Prospecting
for accounting clients through telemarketing — a blindingly
efficient method for client acquisition
 Most
of us have tried cold calling to obtain new Accounting clients...
and found how unwelcoming the reception can be.
And so it is
that unless you know exactly HOW to approach a target audience
and what to ask, you will receive practically nothing BUT rejection
— some of it very impolite too.
But does this
really PROVE that telemarketing doesn't work... or does it merely
show that we've not had the experience and insider knowledge
of WHAT to say when we reach the target person?
Let's look
at how our potential clients see telemarketing.
Why telemarketing
has such a bad name
Telemarketing
has a bad name only because there are so many inept, unskilled
and badly planned approaches in use.
If telemarketing
people had a little less aggression and a bit more clever planning
the image of this marketing method would be different.
The fact is
that most telemarketing calls succeed in upsetting the target
person within seconds... and once that has occurred, there's
NO WAY anything good could ever come out of that conversation.
Some telemarketing
activities are just idiotic, trying to FORCE things on the target
persons. Here, we need not search farther for the cause of failure.
But the majority
of better-planned telemarketing activities also manage to achieve
very few results because of a more hidden cause:
Unwittingly,
they upset the target person by overstepping his willingness
and/or ability to accept what is being said.
It's very normal
for telemarketing speeches to try to force the target
person into accepting chosen facts. This is the "sales-oriented"
telemarketing strategy wherein one tries to SELL ideas (and,
possibly, products or services) directly on the telephone to
a stranger.
Another classic
mistake is to start from YOUR reality on Accounting and finance.
Of course,
your view of it is the correct one objectively speaking.
But marketing
— and telemarketing — is not a science of objectivity
or truth.
Its success
is solely based on EMOTIONAL responses to the person calling
and the speech he or she uses.
Any response
to telemarketing is EMOTIONAL
The fact of
the matter is that people react to new things emotionally much
more so than rationally.
That's to say
whenever something new springs upon us our initial reaction is
based on EMOTION, not logic.
For some, logic
takes over quite quickly. But the majority need help in being
able to start thinking rationally in a subject with which they're
NOT FAMILIAR.
For business
owners, Accounting and finance form such a subject.
Therefore,
LOGIC can only be used to plan an emotionally correct approach,
NOT to plan a logical approach.
In other words,
you cannot "talk sense" to business owners at this
stage if you want prospective clients. Instead, you must talk
"emotion" so your approach meets with their approval
on an emotional level.
Thus, the strategy
of telemarketing must be built on...
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how the target
person sees Accounting and finances, what's his level of familiarity,
awareness, understanding and willingness to influence finances
and/or Accounting |
|
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how responsible
he is in seeing that the cause of whatever good and bad situations
within his finances are dependent on HIS ACTIONS ALONE |
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- |
how much he blames
others for the misfortunes and inadequacies in his financial
situation (which factor you must accept and work from) |
|
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how well your
approach is built to meet his emotional response to the subject
of Accounting AND that of receiving a telemarketing call |
|
- |
how well and fluently
YOU can introduce new factors that help to explain the problems
in a way he can ACCEPT (basically by finding causes other than
HIM for the unfortunate state of things) |
|
- |
how gradual your
approach is so he can take the next step without having to face
too much discomfort or responsibility (commitment) |
...and so on.
Now, it may
all seem a bit confusing and theoretical, but essentially it
simply means this:
|
To be successful,
your telemarketing approach must ALIGN with how business owners
currently SEE Accounting services and how they FEEL about it
and all the subjects it involves.
It must
also include comfortable, interesting and small enough steps
for him to take so he can "graduate" onto the next
level of action following the initial prospecting call. |
Now, if you
attempt PLANNING that from scratch you're up for a project lasting
several years. I know for we've done it... and it did take years.
(By the way,
if you're interested in finding out more about telemarketing
and B2B telemarketing in particular, it's worth your whie to
visit www.telemarketingtips.info
— a valuable B2B telemarketing resource.)
All right,
let's get back to it.
To hit just
the right buttons spot-on, you need to survey the target
audience several times, test various scripts, find the problems
in the script AND in how the telemarketers use it (and differentiate
between these so as not to change what works), adjust the speech
and the way people use it... back and forth for ages because
each phase needs to be done LONG ENOUGH so you can be CERTAIN
of its mistakes and results... on and on.
It's very complicated
and time-consuming.
However, once
there, once the work has been done, once you've fought through
all the confusion it all becomes utterly SIMPLE.
And that's
basically what Part 3 of Modern Accountancy Marketing & Sales
Course gives you in a neatly organised form.
I guarantee
that you see the ready-to-use tools and read the chapters explaining
the "how and why," see the instructions on how to use
the tools and view the troubleshooting list for this telemarketing
system... everything will click into its place and it will be
very simple and make-sense.
Power beyond
anything you've seen before...
If you've tried
telemarketing before and have disappointments in the subject,
I can well understand your scepticism.
Also, I cannot
promise that setting up your own telemarketing activity will
go without ANY problems. That's why you have the years worth
of experience in the troubleshooting list and that's why we —
who have USED this system for years — stand by to offer
assistance should you encounter problems.
However, let
it be said that if you persist and achieve functionality with
this telemarketing activity, there's just no way of describing
how much it will produce.
The results
will take you by surprise, guaranteed.
Just imagine
what it would mean to "push a button" and have 10 prospective
clients for next week. (Remember that in Part 4 you also receive
the tools of presenting your services and signing prospects on
as new clients... tools with amazing efficiency yet requiring
NO salesmanship at all.)
Even with a
relatively low closing ratio, you could sign three of four of
those prospects onto your services. And who knows, perhaps you'll
be one of those who get the 70-80% success ratio that some of
our clients have achieved...
Just think...
what would it really MEAN for your firm to HAVE such a tremendously
effective system ... and to you personally?
Click here
to read the presentation of Modern Accountancy Marketing Course.
And if you
already HAVE a telemarketing activity but feel it should produce
more and/or better results, why not take a look at our special
service called the B2B
Telemarketing Result-Optimization Analysis — it might be just the thing
to use to tweak your telemarketing activity into better results!
Best wishes
Harry Kafka
HDK
Consultants Ltd
32 Manning Close
Richmond Square
East Grinstead
West Sussex RH19 2DR
United Kingdom
Tel. (01342) 328 116
CONTACT
FORM
E-mail: info@accountancymarketing.co.uk |