1 Phone control:

When you work from home it is easy to fall into the trap of talking on the phone for much longer than needed. After all there is no-one watching over your shoulder and you think you have time on your side. Really this is poor time management. The answer – put a “value” on your own time. Develop a sense of urgency in your voice and keep an eye on the time so you are talking about “the business” but not chatting away “the time of day”. You will be more effective and come across as someone who respects their own time and their listeners.

2 Sound of Voice

Your tone of your voice is important. I have a natural high pitched voice which doesn’t portray the right image on the phone, so I used a tape deck to get my voice tone sound right to project the right impression. Keep practising till it sounds effective then ask someone you respect to check your voice level and tone. Imagine as you listen that you are the other person on the end of phone. Ask yourself “How do I sound?”

3 Speed of Voice

In New Zealand we tend to talk too fast and mumble, this may be fine with each-other face to face but if you are trying to listen to something important on the phone it can get exhausting and frustrating. Remember the people you are speaking to may have English as a second language or a hearing disability, so try to talk slowly and clearly to be understood.

4 Practise the pronunciation of names

If you want to start of with the right impression make sure you can pronounce the person’s name properly. This was one of my downfalls so I try if possible to ring a friend first who is good with names to get the pronunciation right.

5 Listen

Yes folks, communication is a 2 way thing! Listen to what the other person says then pause before answering, to give yourself time to consider just what did they really say.

6 Be Prepared

To come across as someone who is in charge work out what you are going to say before calling, first off a script. Yes I know it sounds like a preschool idea but believe me it really works! In insurance we called it “The 5 Ps” = prior preparation prevents poor performance.

Get these right and you not only feel confident before you pick up the phone you will sound confident.

Wendy Heyworth lives in Tauranga New Zealand
Wendy has had a successful business career and is now working in e-commerce. She is aware of the difficulties of working and running a business over the Internet.
She is now advising others how to be successful the first time in their new business.
Wendy has her website http://www.wendyheyworth.com

Build authority with a third party endorsement from a guest speaker!

Having a guest speaker on your teleseminar with you will help establish your professional credentials and establish your authority in your niche. If you simply conducted your teleseminar by yourself, you could not possibly validate your own knowledge or experience as well as another party or person could. Ideally, this person would have an excellent review of your product or services and be able to grant a stark comparison in where “yours” is better than “theirs”.

Present your product with passion!

Writing down a script is a great way to help you stay focused, but exuding confidence and energy about your product is the way to make sales. If you really believe in your product, or not it will come through in your voice and demeanor on the teleseminar. It will also work the same way for your guest speaker, so that person also has to have a genuine excitement about your goods or services. You can not be a flat line and expect people to buy from you.

Communicate your sales agenda clearly!

Make sure to take a few seconds at the beginning and at various points throughout the presentation to tell the attendees where your product is available for purchase, that is, your website. Do not wait to communicate this because their may be some attendees who are already sold on your product but have to leave for some other reason and you do not want to miss any sales because of that. Communicating your purchase location is a great tie in with additional free bonuses or information. Maybe you can say something along the lines of, “to get the free how to guide for dog grooming go to my website at dog-grooming dot com or something like that. It helps them know that there is a free resource you are offering and will take them right to your sales-page for it.

With these helpful hints in mind, carefully plan your teleseminar step by step, so you can not only capitalize on your sales opportunities, but you can also render excellent service. After all, the Internet may be the network that connects every person in the world, but it also makes the world much smaller, so cultivate an excellent reputation!

Gavin J. King is the creator of free teleseminar ebook and creates e-books designed to assist internet marketers increase their success. With a broad range of experience and knowledge to draw from his products and articles are helpful and enjoyable. Gavin J. King likes writing articles about your own teleseminar and other web-based, worthwhile pursuits.

So how do you protect yourself? Well, stay informed of the scamming techniques and know the law. We’ll skip to the latter. It is actually illegal for you to receive calls before 8 A.M. and after 9 P.M. Telemarketers cannot misrepresent any information, including facts about their goods or services, the earnings potential, profitability, or risk of an investment, or the nature of a prize in a prize-promotion scheme. It’s also illegal for a telemarketer to call you if you’ve asked not to be called.

