Tag: telemarketing

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Call Center

I Predict…

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

It seems that seldom a week goes by when I don’t receive a call from someone wanting to interview me. Sometimes it is a local newspaper, other times a specialty magazine. I was quite unnerved at my first interview request. I envisioned it being a hard-hitting, muckraking interrogation, intent on getting me to say something I didn’t mean. That was the best-case scenario. Worst-case, I feared a tabloid style grilling, twisting the truth, obliterating the context of my comments, or generating all out fabrications. As such, it is not surprising that I viewed each question with suspicion, searching to ascertain its hidden agenda, carefully constructing my response, and guardedly protecting my words. It took me a while, but I eventually came to realize that the vast majority of reporters merely want to get enough useful information to complete their piece. So now, I just answer their questions, as openly and honestly as possible — and then get back to the work in front of me.

Author Peter Lyle DeHaan

Over time, I realized that the tenor of these interview requests fall into three categories. The first group is those who were trying to better comprehend the call center industry. I’ve tried, with only partial success, to educate the uninitiated in the distinction between inbound and outbound. I’ve tried to help them understand the call center industry is not necessarily synonymous with telemarketing (specifically, being interrupted during dinner), and the differences between in-house call centers and their outsourcing cousins. All too often, they want to skip this rudimentary instruction and go right to the main lesson – one that they are not yet prepared to adequately grasp.

The second category of questions revolves around outsourcing. Again, their level of understanding is simplistic. They assume that all call center outsourcing takes place offshore. They are surprised to learn that there are many viable outsource call centers onshore. They are incredulous when I tell them, in fact, that the majority of call center outsourcing occurs to call centers that are located, not at some third-world locale, but rather within the confines of their country’s borders. Then they go on to rant about accents and uncomprehending agents – as if accents equaled offshore. Yes, there may be a correlation, but there are plenty of local agents with accents and, indeed, offshore agents without accents. This, they cannot comprehend. Surely, they reason, if an agent has an accent, they must be offshore, won’t be able to effectively communicate, and must have a substandard intelligence. Such stereotypical attitudes will not easily be overcome.

The third group of questions revolves around the future. “What are the major call center trends that you see developing over the next 12 months?” Or, “How will technology impact the call center?” Other questions are less informed, such as “Will the Internet affect the call center industry?” Or “Do you think computers will ever be used in call centers?”

Sometimes the questions are nonsensical, along the lines of, “With the documented increase in demand for left-handed widgets in the Pacific Rim, how will the ongoing viability of the home-based agent in rural America be assured?” Okay, maybe I am being dense or perhaps they have an agenda, so I ignore the question and give a benign and generic reply, such as “We can be assured that technology will play an increasingly important role in tomorrow’s call center infrastructure.” That seems to make them happy. Plus, it is a valid, yet innocuous quote that they can slip anywhere into their article without me having any real concerns of being misrepresented.

In truth, I am reticent in making future prognostications. The reality is that sometimes my words come back to haunt me. In 1990, I wrote an article, proclaiming that advanced call forwarding features and stutter dial tone would be the “dynamic duo” of the decade for the telemessaging industry. As it turned out, advanced call-forwarding features did afford more connection opportunities and stutter dial tone could have been a powerfully effective message-waiting indicator, yet I failed to realize that telcos had no real interest or incentive to let call centers access their switches to turn on and off the stutter dial tone. At best, I batted 500.

Five years later, I gave a speech about home-based agents. My words about HR issues, training, and management are as relevant today as they were nine years ago. Yet I missed the mark on timing, as I envisioned this opportunity fully developing within a year or two. It wasn’t until the Internet became ubiquitous, that technology allowed home-based agents to become viable, practical, and cost-effective.

At another meeting around that time, I gave an informative primer on the Internet and impassionately urged attendees to begin learning and experiencing the Internet; indeed, their call centers’ future viability was at stake. My words were accurate and my advice was astute, but it almost didn’t happen. Some 12 years prior, in the early 1980s, I first heard about the Internet. I learned that it had limited accessibility (you needed to be at a major university or work for a defense contractor) and therefore I deemed it an anomaly with no practical business application. My understanding of the Internet remained frozen in a 1982 perspective until circumstances forced me to reexamine it. My how things had changed – and I almost missed it.

