ESTABLISHING A TELEMARKETING DEPARTMENT You need to make two more decisions once you have definitely decided to set up a telemarketing unit within your agency. The first is whether your ...

HIRING, COMPENSATING, AND TRAINING TELEMARKETERS Hiring Telemarketers What do you look for when setting out to hire a telemarketer? Your first thought might be to go out and hire an experi...

JOB DESCRIPTIONS JOB DESCRIPTIONS A. MANAGEMENT B. ACCOUNT EXECUTIVES C. SALES CENTER D. CUSTOMER SERVICE E. ADMINISTRATIVE F. LIFE G. USER-C...

Jack Fries looks into the differences between agencies that sell and retain a lot of business and those that don't. This applies to not only the sales people, but to the CSRs, who have the responsibility of account development.

MONITORING RESULTS OF A TELEMARKETING DEPARTMENT Keeping track of your telemarketing efforts is important for many management reasons. By monitoring results, you can ascertain which of y...

Instead of hiring telemarketers to work within your agency just for you, you could choose to pay an outside vendor to provide telemarketing services. These...

REACH OUT AND SELL SOMEONE by Gregory Jordahl Think of your telephone book as a roster of almost every potential prospect in town. Flip to the white pages and pick a name. You may h...

REACHING OUT TO SELL SOMEONE by Monica Langley If you think telemarketing is only a bunch of people yakking on the telephone, think again. It lets agents prospect for business from Rapid Ci...

The following section is a varied and important one to a profitable independent agency. In it, you will learn the basis of the Sales Center concept and how Sales Centers have brought increased profitability, retention, and total-account sales into many agencies.

Many agencies establish a Sales Center with their existing personnel, or hire an additional administrative or customer service person to take over additional duties. Others find that the increased efficiency of a Sales Center allows them to expand their marketing efforts, and they hire an in-house or outside telemarketing staff to keep leads coming in to producers.

TELEMARKETER'S SKILLS

You might look toward four basic types of people when you're searching for prospective telemarketers:

Your own administrative or service employees
Professional salespeople
Experienced telemarketers
New employees who express an interest in telemarketing, but have little or no sales background