Outbound Telemarketing for Graphic Designers

Many freelance graphic designers don’t like to make phone calls, and that’s understandable. Outbound telemarketing is a tough job. It isn’t easy to convince people to buy your products or services over the phone when they’ve never met you before. But outbound telemarketing can be incredibly rewarding if done correctly, and it will help build your reputation as a professional designer. In addition, outbound telemarketers who use cold and warm call sales techniques are more likely to close deals than those who do not employ these skills in their day-to-day work lives. The first step towards outbound success is understanding your target audience: what they need, how they want it delivered, and what you’ll offer them in return for their business.

What Is Outbound Telemarketing?

Outbound Telemarketing for Graphic DesignersYour phone is a moneymaker, and it’s used to help you get appointments, but more importantly, get more sales. But it’s a tactic. It’s an essential tactic at that. But without a strategy, it won’t work best for you, so that’s my goal for this video today: help you use your phone to make you wealthy and give you a strategy and understanding that you didn’t have before.

Cold calling at the end of the day is a numbers game. It’s a volume game that’s the part of the strategies you’ve got to call many people with a suitable script. When I started my first business back in 2007, I took the knowledge that I had gained from my time in the mortgage industry and applied it to my graphics and web design and printing business, which was huge for me. It was a huge level up, and I started my business and got momentum very quickly.

Outbound Telemarketing is Effective

It’s one thing to say that outbound telemarketing is effective, but it’s another one to show you the stats, so I want to share these with you, for example.

82% of buyers said they had accepted meetings with a salesperson after a series of contacts beginning with a sales cold call. Additionally, 41% of sales representatives say that their phone is the most valuable tool for work that’s almost half the people along with their CRM software, email, and social media prospecting.

So those facts are the facts, and they speak for themselves. The truth is, in the majority of the phone calls that you make, you’re going to get told no. You’re going to get turned down, but the key is to get as many nos as you can because it’s only a numbers game, and you’re going to get yeses, so the more negatives you get, means you’re closer to a yes.

Using Outbound Telemarketing for Graphic Design

Outbound Telemarketing for Graphic DesignersNow I want to share a little bit of foundational stuff so you can get the most out of telemarketing for your business. You know what options are available to you, so I want to talk about the five software options and how you can implement telemarketing into your business. These tips are part of understanding the telemarketing game and how to maximize it for yourself. I don’t want you to be let down by the fact that you’re getting no after no or getting told off by people or told not to call, depending on business-to-business versus business-to-consumer cold calls. You’re going to get some different types of reactions; I don’t want you to be discouraged if you keep getting told no and you’re not getting yeses. That’s an excellent opportunity for you to tweak your pitch and script and how you’re approaching people on the phone and making it better.

Telemarketing Tech: Predictive Dialer

The first telemarketing software is the predictive dialer. The predictive dialer is neat because it sends multiple calls out at one time, typically three phone calls per agent, but it dials various numbers simultaneously. Whichever one answers, it sends it over to that agent and the agent can significantly increase their connectivity and efficiency with a predictive dialer. These are cool and important if you’re going to be dialing a lot of numbers.

Telemarketing Tech: Auto Dialers

The second type of telemarketing software is an autodialer. Now I want to preface it with this. I’ve got to get the ugly part out first. Auto-dialers are actually illegal unless you’re a non-profit or a politician. Unless you have an approved list of people that have agreed to be part of your autodialer, it is illegal. Many people in third-world countries are using these, even though they’re banned in the U.S. But there are thousands and thousands of complaints. I think it’s like 4,000 to 18,000 complaints every month that come in because of auto-dialers.

They’re effective software and also very similar to what you’ve probably heard of robocalls. The difference between the autodialer and the robocall is that it’s an automated recording with robocalls. Then it says if you’re interested, press one; if you’re like, you need to renew your car warranty, or thank you for calling Marriott hotels, right? Those annoying Robo-dialers go all the time. They use fake caller ID numbers. You call the number back, and it’s somebody else’s number. So stay away from robot dialers, but these are pre-recorded messages vs. the auto-dialer, a very similar kind of technology. Still, one has a pre-recorded vs. a live person.

Telemarketing Tech: VoIP

The third telemarketing and dialing software that you can use is something that I use myself in my own business, so I’m speaking from personal experience here. There’s a couple of types, and it’s called VoIP. A few different VoIP software options are available. The first one I want to mention is I’m just going to bring up a couple of them for you, I’m not paid to endorse any of these up, but these are important–I want to share these with you guys so you can implement these into your business.

The first one is called Call Hippo. We use Call Hippo because we can do live transfers and on hold and all kinds of really cool features that some of these other ones don’t have. The second one is CallRail. CallRail is another big one; it’s popular software. You also have things like Grasshopper; Grasshopper gives you a lot of control over your calling, recording calls, stuff like that. And it’s on the cheaper end.

The last one I wanted to mention is entirely free, and you can use this. You can also record calls, and in some states, you have to disclose if you’re recording a call, and that’s Google Voice. Google Voice is a great software. Google has a massive suite of software. This option is the first calling software I ever used when I was in the home improvement space. It’s something I used in my agency, and I only transferred away from it a few years ago. Google Voice is a free tool, so there’s no excuse for you not to use any call tracking, call recording, or calling system.

Telemarketing Tech: Landline

The fourth type of calling system or calling software that you can use is the typical old-school, you know, cup and freaking string method, but it’s the telephone, the traditional landline telephone. This old-school landline telephone is starting to become a thing of the past as technology is changing. There are different programs, and software’s out there that everything is running through the internet now.