The federal government has actually created a “National Do Not Call Registry”. This is a free and easy way to reduce the telemarketing calls you get at home. Thus, you will be drastically minimizing your odds of being scammed. It’s nice to not be hassled too. That is probably the greatest defense against being harassed at dinner time. Register with the NDNCR and the annoying sales calls will stop in the first few months. A few will still manage to slip through but, you can just ask them to remove you from their call list.To register, or to get information, visit www.donotcall.gov, or call 1-888-382-1222 from the phone you want to register. You will receive fewer telemarketing calls within three months of registering your number.

If you have a phone number that you want to file a complaint against, visit http://www.phonenumbers.ws. Simply type in the phone number and click search. You’ll get information about the phone number and have the opportunity to leave a complaint or comment.

At the grocery store I frequent, the check-out personnel are apparently instructed to call customers by name when they read them on the credit or debit card receipts. Nice intention, bad execution. Maybe once out of 100 trips the person has gotten close to saying mine correctly. It’s actually quite comical how they struggle, then butcher it.

And it still floors me, the ignorance of many people when hearing a difficult or unusual name on phone calls. In talking to sales or service people on calls where I was the customer, after spelling my name, I’ve heard such idiotic comments as,

“Oh, that’s a weird one.”

“That’s a strange name.”

And some people just burst out laughing.

What do these dolts think? That I’m going to say, “Yeah, I know.”

I personally don’t stay up nights fretting over this. Mine IS an unusual name. (It’s pronounced Sob’-check.) I’m used to it. Hey, to top it off, my first name is Art. Think of how many times I heard “Art Fart” while growing up, or, “I bet Art is your favorite Sub-JECT (yuck yuck).”

People can be such morons.

But the name issue is a very tender area for some. And it says a lot about the person making the comment. I don’t mind if, after saying or spelling my name, a fellow Pole makes a commiserating comment like,

“I’ve got you beat. My name is Wojtkewkowski.”

Otherwise, it’s really out of place to make inappropriate comments.

If someone with an unusual name takes the lead, and pokes fun at it himself after spelling it, it’s certainly OK to react in some way. I make a point to spell my name, SO–BC-ZAK. Then I say, “I used to start out with ‘SOB–’ but too many people commented on how descriptive that was.”

That breaks the ice and elicits some laughter and small talk. The safe rule: absent of their self-deprecating comment, say…nothing.

I took a call from a guy, and he very slowly recited his name: “Buddy Bunne.” And he pronounced it BUN-EE. Like a little rabbit (but he didn’t say that). I admit, I bit my lip and paused–you could almost feel him bracing for the anticipated wiseguy response. “And your address, Buddy?”, I continued, not commenting on the name.

Pssst, here’s a secret. Those of us with unusual names already KNOW our name is different. Some of us good natured folks just blow off comments with humor. But others view their name as sensitively as they would if they had a third ear protruding from their head. You wouldn’t comment on that, so why take a chance of offending someone?

Here are a few tips for you:

1. Here’s a website where you can enter names and hear an audio with the pronunciation: http://www.pronouncenames.com/. You can also add pronunciations that you know to be correct, and perhaps variations of others.

2. Best yet, before reaching the prospect, ask someone at the prospect’s company how to pronounce the name. (And please, do NOT say, “What is the correct pronunciation of Bill’s name?” Like you are looking for the incorrect way to say it?)

3. Also ask others how the prospect prefers to be addressed. Robert, Bob, Mr. Smith, etc.

4. Do not rename them. Use their name the way it is written, and the way they say it when they greet you. For example, one of my customers, David, said that people will often call him Dave even after he answers the phone with “This is David.”

Art Sobczak helps sales pros use the phone to prospect, service and sell more effectively, while eliminating morale-killing “rejection. To get FREE weekly emailed TelE-Sales Tips visit: http://www.BusinessByPhone.com

Inbound Telemarketing

Most people think of inbound telemarketing as the same thing as customer support. Inbound telemarketing is slightly different than customer service in that it involves the telemarketer in the sales process. Customer service typically requires a representative to answer questions on behalf of an existing customer. In recent years, lenders have done a particularly good job outsourcing mortgage telemarketing services. Typically, the lender will generate leads online, and the telemarketer will handle inbound inquiries. The telemarketing representative will answer basic mortgage related questions, and set up an appointment with the prospect and the loan officer.

