Ad Hoc sales staff?

[Cogcog]

Can you hire telesales as self employed/part time staff, or even as commission only, to handle potential sales calls? How do they learn the technical detail required?

I have a new technical Business product I am launching late this summer and I think I need some initial direct sales calls to potential customers, with the capability to answer some technical questions and , possibly take orders or at least qualify callers for me to talk to.

I have set up a dedicated telephone number and got a telephone answering service whuch works 8-6 weekdays and Saturdays to take an intial message.

There will be an intial need to identify and contact potential customers and thereafter following up on calls to the answering service.

I am new to direct sales as my main business is consultancy and I have never had to cold sell so this all feels a bit weird.

[davepoth]

Think carefully about whether the outbound role really needs technical knowledge, or whether it can be handled with a "cheat sheet" or script. That's the normal way to do it, and you can outsource it quite easily if it's possible.

For the second phase I'd probably employ a much smaller number of people but do it directly so that you can train them properly.

[Simpo Two]

I did this years ago because like you I'm not a natural cold caller (few are), and it worked very well. But brief them carefully about your product/service and make the script more like a flaw chart with open questions, all steering to a positive answer. Think of all possible objections and have answers for them, and more open questions from those. The salespeople will never know your product as well as you do, so IMHO the aim of the call should be to get YOU in (by phone if they're not ready to see you in person) to fill in any blanks and finish off the deal.

[Cogcog]

Simpo Two said:

I did this years ago because like you I'm not a natural cold caller (few are), and it worked very well. But brief them carefully about your product/service and make the script more like a flaw chart with open questions, all steering to a positive answer. Think of all possible objections and have answers for them, and more open questions from those. The salespeople will never know your product as well as you do, so IMHO the aim of the call should be to get YOU in (by phone if they're not ready to see you in person) to fill in any blanks and finish off the deal.

All sounds pretty much what I need. Did you use a recruitment agency?

[Eric Mc]

What would they be considered "self employed"?

[Simpo Two]

Cogcog said:

All sounds pretty much what I need. Did you use a recruitment agency?

No, it was an oddball outfit near Harlow, in an old school IIRC. RH Publishing? Mid-90s, long gone now. It was run by one old gent and had a handful of young staff on phones. I had to give them a list of 100+ contacts and a script. I think it was £1 a call, £2 if they made an appointment. I got report sheets with useful info/more contact details. For about £120 outlay I made two good clients and several tens of Ks from it

[uber]

Simpo Two said:

No, it was an oddball outfit near Harlow, in an old school IIRC. RH Publishing? Mid-90s, long gone now. It was run by one old gent and had a handful of young staff on phones. I had to give them a list of 100+ contacts and a script. I think it was £1 a call, £2 if they made an appointment. I got report sheets with useful info/more contact details. For about £120 outlay I made two good clients and several tens of Ks from it

We actually do this for a number of our business customers as long as we think expectations can be met. Normally we pull fresh data then supply the customer with a list of calls made via call record and responses.

[Altrezia]

uber said:

We actually do this for a number of our business customers as long as we think expectations can be met. Normally we pull fresh data then supply the customer with a list of calls made via call record and responses.

Can you drop me an email? Would be interested in using this service.