FAQ: We Can Use Cheap Telemarketers. Why Should We Waste Our Money on Business Development At All?

The short answer is that telemarketing messes up your market positioning. You position yourself as a peddler, a beggar or even a common downright pain-in-the-arse who harasses the marketplace for business. Soon your whole target market will hate your guts with passion.

In the world of B2B selling, you have a hard time to reach executives through telemarketing. And if you want to sell your stuff at premium price, then it's definitely the wrong route to follow.

But since I like operating on empirical data, here it is...

98% of 1.78 million responding to an recent on-line survey said telemarketing calls made them "angry".

Half of Californians recently polled said interruptions from telemarketers irked them more than sitting in traffic, doing their taxes, or waiting in line.

The Federal Trade Commission received 17,423 complaints about telemarketers in 1999 up eight-fold over the 2,260 reported in 1997.

In 2000 the Direct Marketing Association reported receiving 3,789 telemarketing complaints in one 35-day period.

Americans lose $ 40 billion a year to fraudulent telemarketers according to the National Fraud Information Center.

The National Association of Attorneys General estimates about 5,000,000 Americans are defrauded by telemarketers every year and one of five of them do not report the fraud, usually because they are embarrassed.

Charities make more money from selling your name and number to the other telemarketing companies than from the donations they collect from calling.

On average, only 24% of what you donate as a result of a telemarketing call will actually get to the charity on whose behalf the solicitation is made. The telemarketing company hired to make the call gets the rest.

The average American gets called 2 to 3 times per day by a telemarketer.

The FBI estimates that there are 14,000 illegal telemarketing operations bilking consumers in the United States every day.

The same telemarketer will often call an elderly person day after day, building a relationship with the target, until he/she thinks a friend, not a stranger is trying to sell them something.

92% of the adults in the United States have reported receiving fraudulent telephone offers.

As you can see, it's a risky business to get involved in telemarketing. It's a sleazy industry in general, and even if you are a nice guy or gal, the negative reputation of the whole industry can pull you down pretty fast. And if your reputation is gone in business, what do you want to do.

Also, marketing creates the perception of your company. Whatever you do inside your company, unless it's perceived that way outside your company by your target market, then you're doomed. And guess what? You can't get away for long with doing one thing and wanting to be perceived the opposite. If, on the outside, you brag to the world that you're a sought-after world-class company, but inside you're bleeding to death in bidding battles, then soon you get found out.

The better you can align your company's inside reality to how it's perceived by the outside world, that is, the target market, the more profitable your company becomes.

I read somewhere a few years ago that while the Ford Escort was the best-selling car, for quality it was ranked 11th. The best quality car was the VW Jetta, but it was ranked 12th for sales. And marketing is the only business function that can create perception. Marketing provides input for your prospects to help them to categorise your company and your stuff. Basically they create your brand.

But here's one more example: Based on taste tests, which one is the best cola, Coke or Pepsi?

Neither.

The best tasting cola is Royal Crown Cola. The second is Pepsi and the third is Coke.

Well, in reality Royal Crown Cola is an almost unknown entity, making no more "noise" in the market place than a farting ant at a heavy metal concert. And Pepsi is nowhere near to Coke's success. The highly diversified Pepsi has huge sales. The highly focused Coke has huge profits. Nuff said.

Really and truly, companies with "best of breed' cutting-edge technologies can shove their stuff up their arses unless they have a mechanism, that communicates to the world how good they are. And that's marketing. You success comes from your market positioning.

So, if you're a good company, invest in a good marketing and communicate it.

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