Outbound Telemarketing

Outbound telemarketing involves the telemarketer cold calling prospects who are not expecting a call. The first step to launching an outbound telemarketing campaign is to define your market. Once you have determined exactly who you are trying to reach, put together a telemarketing list for your telemarketer to call. If you don’t have a database of target prospects, you can buy a list from a third party. There are many companies who can provide a list of contacts based upon parameters you define. The next step would be to write a script. Customize a short script that will help your telemarketer effectively promote your products or services to your target market. Determine whether your campaign will be B2B or B2C. Business to business campaigns typically involve the telemarketer getting past a secretary, or gatekeeper. If your project is B2B, your script will have to incorporate a “getting past the gatekeeper” element. Send the script to your telemarketer and have him practice overcoming potential objections. Set up a phone call to role play the script with your telemarketer. This will give you your first idea of how the telemarketer will sound on the phone. If there are any stumbling points, refine your script to make it sound better. Once you have completed the script, have your telemarketer call prospects for a day or two, and see how it goes. Check back in with your telemarketer, and get some feedback. Find out what kind of objections they are hearing and continue to refine the script accordingly.

Telemarketers or Virtual Assistants?

Some entrepreneurs have hired virtual assistants through call centers overseas. This can be advantageous to companies that need a variety of services to performed in addition to telemarketing. Outsourced virtual assistants can handle appointment setting, data entry, inbound telemarketing (customer service), and outbound telemarketing. Determine what role you want your virtual assistant to play for your organization prior to launching your project. Your call center service provider may have different requirements for telemarketer than they do virtual assistants, so it is important to define their role in advance. Typically, a telemarketer will have superb voice skills, but may be lacking in written communication. Tell your service provider if your project will require a lot of data entry and email marketing so they hire the right employee for your company.

Christopher Ray is a business process outsourcing call center consultant. He has helped companies around the globe successfully outsource inbound and outbound telemarketing services.

“Phoning or walking up to an establishment or a home without prior notice or permission for the purpose of selling something to someone that can buy.”

Cold calling is often contrasted with “warm” calling where you have a referral to someone whom an existing client believes might buy. Or you might be armed with a lead such as an inquiry that a prospective buyer has made at a web site to receive additional information.

In these cases, your odds of striking up a relationship are thought to be better than when you have nothing but the hope that a stranger, one that isn’t expecting your contact, will be receptive.

Now that voice mail is universal, in one sense it is harder to cold call by phone than it has ever been. For instance, it is rare for me to answer my line if caller I.D. says the other party is “unknown” or “out of the area.” I figure they’ll leave a voice mail if they have a legitimate reason for calling, and the smart ones do just that, making sure to have carefully prepared that “mini-sale.”

Because of voice mail, and the excuse that prospects can make asking us to send an email, we are seldom taking a sale from deep in our end zone, across 100+ yards, into theirs on a single carry. We’re breaking the sale down into a series of downs, some for short yardage. One of the best moves you can make is to set up a telephone appointment, sometimes called a telephone conference.

This is just like a face-to-face meeting. You calendar it, as does your prospect. You confirm it, often by email. When the appointed day and time arrive you phone them. They should have set aside anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 minutes for your conference, and often, they or their assistants will tell you exactly how much time they have carved out for you.

If you get a telephone meeting with someone, it is as if you have completed a pass to the fifty-yard line. You’re halfway to scoring. It’s that important, because your counterpart is already cooperating with you, helping you to sell, explicitly agreeing to listen and to make a reasoned evaluation of your message.

There’s no equivalent “communication contract” operating in cold calls, where people can give you the cold shoulder, and many do.