So, it is with great trepidation that I stick my neck out; I predict…

Offshore outsourcing will continue, grow, and succeed. True, there may be unaddressed quality issues and political ramifications today, but those will diminish. My good friend, Mike Leibowitz, succinctly summarized the situation, “Remember when ‘Made in China’ meant the products were of low quality? For that matter, ‘Made in Japan’ had the same stigma a generation ago. But they learned and improved and now Japan and China produce the highest quality items. So, don’t discount the Indians and Pakistanis just because they are having some issues with call center performance today. They are smart, they are motivated, and they will get better – much better.”

The Internet will become even more important. Lack of Internet acumen will relegate call centers to second-class existence – or worse. First, there are the basics.

  • Call centers must have a website. At minimum, it should be professional, be an effective marketing piece, and contain complete contact information. Too many small outsourcing call centers have put this off.
  • Key staff (preferably all staff) need to have their own business email address. Having one email address that everyone uses is, well, appalling and second rate.
  • Your email addresses must convey professionalism.  Is blond4you@CheapEmail.com an email address that your call center can be proud to use?
  • Make sure that you actually test and check your email. In sending messages to the “contact us” email addresses on websites, I have found that about 15 percent are rejected and that about 65 percent are never answered.
  • Beyond these essentials, you need to be thinking about client services on your website, “talk-to-me” and chat options, remote agents, high-speed Internet access, VoIP, and hosted services. These are our future differentiators.

VoIP cannot be ignored. Sending voice calls over the Internet (VoIP) is an opportunity that every call center must consider. It allows home-based and remote agents to be cost-effective and viable and has the promise to lower telco costs. Your next switch (maybe even your current one) will likely be based on this premise. Be sure to choose your VoIP vendor with care; many will not survive.

Telco costs will go down. It was once postulated that the rate for long distance would converge at one cent per minute; rates will continue to move in that direction. However, with the aforementioned VoIP, the incremental cost of a long distance call could become zero!

Consolidation and mergers will continue. Consolidations and mergers will continue unabated. This will occur with phone companies, with equipment and software vendors, and among call centers. Regardless of which camp you are in, you must grow (either more market share or new markets) or find a niche (preferably multiple ones) in which you focus, excel, and lead. The status quo is not an option.

Government will be an increasing force. Expect new laws and policies to affect call centers, especially relating to privacy issues and outbound calling. The degree to which the FCC does or does not regulate telephone and related services will have far-reaching ramifications in terms of service availability, feature richness, pricing, and taxation. It is hard to predict what will happen, only that something will happen!

Adopt a mobile strategy. Did you know that half of all long distance calls are placed from mobile phones? Increasing numbers of consumers are jettisoning their landline phone in favor of a mobile phone, which affords them greater flexibility, “free” long distance, more features, and often lower rates. Our society is going mobile and the call center needs to strategize around that trend.

Some predictions will be wrong. This includes not only the preceding comments but those from everyone else, as well!

Read more in Peter’s Sticky Series books: Sticky Leadership and Management, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Customer Service featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Connections Magazine, covering the call center teleservices industry. Read his latest book, Healthcare Call Center Essentials.

Categories
Call Center

Are You In or Out?

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

Since you are reading this column, it is highly likely that in some way or manner, you are in the call center industry. However, the question, “Are you in or out?” does not query your connection to the industry, but rather your participation within it.

Author Peter Lyle DeHaan

Those who operate call centers, classify their activity in two ways. The first is if they handle inbound traffic or outbound traffic; the second is whether they are an in-house or outsource operation. Therefore, “Are you in or out?” is two questions, each with two answers, for four possible outcomes:

  1. An in-house call center, doing inbound work
  2. An in-house call center, doing outbound work
  3. An outsource call center, doing inbound work
  4. An outsource call center, doing outbound work

Inbound or Outbound? Inbound or outbound refers to the direction of calls. That is, whether the center makes calls (outbound) or receives calls (inbound).

