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Being An Honest Broker In A Billion Dollar Industry

by Dennis Kempton, Director Business Development, Tele Resources, Inc. - April 29, 2015

BEING AN HONEST BROKER IN A BILLION DOLLAR INDUSTRY

I’ve worked in marketing, branding, and reputation management for several years. Now I find myself working in business development for a company that’s been in business for just about twenty years in the telemarketing industry. It’s the most challenging position I’ve held in my career.


Talking to potential clients on the phone or corresponding with them via email every day presents every opportunity to tout the benefits and advantages of your company. Potential clients are looking for low rates and high returns. Ultimately, they want results and a return on the money they spend. Ultimately, as the person responsible for bringing in new clients, you want to make the “sale” for your company.


The two ultimate goals for client and closer should work harmoniously. Often, in our industry, clients can find themselves burned if they don’t see a return on their investments. If the ultimate goal of the business development professional supersedes the duty to broker a fulfilling, profitable, and long-term relationship between a client and the company he or she represents, no good can come of it. And if you think that just scoring several thousand dollars here and there is worth taking projects that perhaps your company shouldn’t take, you should probably take a good hard look at why you’re working in this industry. When the challenges and stereotypes of working in the telemarketing industry are the first things you must overcome when talking to potential clients on the phone, you should do our billion dollar industry a favor and be a good faith businessperson.


There’s a learning curve. I certainly take advantage of my learning opportunities at Tele Resources, Inc. My boss, our CEO and president, Jack Keenan, is a marketing veteran with over 40 years of industry experience. That’s about as long as I’ve been alive, so I listen. It’s important to have mentors in our business, especially when learning which partnerships are the best ones to make for the type of company for which you work. Some lessons I’ve learned:


1. Know what your company does well and work hard every day to bring in those projects. Set your company’s agents up for success by playing your best hand every time while searching for potential clients. I was tempted, when I began my time at my company, to reinvent the wheel and bring in work that we hadn’t taken on before. While the motivation was sound: diversify your service offerings, the risk is higher not only for your company, but it’s higher for any client to whom you send a contract. Be up front and honest with your potential client. If you don’t have a lot of experience in what they want you to do for them, say so before signatures are on documents. Let them know up front what their risk will be. They’ll respect you for it. And you’ll protect your company’s reputation at the same time.

2. Never say you can do something better than your prospective client is already doing. Marketing people and sales managers work hard to consider what will bring their businesses conversions and profits. If they reach out to you, they’ve done a lot of figuring about it and they’re not looking for someone to do it better; they’re looking for a way to augment what they’re already doing. Is it cheaper to outsource? In almost every situation the answer is yes. A lesson I learned from our CEO is to search for ways we can enhance, not replace. If a potential client is doing a direct mail piece, you may suggest how a business relationship between your companies can boost their efforts and maximize their conversions by doing a telemarketing follow up. Sometimes merely pointing out that you can do something to save them money and increase profits isn’t the correct approach. Entering discussions with some sensitivity to what the existing marketing situation is with a prospective client and showing respect and interest in what they’re currently doing is a surefire way to build trust and it gets you to honestly exchanging information about what can work to building a partnership.

3. Put up or shut up. Show your potential clients that you are putting something on the line, namely, the opportunity to continue doing business. The goal is to form a partnership and make it a sound one that goes both ways. Asking clients for specific targets and then putting those stipulations in your contract is not only sound business practice, but it also builds confidence and trust. If the client knows that if you convert “x” number of their leads into sales, the expectation is that you will continue to do business. And they get to hold you to it and you get to motivate your entire sales team to perform and shine for a new client. That’s the beginning of the partnership.

4. Know when to say no. As much as it hurts to think about turning away business, one of the most lasting lessons I’ve learned, especially from our CEO, is when to simply say no. It means nothing to your company’s reputation if you take projects just to have projects running. And it’s irresponsible to take in something for the money on the guessing game that you might be able to do it. Clients get burned. Your reputation as a business developer suffers, and, in the end, the entire industry is cheapened by poor business practices and perpetuating stereotypes. More than a few times, I’ve presented projects for consideration to our management team only to have them ask very pointed questions about our ability to do them or if the client will even benefit from us taking the project for them. That’s a sales development team at its finest.


When we make hard choices based on what is achievable for both company and client, reputations are burnished and partnerships last. You get to help your company refine its best assets and become an industry leader in your corner of a billion dollar industry. That’ll always be money in the bank.



DENNIS KEMPTON is the Director of Business Development for Tele Resources, Inc., a multi-channel integrated call center based in Duluth, Minnesota.





 
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