Once the appointment call is underway, your purpose will probably be getting the prospect to ask you for a proposal, a detailed suggestion as to what to purchase. If you get to this point, you’ve just moved the ball another thirty yards. You’re approaching the red zone, and very likely to score SOMETHING, if you simply execute the fundamentals, and propose a reasonable purchase, earning another ten yards.

Then, all you need to do is to close, which carries the ball the final ten yards and across the goal line. A very savvy car dealer who used to “rassle” with bears, snakes, and tigers on TV once remarked, quite wisely, “To sell somebody something, first you have to get their attention.” Appointment calls do that very well. In a future article I’ll tell you what to say to earn that appointment.

Dr. Gary S. Goodman is a top-ranked negotiation speaker, telemarketing speaker, and customer service speaker at Google, and a distinguished, sought-after sales speaker, motivational speaker, and attorney. President of Customersatisfaction.com, he is a frequent TV and radio commentator and the best-selling author of 12 books and more than 1,700 articles that appear in 25,000 publications. President of Customersatisfaction.com, Gary conducts seminars and speaks at convention programs around the world. His new audio program is Nightingale-Conant’s “Crystal Clear Communication: How to Explain Anything Clearly in Speech & Writing.” His web site is: http://www.customersatisfaction.com, and professional speaking, seminar, and consulting invitations can be addressed to: gary@customersatisfaction.com.

The important thing is how you respond to the call.

First of all, a good idea is to set a framework for the team. This means letting them know clearly and concisely what the objectives are and how they should go about them. The objectives should cover targets, reporting requirements, training dates and service level agreements.

A very important part of getting your response handling right is to make sure you have a well-trained call centre. You should make sure that you sort out all of the call-handling arrangements well in advance; these arrangements include cost, operating hours and staffing levels.

There are a few points that you will need to look over in order to get the most out of your direct response television ads. The call centre that you choose should generally be external (not in-house) as they would then hopefully have the experience of dealing with DRTV. They should also have the know-how and skill to handle call spikes and complaints.

Having a call centre offshore may help with costs but can lead to poor quality customer service, this isn’t always the case as some offshore customer services do work very well but you need to be aware of the risks that this can bring.

Being aware of costs is a major issue; there are a number of factors that affect cost -
• Call volume.
• Opening hours.
• Languages used.

There are three types of contracts that can be used with a call centre, these are -
• Cost per call.
• Cost per order.
• Cost per agent hour.

It is possible to forecast call volumes by day and time; this is done by having a good media plan. Using this information you can then plan for having a larger volume of agents in the call centre at certain times to deal with call spikes that may arise if you have a strong call to action.

If you want your customers to ask questions, place orders and be dealt with personally then you will need live agents. If you want the cheaper alternative then interactive voice recognition can be used, you will however lose all interaction with the customer and they will lose all sense of personal care for them from you. If you use live agents then they will need a good script. It must be relevant, clear and must control the call flow. Having a poor illogical script can lead to confusion and customer dissatisfaction.

Reporting the performance within the call centre is vital. You will need to know exactly what is working and what is not. This is a great way of getting direct feedback from your potential customers, as you can track volume of calls and how many calls led to a sale. For example if you have a high number of callers asking for more information then it may mean that your advert isn’t clear enough.

Lastly you need to be aware of data protection as there are different privacy laws for each country. In the UK the Data Protection Act is the key bit of legislation that must be followed. If your customers are in the European Economic Area then it is their right that you must tell them.

Michael writes about business response handling and how to get the very best out of it for your company.

Classified Ads

One good thing about the technology available to us today is that most Classified Ads are now not only listed in print newspapers, but online as well. Take a look through these to see if there are businesses in your area looking for local at-home workers. Keep in mind that you must do your research on any company or opportunity that interests you. Check with your local BBB or other local organizations to make sure the companies are in good standing before you apply.

Online Job Sites

Most online job websites now offer telecommuting listings. Use the search term “telecommute” to help give you the best results. There are even websites that cater to the work-at-home crowd such as HireMyMom.com. Remember – always be sure to read the fine print, and research each company/opportunity that interests you.