For an outsider – or even an uninformed insider – this would seem to be a small distinction. “What’s the big difference?” They ask. “Both involve agents, use phones, and are supported by technology. If you are doing one, the other should not be a problem.”

Not so fast. The differences are as profound as night and day.

Inbound: Since inbound call centers answer calls, agents are in a reactive mode. That is, they wait for the phone to ring (or for the next call to drop from the cue) and then they react to it. Inbound call centers are equipped with ACDs (Automatic Call Distributors) to efficiently send calls to the “next available agent.”

Inbound operations are staffed more hours of the day than their outbound counterparts, with most operating 24×7. Agents are scheduled to work in anticipation of projected call volume based on historical data and marketing initiatives.

Outbound: For the outbound call center, agents must be proactive; that is, they need to take initiative. The successful outbound agent has a different personality than the ideal inbound agent. Even if the nature of their outbound work is not specifically in sales, they still need a sales mentality.

They need to engage the called party, lead them towards a stated objective, and deal well with rejection – some of which may be personally directed. Outbound call centers rely on predictive dialers to place calls. Outbound centers have reduced hours of operation, limited by law and the demands of specific campaigns.

Here agents are scheduled as needed to complete a requisite number of calls within a certain window of time.

There has been much talk about the avalanche of recent legislation to regulate (that is, limit) outbound calling, historically called telemarketing.

There is a wide degree of differing opinions on how this has affected the outbound call center industry. At one extreme, the doomsayers assert that the industry has been decimated, sending millions into unemployment and leaving outbound calling as an insignificant fraction of the overall call center industry.

The opportunists proclaim that this legislation has forced marginal players out of the industry, or at least pushed them to inbound work, and made outbound calling easier. This is because the 70 million or so who signed up for the Do Not Call (DNC) list weren’t buying anyway.

Those remaining, who can still be called, have a higher propensity to buy. Yes, jobs have been lost and centers closed, but much of that, they assert, would have happened regardless of this legislation.

Blended: Not to be overlooked, the concept of blended call centers (those doing both inbound and outbound work) has been pursued, although with varying degrees of success. Blending can occur at different levels. The first is within a call center, where some agents are answering calls while others are placing calls.

The second level of blending occurs with agents who are proficient at both calling disciplines; they can be scheduled for either activity as needed. Most agents cannot successfully make this transition from one day to the next, but for those who can, the variety is greatly appreciated.

The third level of blending occurs from call to call. If an unexpected rush of incoming calls occurs, the outbound reps are automatically removed from the agent pool of the predictive dialer and placed into the agent pool for the ACD.

This continues until the rush is over, when the process reverses. Conversely, if it is a slow day for incoming calls, these agents can be automatically switched to the outbound campaign. While this type of efficiency excites upper management, it often works better on paper than in reality because reps who can successfully do this type of on-the-fly mental adjustment are rare.

In-house or Outsource? While the concepts of inbound and outbound are generally understood, the terms in-house and outsource elicit some confusion.

An in-house call center is one where the work done is performed for the company itself – that is, internally – and is generally secondary to the main function of the company and the products or services they produce.

Conversely, an outsource call center is in business to provide call center services to other companies. Phone work is all they do; it’s their business.

In-house: There are arguably 50 to 100,000 call centers in the United States. The range is so great, because the definition of a call center varies. Of these, roughly 90 percent are in-house call centers.

Outsource: Outsource call centers, though a minority, are increasing in number and importance. This trend is due to more and more companies looking to outsourcing as a way to increase service levels or options, return to their core competencies, save money, or all three.

At outsource call centers, processing calls is all they do. Therefore, they must do it well and cost-effectively if they are to remain viable. They also enjoy an economy-of-scale that is not feasible for the in-house operation.

As such, their margins allow the client to save money and the outsource call center to make money.

