Image via Wikipedia

How well do you know your neighbours? In business and in life?

It’s now the middle of barbecue season. If you’re not receiving invitations to get together around a smoking grill then perhaps you should be the one doing the inviting.

As an event in itself, it has many advantages:

• Lower cost than the majority of business events you’ll ever attend / hold.
• A more relaxed environment.
• One month’s notice is usually adequate for invitations.
• Allow 2 days organisation time (food, drink and preparation).
• People like barbecues.

Image via Wikipedia

Looking back at our blog recently, we realised we’ve posted a whole host of hints and tips over the last couple of years, all of which stand the test of time.

With this in mind, here are 92 of our telemarketing hints and tips for you to browse and read, and hopefully learn from and action – why not add you favourite telemarketing tip in the comments?

• 5 Tips for Successful Telemarketing
• 5 Steps to Great Telemarketing
• 5 Ways to Bring in New Business
• 3 Uses for Telemarketing That Aren’t Selling

We may sometimes think that the UK market is too saturated to generate new business, but at VSL we believe that 2011 is THE year to grow. So, to help you achieve this, we have come up with our top 5 ways to bring in new business.

1. Telemarketing - An integral part of any business, telemarketing isn't about ringing as many people as possible; it's about ringing the right people. By speaking to the decision makers from a carefully selected list of potential clients/customers etc, you can help to maximise new business potential. By offering enthusiastic and straight to the point information, you can ensure those at the other end of phone understand exactly who you are and what you’re offering.

Would you say you were a good actor? No?? Good! 

Many people are poor actors. So imagine how most people will feel and respond when presented with the script for a telephone call. You guessed it: Un-natural, un-comfortable, un-convincing and ill at ease. Would you consider any of these as apt descriptions for the way that you want to sound and be perceived on the telephone? We thought not.

The last post in our series of blogs about the reasons people give for not wanting to outsource their telemarketing campaigns.

You can find the others here: #1 / #2 / #3 / #4

We don't outsource our sales because:

We don’t need someone full-time

One of the main advantages of Outsourced Selling is its flexibility. 

You might start off needing as little as one day a week – but then you might want to launch a new project, and suddenly want a lot more resource. 

#4 in our series of blogs about the excuses people make when it comes to outsourcing sales, increasing leads and freeing up their own time.

We don't outsource our sales because…

I don’t want to lose control over the sales function, and surely this is inevitable with Outsourcing.

Good communication lies at the heart of a good outsourcing service, and when you are in discussions, this should be one of the core issues that you should investigate.