So if you have a landline phone, you can use a landline phone in your office or at your home to dial numbers. You can use that number exclusively for telemarketing, but you have to make sure if somebody says ‘take me off your list,’ remove them from your list and never call them again because this could be a huge liability for you.

Telemarketing Tech: Cell Phone

This tech option is a prevalent one and the one that I use most often. Paired with one of the software, my actual cell phone itself, I call people from my cell phone. I send text messages from my cell phone. I love reaching out to people from my personal line because it is just way more personal that way. Again, it’s not coming from a tracking system, but it is harder to track if you’re using just your landline.

My team has gotten on me about using the software to track and record these calls so that they can hear the conversation on more than my end. So using the cell phone as your last case resort, you can use your cell phone along with those outbound telemarketing software options. But don’t just use just your cell phone unless it’s somebody you already have an existing relationship with for cold calls. I want to encourage you to use some software to record the call and document that process.

Other Outbound Telemarketing Considerations

Outbound Telemarketing for Graphic DesignersThe last thing I want you to understand in terms of doing these cold calls versus warm calls is there are some liabilities somebody can get angry, and they can file a complaint with the FCC. Each one of those violations from the FCC can cost you dearly. You can be fined a hundred thousand dollars for actually calling somebody on the do not call list, and I know somebody that actually happened to.

One of the pieces of advice that I want to give you is if you have a list of people, run that list through the do not call registry. Make sure that you back out any of those numbers that are on the do not call registry. Then, if you want to take the chance and have good insurance and feel like you’re safe to do it, give it a shot. But you’re putting yourself at risk by doing a cold call to somebody who’s on the do not call list. If they get outraged, they can file a complaint and that can come back on you, costing you a ton of money, so I want to put that out there and make sure you know that.

Telemarketing Tip: Buy Data

My first tip for you is to buy data from a list. I want you to buy a list, and I want you to run that list through the do not call registry before you start telemarketing or list selling. There are tons of companies out there who check and make sure they’ve gone through the do not call registry for you. Make sure they have, though, by checking with them. Second, buy a targeted list of people, so you’re not just starting with nothing and calling people out of the phonebook or some random directory like the white pages. Buy an existing list that’s targeted. This step is critical.

Telemarketing Tip: Warm Calling

So the second piece of advice that I want to give you today is crucial. I want to encourage you that a warm call is a lot better than just a straight cold call, and the way you can implement that when it comes to telemarketing is to do some other marketing in advance. So whether it’s Facebook, whether it’s a direct mail piece, whether it’s a text message, whether it’s a voicemail drop, there are all different ways that you can warm that person up to get them familiar with you first, and then you follow it up with a phone call.

Telemarketing Tip: B2B vs. B2C

My third tip is to understand the difference between business to consumer and business to business. Those are entirely different markets, so how you deal with a business owner is altogether different from how you’ll deal with a general everyday consumer like a senior citizen versus a CEO. Two completely different types of conversations, correct? So really segmenting your audience and knowing who you’re going after, and how to approach them. The good part of dealing with a business owner is that there’s an unspoken code of ethics out there. They’re not just going to hang up on you unless you say something that irritates them.

Telemarketing Tip: Scripts

So number four is to use scripts. You want to keep it short. You want to keep it sweet. Don’t give them too many opportunities to shut you down and tell you no–you want to get yeses, right? You want to make sure that you approach this conversation the right way. You must make it natural. You just be yourself. You have that posture just like you would if you’re standing at the door of somebody’s house or you’re standing face-to-face. When you say something over the phone, you want to stand up and be happy while speaking. People can hear it on the other line, but you’ll have a script of what you’re going to say.

Telemarketing Tip: Body Language

Tip number five goes back to what I was saying and tip number four, but this is body language. Body language is part of your communication; it’s a big part of your communication. So you need to stand tall. You need to smile. Sometimes, people like to pace while they’re talking on the phone. I know I do that myself. You’ve got to be confident, and you’ve got to be assertive when you’re talking on the phone. Having that assertiveness will make a big difference on the phone. You are leading that conversation. You want to be in control of that conversation, and telemarketing is such a powerful tool if you do this the right way.

Reasons to Choose Outbound Telemarketing

Outbound Telemarketing for Graphic DesignersYou know, getting hung up on by people sucks. It’s not a fun part of the job, but the truth is, and the reality is though it’s going to make you a ton of money and what I love about it is it makes you money fast. Suppose you have the proper database and call the right person with the right strategy behind you. Telemarketing can earn you money more quickly than almost anything else can, and that’s why it’s still being used today. So I wanted to bring up this article to help you guys make more money.

Need More Help with Outbound Telemarketing?

I know you may need more help, so I want to invite you guys to join my community. I have a community of designers: web, motion, and graphic designers. It’s one of the most outstanding design communities on the planet. I’ve been a part of many of them, and this one is unique. We’re doing summits and training webinars and collaborating. We also focus on lifting each other up and even praying for each other in times of need and reaching out when we need help.

I would love to invite you, personally, right now, one-on-one: here’s a link to join the Instagraphics Pro Network. It’s a private Facebook group, but I need you to answer all the questions to join the group. If you don’t answer all of them, I’ll hit the decline button. I need quality, not quantity. We’re not looking for a vast group; we’re looking for a group of quality people who are chasing after their dreams. We want people who are passionate, coachable, and hungry. If you’re that person, I would love to have you.

Conclusion

Outbound Telemarketing for Graphic DesignersThat’s all there is to my post for you today. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this. I hope you’ll see me back here tomorrow and again next week with a new article. Until then, keep searching, keep reading, and keep learning. I’m Adrian Boysel, and as always, keep looking up.