Unarguably, the outsource call center industry can trace its beginnings to the post-World War I era, when enterprising telephone answering services begin popping up around the country. Even though the label would follow decades later, these entrepreneurs were, in fact, the first outsource call centers.

The modern era of outsource call centers began in the 1980s, when the introduction of toll-free numbers made it cost-effectively realistic to centralize call centers. Still, it wasn’t until the last few years that the outsourcing label was applied.

Outsource call centers are very similar in design and function to their in-house counterparts. There are, however, a few important distinctions.

First, while an in-house call center can be viewed as either a cost-center or a profit-center, the outsource call center must be a profit-center and is often the only source of revenue for the company. Second, the outsource call center must continually search for and find new clients to serve. Therefore, it has an external sales and marketing aspect that is not needed at in-house call centers.

Lastly, in-house call centers service their company’s customers, whereas at the outsource call center it is generally their clients’ customers who are served. Therefore the agents at an outsource call center are working for their client’s, but work with their clients’ customers or prospects.

Outsource is Not Synonymous with Offshore: A recent trend has been moving call center activity to other countries which boast stable technological infrastructures and offer qualified workers who possess lower wage expectations. This is typically referred to as offshore outsourcing and is too often incorrectly shortened to outsourcing.

This is incorrect shorthand, as the majority of U.S. call center outsourcing is, and will continue to be, to U.S.-based call centers. Offshore outsourcing, which is getting all the attention, is a small minority of the total call center outsource picture. Although offshore outsourcing will continue to occur and increase, it will be some time before it becomes the majority of all call center outsourcing.

Where Does Connections Magazine Fit In? At Connections, our focus is on outsource call centers. Our articles are written with outsource call centers in mind. That does not mean that we are not a great magazine for in-house call centers.

In fact, more and more in-house call centers are receiving Connections then ever before; new subscriptions occur daily! As long as our in-house friends keep the caller/client distinction in mind, Connections’ articles apply as appropriately to them as they do to the outsourcing center.

Also, the content of most articles is applicable to both the inbound and the outbound operation, though occasionally content will specifically address one segment or the other.  

The bottom line is, whether you are inbound or outbound, in-house or outsource, Connections Magazine is for you!

Read more in Peter’s Sticky Series books: Sticky Leadership and Management, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Customer Service featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Connections Magazine, covering the call center teleservices industry. Read his latest book, Healthcare Call Center Essentials.

Categories
Call Center

My Response to Spam

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

Do you like spam? Does anyone? I’m not talking about the luncheon meat product SPAM, which is produced by Hormel Foods Corporation, but rather the inundation of unwanted messages that increasingly plagues us. Unless you happen to be one of those who delight in propagating spam messages, I am confident that you concur with me that spam is a problem.

Author Peter Lyle DeHaan

Unfortunately, defining spam is easier said than done. What constitutes spam to some may be acceptable communications to others. Just as in 1964 when Justice Potter Stewart famously said of obscenity, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it,” the same can be said of spam.

In similar fashion, I too, can quickly spot spam, but coming up with a concise, compelling, and complete clarification is an elusive endeavor. Nevertheless, here is my definition: Spam is an unwanted message that is offensive, illegal, or intrusive.

Spam email messages can take on many forms of varying severity: pornographic, obscene, offensive, illegal, scams and cons, viruses, virus warnings, chain letters, sales solicitations, undesired attachments (especially when they are large), and even thoughtless email forwards.

It is safe to say that email spam has reached endemic proportions, leading some to say that email use, as ubiquitous as it currently is, will be decimated in the near future.

Others, however, boldly predict that the increasing flow of spam will be reversed, curtailed, and stopped within two years. My view is that reality will end up in the middle of these two extremes.

Some claim that filters are the key, but attempts to filter spam often have the side effect of blocking legitimate messages. I have experienced this on both the sending and receiving side of the equation.

At one time, I made extensive use of Microsoft Outlook’s “rules” to search for and automatically move spam to a separate folder, which I reviewed once a week. Invariably, I would find legitimate messages in my spam folder, some of which were time-critical.

