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March 9th, 2010
Symmetry are delighted to have been chosen as the Telemarketing support company of choice for BITS Ltd in Westbury, Nr. Bristol. Check BITS out at www.bits-solutions.co.uk.
We have been asked to generate a regular flow of sales appointments for the BITS team. Appointments and leads are already coming in thick and fast and the BITS brand is being explored by 100’s of new prospects every month!
December 22nd, 2009
For 2010, we’re no longer just focusing on the telemarketing aspect of business marketing. We can now provide email marketing, graphic design, leaflet design, direct marketing, copywriting - everything which supports and complements an effective telemarketing campaign. This means we’re putting more balance into our business marketing services, making Symmetry Marketing more, er, symmetrical…
We’re making this move because up until now we’ve often found ourselves frustrated on the telemarketing front line, with insufficient support for a particular campaign. Prospects often need ‘softening up’ with information before receiving that telemarketing call. Now we can create a joined up campaign, still with telemarketing likely to be a key component, but giving the whole thing a stronger basis for success.
We’ll still be doing all the telemarketing stuff, we’re experts at it, but we now have the in-house resources to offer a complete business marketing service. This may seem a common enough claim, but think about it, when did you last come across a marketing company which could offer, say, graphic design and in-house telemarketing??
If you’ve always thought of telemarketing as the hardcore part of closing a sale, we can now offer a more balanced approach…
Why not give us a call or drop us a message: geography doesn’t matter, we can work with clients anywhere.
December 14th, 2009
Its free, it’s easy and if you haven’t done it why not?
December 14th, 2009
On behalf of everyone at Symmetry I would like to wish you all a Happy Christmas! A big thank you to all our customers, suppliers and associates that made 2009 such a great year.
We have big plans for 2010 and some key developments to our services that will really take our customers campaigns to the next level and we cannot wait to get started!
Thanks
James.
November 10th, 2009
The purpose of 99% of all businesses is to make a profit. There are lots of ways you can make a profit but making more sales is always a good place to start. There are in turn lots of ways of making sales and one of the quickest is by using telemarketing.
You are most likely reading this blog post because you understand the power of telemarketing but you are unsure how it could work for your business and whether you should build an in-house telemarketing team or whether to outsource to a company like us.
We have many years experience in sales and business development. We are experts in telemarketing and have managed many campaigns in many different sectors.
Whatever your telemarketing goals are this document will hopefully enlighten you.
Making a profit is probably one of your prime objectives in running your business. Without making sales this prime objective will no doubt become very difficult.
Lots of companies experience great success using telemarketing and equally lots of companies don’t. We believe the biggest reason for success or failure is down to the people who undertake the telemarketing.
Take a look at the financial and legal needs of your company. Do you take care of these two business critical issues in house? 90% of all companies outsource their financial and legal work, and why wouldn’t they? Why would you employ an accountant or a solicitor on PAYE for 365 days a year? These are critical areas of business that require expert input at the right time.
Despite our desire for control of all aspects of our businesses we all outsource many different services. Just picking up the phone or sending a letter means an outside agency is in control of part of the day to day running of our businesses. Outsourcing is so common most of will not even realize we are doing it.
Telemarketing should be no different. You will need to be careful to choose the right people for the job like in any other aspect of your business and there are ways to ensure you do this.
The first person your prospects are likely to speak to will be your telemarketing agency. Talk to the agency. What are they like? What do they sound like on the phone? What relevant experience do they have?.
Outsourcing business critical services is commonplace, especially telemarketing. But why?
Unless a company is cash rich, capital investments are a drain on your working capital and are generally avoided by growing businesses. When considering setting up an in house telemarketing operation it pays to consider that an outsourced supplier of telemarketing will buy in all the necessary kit to fulfill the operation, not you. This can range from a PC to the chairs the telemarketers sit on sit on.
Setting up an in house team requires a capital investment from the office space they take up all the way through to many unforeseen costs. Equipment costs are obvious but consider insurance liabilities, security risks and increased maintenance bills. For you this could mean checking your team are not surfing the net or calling friends in your time!