Freelance

More and more at-home workers are freelancing on a contract basis. Writers, web designers, graphic artists, and more are finding this a viable option to allow them to work from home. There are websites, such as elance.com, that cater specifically to the freelance community and make it easy for freelancers to connect with companies and individuals looking to hire them.

Start A Business

Another trend among telecommuters is heading out on their own. For instance, the virtual assistant industry is made up of home-based freelances that have taken the data entry and executive assistant skills that they’ve gained over the years and launched their own Virtual Assistant (VA) services, copy-writing services and other such businesses. These “VA’s” know how to serve their clients in a professional manner and yet have all the flexibility and freedom of working for themselves.

There are an amazing amount of resources for telecommuters today. These positions are in high demand, so be sure to polish your resume and tailor it to fit the type of work that you’re searching for. Be persistent – it may take a while to locate the right opportunity, but it will be well worth the wait.

Jill Hart’s entrepreneurial career began in her teens when she spent a summer working with her father who ran his own business. When he put her in charge of a Coke machine and allowed her to keep the profits, she saw the benefits of being her own boss. She is the founder of the popular Christian work-at-home website CWAHM.com and mentors business owners at http://SuccessfulChristianWomen.com. Jill is also the co-author of So You Want To Be a Work-at-Home Mom (Beacon Hill Press, 2009).

In this article, we will introduce you to one of the most effective methods of selling wholesale products online for a profit.

To begin with, there are basically two ways to sell wholesale goods online. The first and most popular method is to simply purchase bulk items directly from a wholesaler. This is the method that most new sellers employ and it often works for them.

However, you can also choose to utilize dropshipping. What is dropshipping? Well, this method entails purchasing products that you will not be expected to pay for until they have been sold.

How does it work?

To begin with, you will have to join or become a member on a drop shipping site. When you are a member, the company will provide you with a full list of the items they offer for sale. You can then download pictures of these items and post them on your favorite auction sites, such as eBay or uBid. Later you can include a brief description of the product and enter the appropriate price.

Once the item sells, you will then be expected to purchase it from the dropshipper and provide them with the name and address of the customer, who they will then ship the item to.

As you might imagine, this ingenious method can save the average wholesale seller hundreds of dollars a month in shipping fees. The seller will also keep a nice markup fee for his efforts.

But why, you may ask, doesn’t the dropshipper simply sell these items himself? Well, the easy answer is that it isn’t quite as easy as it seems. In fact, selling wholesale items online takes quite a bit of work. You have to have a valid account on an auction site like eBay or another top company, and you need to keep track of your items each and every day. You may have to answer customer question and you may be asked to deal with returns.

What to Know

The great thing about dropshipping is that you won’t be asked to pay until your item sells. Afterwards, if you have to deal with returns and customer complaints, you can simply cancel your membership with the drop shipper and request a refund. Really, there isn’t a whole lot of risk involved.

By comparison, when you purchase bulk items from the average wholesaler, you will be asked to pay for them sight unseen, before the customer receives his item. The shipping costs? They are the main reason why many new sellers choose dropshipping instead of normal wholesaling.

In time, however, when you gain experience, you may locate other firms that can cut costs more than the average drop seller. But in the beginning, dropshipping is the perfect place to start for the new seller who isn’t sure what products to sell and doesn’t know how large an inventory to stock.

Craig Dove has more about finding a wholesale dropshipper at his site at www.buy-it-wholesale-now.com

The range of strapping machines is durable, sturdy and imparts efficient performance. These strapping machines are capable of allotting, tightening and fastening polypropylene straps around the packages, automatically. These strapping machines are being exported to various countries and the client base is growing significantly. Ventura has grappled with the odds to capture Strapping machine market and mind share in its areas of operation.

Strapping machines are used for keeping boxes, packages, and bundles held tight and together. A variety of industries would require the use of these machines. Workers in commercial printing, food, general packing, lumber, newspaper printing, magazine publishing, and postal fields all need various types of strapping. Shipping and transporting goods requires a simple and secure method of packaging. Strapping machines are convenient and very useful, particularly in manufacturing, merchandising, and shipping.

For further information please visit Ventura Omnitech at http://www.venturaomnitech.net/

Professional Business Promotion Consultant