Also, I invested an excessive amount of time writing new rules to capture additional spam that had been designed to bypass spam filters such as mine. My conclusion is that it takes less time to simply delete spam messages as they arrive than to try to maintain an effective filter.

Even though about two-thirds of my email each day is spam, I only spend a couple minutes a day deleting it. Also, the interruption caused by spam email (assuming you batch your email) is negligible.

Now, let’s return to my definition of spam: Spam is an unwanted message that is offensive, illegal, or intrusive. Notice that I did not used the word email. Although spam messages are associated with email, I submit that any unwanted message is spam, requiring time for a response and causing an interruption of more important activities. Consider the following:

Popup Ads: When surfing the Web, or at least certain websites and portals, popup ads become a navigational hazard. The more annoying ones blast you with music or sound. The infuriating ones are next to impossible to close.

Popup ads, we are told, are used because enough people click on them to justify the ads’ continued use. I must admit that even I have clicked on a few myself, albeit accidentally.

The time required to deal with popup ads, unless you are a hard-core Web surfer or have low sales resistance, is minor. The interruption to efficiently navigating the World Wide Web is moderate.

Direct Mail: The concept of an unwanted message as applied to direct mail has been given the label of junk mail. It used to be that I would sort through the mail when it arrived, cull the junk mail, and throw it in the trash.

But now, with concerns of identity theft rampant, I find myself opening every piece of junk mail, pulling out anything with personal information on it, and shredding it. This takes time and is an added annoyance. I suppose that this effort averages me about five minutes a day.

As such, junk mail actually takes more time to deal with than spam email messages. Fortunately, this processing of junk mail is not a true interruption, as I can handle it at a time I choose.

Door-to-Door: Incredibly, I have experienced a slight increase in door-to-door solicitations over the past year. While I am proficient at hitting the delete key for email, closing pop-up ads, shredding junk mail, and ending a telemarketing call, I find it difficult to close the door on someone.

After telling phone representatives that I am not interested, I have no problem hanging up if they keep jabbering, yet I have never shut my front door on someone who won’t take no for an answer. Fortunately, this doesn’t happen too often. Even so, the interruption is a key annoyance.

Television and Radio: These are broadcast mediums, in which content cannot be targeted, but is intended for the masses. Radio commercials occur between 12 and 16 minutes every hour and with the average adult reportedly listening to the radio three hours per day, which results in about 45 minutes of unwanted messages per day.

With television, there is even more time devoted to commercials. Surveys consistently put the number of commercial minutes per hour for TV at 16 and higher (over 20 for daytime TV). With various studies claiming three to five hours of TV watching per day, this adds up to an hour or more of unwanted messages each day.

Granted, we have trained ourselves to do productive things during these times (grab a snack, run to the bathroom, or take out the trash) or do semi-productive things, like channel surf or get an update on the score of the game; a great deal of time is still wasted.

Adding radio and TV commercials together approach or exceed two hours of unwanted messages a day. Isn’t this another form of spam? Yes, but one that we have been conditioned to accept and tolerate.

Many readers of Connections Magazine are involved in outbound telemarketing and some are in call centers that are exclusively devoted to outbound. Unfortunately, for most consumers, an outbound telemarketing call is unwanted and therefore it fits the previous definition of spam. (Before any readers from outbound call centers get angry, please read the rest of the article.)

With the advent of the national do-not-call (DNC) law, many consumers, like me, have registered our residential numbers. This has stopped all phone solicitations to my home.

The side effect of the DNC law is that those outbound telemarketing call centers (who haven’t switched over to inbound) are looking to do more business-to-business work. In the past year, the number of telemarketing calls to my office has increased from a couple a month to several per day!

There are even some days when the number of unwanted calls exceeds the number of wanted calls.

My broad and all-inclusive definition of spam is the consumer side of me speaking. While most readers will concur that the words “offensive” and “illegal” have their proper place in the definition of spam, the words “unwanted” and “intrusive” may go too far.