Bringing in an outsourced team means you get exactly what you pay for with no capital expenditure or staff management issues. It all comes down to the bottom line!.
Employ mediocre personnel and they will require more training. It is your energy and time that will be drained and the question ‘what is your time worth and what is the real cost of losing that time in training?’ should be asked.
Proffessional telemarketers will need a brief and a period of product training and can then hit the ground running. There are certain skills required in telemarketing but it is experience where professionals learn their trade and using a professional telemarketer with years of industry experience will mean you can instantly benefit.
The turnover in most call centres is similar to that of a fast food restaurant. You have to consider just how much this type of transient workforce can benefit your business.
If you are going to set up an in house telemarketing department you have too evaluate the true cost.
When setting up an in-house telemarketing operation you must be careful to measure the true costs. Finding the right staff will mean interviewing tens and tens of candidates to find possibly one ‘right person’ In reality you probably wont have that many candidates from your advertising or any agency you are using meaning you may recruit the wrong staff who don’t ultimately work out.
Using an outsourced telemarketing company means that all your recruitment expense has already been taken care of by the telemarketing agency saving you potentially thousands.
There is always a danger of inexperienced telemarketers missing opportunities and losing potential income.
An experienced telemarketers may spot these opportunities and gain income and build a large pipeline of sales opportunities.
Not everyone wants to be a telemarketers or is indeed a very good telemarketer. Telemarketing may be seen as a necessary evil for a start up company and it’s management in the early days but something a company will not wish to undertake for any length of time.
A team of professional telemarketers will actually enjoy the challenge of speaking to business people of all levels and building instant rapport and uncovering leads and appointments.
Only experience can build the skills required to respond to inflections in someones voice, subtle buying signals and be able to quickly understand a situation to get the most from it.
Often the hardest part of telemarketing is getting past the gate keeper and actually talking to the descicion maker. When a telemarketer manages to negotiate there way past a gate keeper there is only a small window of time in which to engage the descion maker, build rapport and achieve what you want from the call.
Every market is different and the success you gain can come down to many different factors such as the type of industry you operate in, are you offering a unique product and are they exciting?.
Whatever the answer you can garauntee that a team of professional telemarketers will be able to generate more opportunites and leads than a mediocre person working in house.
There are many ways for mediocre telemarketers to produce false positives. This can be down to lack of skill and grasp of what is a good lead or appointment or because they want to exaggerate their performance.
The telemarketing industry in the UK is experiencing year on year growth. With this growth comes the natural divide between good and bad outsourcing companies and everyone in between. The difference in the pay scale between someone receiving inbound calls is vastly different to the high level professionals making outbound calls. In between the two ends of the spectrum are people in between who want the pay scale of the outbound calling professionals but are actually closer to the level of inbound call handlers.
There are a number of ex call centre staff looking to work for companies who have worked in environments where false positives are the norm and false positives only mean false economy.
A team of outsourced professional telemarketers survive and thrive on generating leads and producing results and by using them your investment can be rapidly repaid and then turned round into a healthy profit.
The truth about metrics and results is that a professional telemarketer will produce better results than an average one. An average telemaketer may make 100 calls each and every day achieving average results, maybe 1 appointment and 1 lead per day. A professional telemarketer may make 50 calls and produce excellent results, perhaps 5 appointments and 3 leads per day.
Results are the only real gauge of success so always put the emphasis on them and not the amount of calls made.
Employing people is an incredibly risky business. If it took you 6 weeks to train someone in the basics of your business you would have already invested a lot of time and money and only at this point will you really have an idea if they will actually fit in to your team.
An average telemarketing person might not the produce real results for weeks of live calling. They may even alienate prospects and inadvertently destroy your database!.
By employing an outside agency you will know that after the first 48 hours of learning about your company results will shortly follow.
Everything in the business world moves quickly – budgets and situations change constantly. This requires a large degree of flexibility.
