Windshield Repair Forum

Coister

Your manual? When? Where? How? Why not sooner?

Merci

Telemarketing is illegal if you call on residentials. You can't stop people from calling business because thats how almost every business in the world conducts business. Over the phone, if we are to follow the logic that telemarketing is illegal to call another business that means our economy would stop. You could not call any business to conduct business period. That law that was put in place was designed to stop calls coming into the home were people do not want them. They don't want to be harrased. I also agree with this law, it doesn't however apply to the normal day to day operation of business in the business world. This is something that I have followed very closely, I also still have lots of friends in that business and have kept up to date on all the specifics of it.

Lets say for example want to get an account with a company that has a bunch of vehicles that you would like to service for them. You call them up and ask who the person is in charge of the maintanence for the company vehicles. Most of the time they will tell you and automaticly transfere you to them because the receptionist is used to getting calls regarding vehicle maintanence. You then speak to the person and let them know why you are calling and that you would like to send them some information on yourself and your company. (people this is standard business practice) BTW most will give it to you gladly.

You then mail them your packet, sales letter, ect. You follow up with a call in a few days to make sure they got it... and to ask them what they thought of it. They will tell you either they arn't interested or they will ask you question (I love when they ask me questions because they are interested). I then offer to come out and either do a demo for them, or I sell them on letting me fix one of their cars to show them what I can do for them... this gets you in the door.

This is not a call were you are bugging someone in the middle of dinner or asking them if they want to refinance their house. Or they want to sell you some insurance, whatever. I hope you get my drift of what I am saying here.

What is scary is that people will watch the news and hear that telemarketing is illigal and that the government is creating a do not call list and they believe it of all encompassing. They don't stop and think how would this affect the business world. I mean think about it, if you couldn't call and talk to another business about day to day operations stuff or business in general all commerce in our country would stop. The law that was set in place does not cover the business world, especialy when you are deal with the day to day operations in running a business. So please don't jump the gun and freak out when someone says the world telemarket and you think you have to be some person sitting at an autodialer computer running through a million calls a day.

In closeing you will find that if you make the phone call a multiple step process, for example: Step 1, find out who the person is you want to talk to, Step 2, send them some information that sells you and your service to them, and then Step 3 calling them back to make sure they got your info you will get much better results then if you just sat down and called someone up and said this.

Hi my name is Joe Schmo and I was wondering if you and a chipped windshield in your car I could help you out with, it may even be free. <--- this is the wrong way to do it, if you are lucky you will maybe close 1 out of 50 calls with this approach. Where as the method I just talked about will more likely get you a good account that you can go back to again and again with maybe less then 1 out of 8 calls. BTW the ones that say they don't do that kind of maintance, send them info anyway because you will be suprised how many call you back because they have a personal vehicle or they told someone about you in passing conversation and they just happened to hold onto your info.

You don't have to take my word for it, try it, or at least please keep an open mind to it. Its all in how you approach it.
David
Coitster

I, too, have trained many telemarketers and have done telemarketing for many products and still to this day I do telemarketing for my new Real Estate career .. residential telemarketing at that. The trick is to do it with a real person sound not like a robot reading a script. I have been telemarketing for listings in my real estate career now for 3 weeks and it has been productive .. albeit not as productive as knocking on doors which I do alot of as well .... not only has it been productive but I call right during dinner and not a single person has gotten mad at me because I build rapport, let them know I won't take their time and then let them know why I am calling. All in about 20 seconds .. then they tell me whether the can help me with my problem or not and either way they wish me luck and I am off the phone. Residential telemarketing is NOT illegal, unless the home is on the do not call list which some are and some aren't. I guarantee you I could telemarket in any state and in any town tryign to sell rock chips residential and very rarely get a person mad at me. This is because of tonal congruancy .. the words and the tone you say the words in all match that of an honest person with a very quick and honest question. If done right it can be very successful.

All that being said ... I still prefer face to face but on rainy days telemarketing is a good idea.

an idea of a script I would use for windshield repairs:

"HI, I have a real quick question for you, (small dramatic pause like I am pretending to let them get a yes or no in .. but I keep going before they answer) I own a windshield repair company here locally and we just fix the little rock chips and bullseyes in the windshields and I was just curious if you happen to have any damage that hasn't been fixedyet, in your windshield? We may be able to fix it for free if you do??"

I agree with Coit that this is not an ideal approach for business but residential it needs to be fast and precise. If they say no then you just call the next person in line and you are bound to find several people a day to say yes if you have a big enough list.

coister,
REPAR-BRISE had a good question-Your manual? When? Where? How? Why not sooner? (BTW, ive been asking this for a year now!!!) It better be good making us wait his long!

Brian,
What kind of list are you using for residential? the reason I ask is because my town is small enough (45-50k) that I could just use my phone book. Of course getting through the whole thing would take a couple years but it would be worth it to find local repairs. Also, can you explain how residential telemarketing is not illegal? From everything I hear on the news now it is. I know its just the news but still its been a hot topic for years and I thought since people signed a do not call list then you can be sued if you call them.

There is a national do not call list .. any name on that list you can't call. What I have done in the past is bought a name list for like $35 from a list company and it is already scanned for DNC numbers so you should be safe.

I would save the telemarketing for fleets, it is a good way to get in. Call and tell them what you do and make an appointment to see the person in charge. That is how I got into the Walmart distribution center in my town.

Go to www.yahoo.com and type in "residential telephone lists" and you will get a large number of companies that sell them for your area fairly inexpensively.