other countries).

Lamar Hunt:  What, you don’t think of Lamar Hunt as a salesperson?  Well, he was such an accomplished salesperson that he changed the whole nature of professional sports—almost singlehandedly.  He didn’t set out to change it all.  All he wanted was an NFL franchise for Dallas.  But the NFL wouldn’t give him one.  So what did he do?  He sold a few other men on a new organization he envisioned—the American Football League which began play in 1960.  Hunt wasn’t willing to take ‘no’ for an answer.  Instead of just accepting no, he decided to find a way to turn no into yes.  And he certainly did—and eventually made the guys who had said no wish they’d said yes because he ended up costing them a fortune (and then later making them an even bigger fortune).  Hunt not only sold the franchises, he convinced the owners of those franchises that they could compete with the NFL—which they did by quickly drafting and signing Billy Cannon, the 1959 Heisman Trophy winner.  Within short order they had signed half of the top college crop of 1959 to play for them instead of the NFL.  Then they had the audacity to steal NFL stars too.  Then wonder of wonders they signed a TV contract to televise games which guaranteed the league’s success.  Finally, after years of costing the NFL a ton of money, robbing them of great talent, and simply outplaying them in salesmanship and marketing, Hunt turned his new league into a merger with the NFL, creating unimagined fortunes for the owners and the players.  If you’re a fan of professional football as it is today (actually any professional sport), you owe it to Lamar Hunt’s ability to sell dreams.  On the other hand, if you hate the way professional sports are managed and played today–you may not a big Lamar Hunt fan.

Mary Kay Ash:  Mary Kay was a lady that didn’t know how to quit—and she helped give tens of thousands of other women a sense of freedom and honor when they represented the Mary Kay Cosmetics line at parties and one-on-one with their friends and neighbors.  Mary Kay had a unique view of business.  Although her company was incredibly successful and profitable, she always measured the company’s performance based on her own P&L formula—People and Love.  Millions of women grew to love Mary Kay because of the freedom and dignity she helped them achieve, the great products she sold, and the emphasis she placed on people rather than on profits.  Not surprisingly, by working so hard to help others succeed, her own success was far beyond anything she could have dreamt.  Mary Kay was a humble lady from humble beginnings who changed the lives of millions.  And she was one of us.

Paul Harvey:  It is said that Paul Harvey was the most listened to voice in radio history—and one of the most trusted.  Harvey was also one of the most successful at selling—if he sold your product on his show, you were virtually guaranteed record sales.  I’ve known of Paul Harvey since I can remember—even as a little kid I remember hearing him on the radio in the car—who could forget his voice?  Everything he sold he made sound so doggone good that you wanted to buy it even if you didn’t need it or didn’t even know what to do with it after you bought it. When he read the news you didn’t question if it really happened the way he said it did—you knew it did or if it didn’t, it damn well should have.  I have a Bose radio because of him.  I know I bought other things because of Harvey, I just don’t remember what they were—but they were good because after all Paul Harvey endorsed them and said they were good.  He was just a voice on the radio, but one that could make your company overnight if he believed in it.

George Washington:  Washington was, of course, a surveyor, planter, statesman, General, President, and brewer.  But his most important job was that of salesman.  If he hadn’t been as great a salesman as he was, there probably wouldn’t be a United States of America today.  He sold his men on sticking around and fulfilling their obligations during the Revolutionary War.  Sure, he lost lots of men who just walked off and went back home.  He had to institute some pretty tough penalties for any caught deserting.  But it was his ability to sell his men on staying and fighting, for sacrificing for a dream of freedom and independence that really won the freedom of America.  And we all know it was a tough sale—and not just because of no money, no food, no shoes.  Yes, he had to overcome the effects of the great physical sacrifice his men had to endure, but he also had to overcome the incredible mental and emotional impact losing almost every engagement his army entered had on both him and his men.  The Continental Army didn’t win many battles—it just won some key ones.  No shoes, no money, no food, not many winning battles—and he still sold his men on sticking around and fighting.  I’m proud to be a salesman with him as an example.