Indeed, applying this definition, virtually every marketing effort, no matter how well designed and executed would fall victim to one of these two words.

From the business side of me, I see a legitimate need for businesses to be able to engage in cost-effective and results-producing marketing efforts. Politicians know that too, but realized that it was politically advantageous to dramatically curtail outbound telemarketing by enacting a national DNC law.

In short, they were willing to effectively destroy an industry, increase the marketing costs of most companies, and further retard a slowly recovering economy for the sole purpose of political expediency. (Note that Congress exempted themselves from their own restrictions, giving testament to their belief in the effectiveness of outbound telemarketing.)

Unsolicited faxing is currently illegal and more onerous restrictions are scheduled in the near future. Currently, there are advocates for legislation to do to direct mail what DNC did to outbound calling – effectively stop it. There are already serious calls for a “do not email” law (not that it would work).

Why? Because these, too, are politically expedient, albeit bad for business and the economy as a whole. With fax, mail, and email as targets, could all forms of proactive marketing be far behind?

We all need marketing. Businesses need to promote products or services and consumers need to be informed about options. You can help; quite simply, make sure that your message is not viewed as spam.

Read more in Peter’s Sticky Series books: Sticky Leadership and Management, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Customer Service featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Connections Magazine, covering the call center teleservices industry. Read his latest book, Healthcare Call Center Essentials.

Categories
Call Center

How Can I Get More Sales?

By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD

Almost every day, someone asks me, “How can I get more sales?” In fact, for my clients and prospects, increasing sales is usually a primary concern. Rarely does anyone tell me that their company is making all the sales they want. I wish they would ask me easier questions, like “How can I improve quality,” “How can I increase revenue,” or “How can I reduce turnover?” All of these I have successfully dealt with, but the sales issue is a bit trickier. It seems that people are looking for a quick fix, a simple strategy. It’s as if they are expecting me to say, “Invest X dollars in Y process to produce Z sales.”

Author Peter Lyle DeHaan

But alas, there is no magic secret. If there were – and I knew it – I would start a sales and marketing business. My clients would merely tell me their sales goals for the month and I would fill their order. But it is not that simple. Consider the following list:

  • Direct mail
  • Outbound telemarketing
  • Direct mail followed by a phone call
  • Cold calls
  • Trade shows
  • Networking
  • Referrals
  • Yellow page ads
  • Print media
  • Websites
  • Internet advertising

These tactics have a proven record of producing sales in the teleservices industry. Unfortunately, these same methods have been repeatedly demonstrated to be total failures. Campaigns that have consistently generated high sales numbers for one organization have proven to be colossal flops in others. Therefore, it is not the strategy that is important, but what surrounds that strategy. Here then, is the ultimate – yet elusive – formula for sales success:

Personnel + attitude + execution + management = sales success

Personnel: This is the critical element in the formula. Without the right people in place, nothing else matters. This starts with finding the right person for the job. Over the years, I have hired many sales people. Some worked out, but many didn’t.  (My main problem was that I was reluctant to pay enough to attract the best people.)

What is true for all candidates is even more valid for sales applicants: you see them at their very best during the interview. In fact, even mediocre salespeople know that they must give their best sales performance during the interview. If they can’t convincingly sell themselves to you, how can they possibly sell your service to someone else? To cut through all of this, I have a few key questions I like to ask sales candidates:

How much did you make at your last job?  If they made six figures, but can only expect half that at your firm, they are unlikely to work out. They will be unhappy, develop a negative attitude, and leave as soon as a better paying job comes along. Conversely, if they barely cracked the poverty level at their last job, they may be out of their league to produce at the level you expect. Ideally, their prior compensation should be 5 to 25% less then what you expect them to make with you.

How much would you like to make at this job? The response to this is most telling. Why? Because if it is unreasonably high, they won’t be satisfied working for you. On the other hand, if it is lower then what you are prepared to pay, then they will start coasting once they hit their target compensation. Again, you are looking for a salary expectation that is consistent with what you can deliver, but is still motivating to them.