Using an outsourced telemarketing agency to generate appointments and leads means you can use them as and when you need them. After all your sales team can only handle a certain amount of appointments!. Having an in house teams means you will need to pay them regardless of wether you need more appointments or not. An in house team is a fixed cost you cannot change. A small flexible outsourced telemarketing team working to match your needs can offer huge advantageous as direct tailored costs you can choose. You could use 1 telemaketer 1 day a week or several telemarketers every day of every week for a month.
October 14th, 2009
Symmetry are delighted to have been chosen by Urban Element to generate them leads and sales appointments as part of their growth strategy. Urban Element are a talented, creative web design and website development company, producing cutting edge visual designs, which meet web standards.
Take a peak at Urban Elements outstanding portfolio of work at www.urbanelement.com
July 6th, 2009
We love this idea! A smart way to get a return, alongside your savings and investments. At Zopa you can geta low cost loan with no sneaky early repayment fees and pay your interest to real people not fat cats. You can also get great returns by lending to real people and let Zopa to the hard work in the middle.
Great returns
Some lenders are getting up to 14%pa, and the average return on all money lent over the last 12 months is 8.8%pa (figures shown are before tax and bad debt, but after fee)
It’s human
Your money helps real people, rather than banks
It’s safe
All the safety measures banks use… plus a few more:
July 6th, 2009
I have been umming and aahing about doing some telemarketring for ages, and had discussed it with James, but not got anywhere. A couple of weeks ago we finally agreed to do it. He had a specific target to reach, and managed just that - the massive added value was the quality of the feedback he gave on every call. This is what prompted me to ask him to do another 2 days for me.
The result - a huge number of leads, more than I could have hoped for.
I hate cold calling, the second call is fine - now I have a reliable route to that second call
Use Symmetry Marketing!
Graham Smith, Managing Director, GSBS Ltd
June 29th, 2009
Telemarketing training by industry experts who have been there and done it
Symmetry offers both inbound and outbound telemarketing training courses UK wide that are delivered by trainers who have been there and done it.
Training with a difference!
Our training courses are prepared in the same way we prepare for our telemarketing campaigns. We believe in working as partners with our clients and our focus is as much on pre course consultancy as it is on the training itself. Our bespoke training solutions are tailor made to meet your exact requirements – we do not believe in ‘off the shelf’ solutions.
Our passion is providing training solutions that have a real commercial payback. Our goal is to educate, motivate and develop your team towards success. We create a training environment that is comfortable and allows delegates to embrace and try new concepts and enhance old ones and then apply these techniques back in their day to day work.
We can bring positive, lasting change to your telemarketing department.
How can we help your Business?
Many of us are great at generating rapport and building relationships but why do so many fail when it comes to asking for the sale?
Are your team communicating your message in the right way, are they piquing the interest of your prospects enough to gain the opportunity to make a full sales call?
Are they interacting with your prospects and asking the right questions in order to create more meaningful conversations?
Are your telemarketing team working at full capacity or could they benefit from more motivation and structure to their work?
How do your team handle rejection? Would you like to eliminate fear of rejection so your team stay motivated?
With our telemarketing training the possibilities are endless.
June 29th, 2009
If you are making 100+ telemarketing calls per day it can be easy to lose site of the value of every telemarketing call. Setting a call objective becomes vitally important in sustaining your ongoing focus.
Make sure you identify a primary call objective that has a tangible outcome. Your primary objective might be “close a sale on the phone” or “book a face to face meeting”. When preparing a primary call objective be sure to have back up objectives in place so something is achieved from every call. If your primary objective was to close a sale and this does not happen can you get your prospect to agree to the secondary objective of a face to face meeting?
When identifying your objectives be realistic. If you are selling hardware solutions worth tens of thousands of pounds it is going to be difficult to close a sale in your first telemarketing call with your prospect. Perhaps a more realstic goal should be to establish the correct desicion maker and gain a commitment from that person to read your marketing material and to then talk in more depth in a follow up call.