In fact, I’m proud to be a salesman who can look on these great sellers—and many, many more like them—as examples and mentors.  Just like my McCord and Dunn lineage, I have a professional family tree that anchors me in time and space that fills me with pride and a sense of honor.  I don’t need some stuffy university to tell me that selling is important (although at long last many schools now have sales and sales management as a recognized course of study leading to a degree) or a slick business magazine dedicating a section to sales just as it does to other business disciplines (don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen anytime soon).

I can look back at my sales family tree and recognize the massive changes in society and history that my sales ancestors have brought about.  And I can strive to carry on that tradition. 

Don’t ever think that sales is the red-headed stepchild of business even if many supposed experts, gurus and educators choose to stroke their egos by acting as though it is. It isn’t.  As a matter of fact, it is the foundation of business—and society–that all the other disciplines owe their existence to.  Always remember that you can very comfortably and successfully live without those business schools, professors, gurus, and business magazines–but they could’t exist for a minute without you.

When Does It Make Sense to Outsource the Call?

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post suggesting a few ways to maximize salespeople’s time by helping them spend more quality time in front of more qualified prospects.  I’ve since received a number of questions asking in essence when does it make sense to outsource the sales call or the initial cold call setting up an appointment.

The first question to consider is: does your product or service demand that a highly experienced salesperson or sales engineer with immense depth of product knowledge and application experience make the call?  If it does, it probably doesn’t make sense to try to outsource the telemarketing or appointment setting aspect of the sales process.

However, if your product or service—or at least the initial contact with the prospect—doesn’t require that level of sophisticated knowledge and experience, outsourcing can be an excellent alternative to having your salespeople beating the phones trying to set appointments and make the initial contact. 

Likewise, if your product or service can effectively be sold over the phone, outsourcing the telemarketing may be the most logical and cost effective selling process.

Evaluating your investment
As I stated in the previous post, it can cost hundreds—even thousands—of dollars to simply find, connect with, and set up an appointment with a prospect.  Does it make sense to have your salespeople sitting at a desk making call after call to unqualified suspects when they could be out in the field meeting with qualified prospects?

 How much does it cost to identify a group of suspects or purchase a list of leads?

How much time and effort must a salesperson invest trying to connect with a new suspect?

How many suspects must the salesperson go through to connect with one qualified prospect?

How many qualified prospects must they connect with in order to set an appointment?

How many qualified prospects must they meet with in order to make a sale?

What is all of that time and effort worth to the company?  To the salesperson?

What if instead of investing all of that time trying to simply set one appointment the salesperson was spending that time in front of pre-qualified prospects?

What would it cost to outsource the setting up of an appointment with a qualified prospect?

What would be the return if outsourcing the appointment setting allowed your salespeople to get in front of two or maybe even three times the number of qualified prospect?

Simple math should make the choices clear. 

Phone Selling
Maybe an even more stark contrast between having your team do the work and outsourcing it is in the area of selling over the phone, that is, telemarketing.  For many companies hiring and training an inside sales staff can be a huge investment what with floor space, equipment, management, training, and sales and clerical personnel.  Even a small force can cost many tens of thousands of dollars.

The alternative to the massive upfront investment is to outsource telemarketing services.  Instead of incurring a large upfront investment, hiring a telemarketing company can allow you to pay as you go, that is, pay as sales come in.

Which is best for your company? 

Do you have to have your sellers directly under your control for legal, emotional, or other reasons?  If so, hire them directly.  If you don’t have that need for control, consider outsourcing your telemarketing function.

Do you already have the infrastructure in place?  If so, consider hiring your team directly.  If you don’t, consider outsourcing.

Are you going to have to train all or most of your sellers from scratch?  If so, consider outsourcing.  If you already have trained salespeople in sufficient numbers, stay with them.

Do you envision needing a telemarketing team for years to come?  If you do, consider hiring your own team.  If you aren’t sure or don’t envision a long-term team, outsource.

Do you already have the sales and marketing tools and processes in place?  If so, consider a direct team.  If you are still in the process of developing your sales process and marketing approach, outsource.

Outsourcing some or all of your phone contact needs can make great sense for your bottom-line and your sales team. Although the choice might not be easy, answering a few basic questions will make your choices much clearer—and just might make it easier to choose.