Would you like to work straight commission? I don’t advocate that anyone be paid straight commission, however this question is designed to throw them off track and see how they respond. To make this work, you can’t ask the question directly, but need to back into it. If they are at all good with sales, they will have already regaled you with their accomplishments, assured you that they will be your best sales person ever, and promised they will produce at a level beyond your wildest expectations. And, if they have moxie, they may even say you’d be foolish not to hire them or suggest your company will fail without them. (Yes, I have been told this – many times.)  Given all of this, they assert that you must pay them top dollar.

At this point, you are in a position to say, “I don’t normally offer this, but based on your track record and past performance, I think you’re worthy of special consideration. I suggest that we consider a compensation plan where you will be highly rewarded for your results and given an open-ended opportunity to exceed your compensation goals.” Then pause, lean forward, and confidentially whisper, “How would you like to work for straight commission?”

First, watch if they can quickly and smoothly react to an unexpected turn of events. Next, you want to see how they retreat from their prior boasting. Often a more realistic picture emerges. Lastly, you will quickly get a true idea of what they expect for base pay and how much they are willing to put on the line in the form of commissions, incentives, or bonuses.

In the event that they are shocked or hurt by this question, simply apologize and indicate that, based on what they were saying, you thought this idea might appeal to them.

Attitude: Having the right sales staff, however, is just the beginning. They also need to have the right attitude. How many times have you seen salespeople talk themselves into a bad month? The thinking goes like this, “Last August was bad. I wonder if August is always bad? I better brace myself for a bad month.” It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and they have a bad month.

Or, how many times has a sales person said something like, “I don’t set any appointments for Monday because everyone is always too busy.” Then they add Fridays to the list because prospects are focused on wrapping up their week. The first thing in the morning doesn’t work, nor the end of the day. Before and after lunch is bad, too. I once had a salesman use this logic and he actually concluded that he could only successfully sell on Tuesday and Thursday in the mid-afternoon. It should surprise no one that he sold nothing and his time with the company was a record in brevity.

Another self-defeating attitude is negativity. Consider, for example, the salesperson who says, “Direct mail? That won’t work!” And of course, with that attitude, it won’t. Or how about, “That didn’t work last time and it’s not going to work now!” Lastly, are they willing to try new things? If they are open to new ideas and plans, then they have a much greater chance of success than if they are closed-minded. Strangely, all too many salespeople would rather continue to do what has failed in the past than to try something new.

Execution: Closely linked to attitude is the proper execution. In fact, without the right attitude, successful execution is impossible. I have seen ideal marketing plans flop because of poor or haphazard execution. Conversely, I have seen the most ill-conceived and contrived strategies succeed famously because they were diligently, steadfastly, and consistently implemented. Quite simply, there needs to be a plan. The plan needs to be meticulously followed. And those involved need to be held accountable for their work. This brings up the fourth element:

Management: The glue that holds all this together is management. Good management starts with hiring the right salespeople, giving them excellent training, providing them with appropriate compensation, and motivating them effectively. This must be followed by a sound marketing plan and a supportive environment in which to implement it. Lastly, sales management means investing time, on an ongoing basis, to encourage, observe, teach, and adjust what they do. Put more succinctly, the right management keeps them on task and holds them accountable.

There is nary a salesperson who can be truly successful without attention and oversight. They need to be lifted up when they are down and celebrated when they make a sale, held responsible for their schedule and made liable for their results. This takes considerable time and effort. As such, proper sales management is not just one more hat to wear, but a full-time job. Successfully managing salespeople is hard work. It takes time, perseverance, determination, and dedication. But then don’t all things that are worthwhile?

Read more in Peter’s Sticky Series books: Sticky Leadership and Management, Sticky Sales and Marketing, and Sticky Customer Service featuring his compelling story-driven insights and tips.

Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Connections Magazine, covering the call center teleservices industry. Read his latest book, Healthcare Call Center Essentials.