Corrections or additions?
This article by Kathleen McGinn Spring was prepared for the September 25, 2002 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Dialing for Dollars
d>Amanda Puppo spends a substantial portion of her
days on the phone. The founder of MarketReach, a Cranbury telephone
marketing company, she specializes in getting busy decision makers
to agree to sales visits from her clients. It can take four, eight,
fifteen, or twenty calls just to get Mr. or Ms. Decisionmaker on the
line.
Are there days when every receptionist is rude? When she is stonewalled,
sweared at, and lied to? Days when she hears Mr. VIP is in a meeting
for the 20th time in six hours or that Ms. VIP will be on a conference
call until Tuesday next? Does she get discouraged, depressed, even
despondent?
“Never,” says Puppo. “Most people aren’t rude because
I’m really nice. It’s a mirror effect.”
It is impossible not to believe her. She is just so up, so friendly,
so brimming with youthful enthusiasm. A telemarketer a prospect could
love? Could it be true? Actually, Puppo prefers the term “telephone
marketer” to “telemarketer,” and does appear to have an
approach that deflects the animus that automatically attaches to most
individuals who make a living by using the phone to persuade others
to do or buy things.
She shares her secrets on “Expanding Your Business Through Telephone
Marketing” on Monday, September 30, at 4:30 p.m. at a free Trenton
Small Business Week event at the Mill Hill Playhouse at Front and
Montgomery streets in Trenton. Call 609-396-8801 or register at www.smallbizweek.com
It is common to hear about entrepreneurs who started their businesses
after a decade or two of corporate experience. Puppo did not hang
around in corporate corridors nearly that long. A 1997 graduate of
the State University of New York at Albany, she spent a little time
at payroll giant ADP, learned one key lesson, and set out on her own.
“ADP is a $4 billion business built on kids right out of college
running around, collecting business cards, and calling prospects,”
she observes. If the system works for ADP, why couldn’t it work for
her? She quickly decided there was no reason it could not, and in
2000 founded MarketReach (609-448-6364; www.marketreach.biz) in Cranbury.
Less than one-and-a-half years old, the company has two part-time
employees, and is growing.
MarketReach does surveys, trains telephone marketers, and creates
lists of qualified prospects. But the bulk of its work is in setting
appointments for clients, many of which are in the IT industry. “Clients
used to knock on their doors,” she says of this beleaguered group.
“Now it’s tough out there.” She also has a specialty in representing
food and beverage clients, and especially coffee vendors.
You will never hear Puppo’s voice when you rush from the dinner table
to pick up the phone — and run headlong into a sales pitch. She
does only business-to-business telephone marketing. Her secrets for
success include:
Be persistent. “You need persistence, enthusiasm,and the tenacity to plug away,” she says. Forget about reachinga prospect on the first try. Bagging a chat on the fifth or fifteenthtry is more realistic. “It’s tiring for some people,” sheacknowledges.Keep excellent records. There is software, including ACT,Access, and Goldmine, that tracks calls and sounds alarms when itis time to make another call to a prospect. Choose one — Pupposwears by ACT — and use it. A prospect may say “`Call backin two months,’” she says. “If you do, you gain credibility.”Make the receptionist your friend. You need to make thereceptionist your ally. Many people look right past the receptionist,or worse, treat her badly. Don’t. Learn her name, and use it. Makeher your friend, and chances are she will be honest with you. “Getslightly personal,” is Puppo’s advice for getting in good withthe gatekeepers. “They want to be treated well, and often, they’renot.”Lead with an assertive line. Breaking through to a decisionmaker is the most difficult part of telephone marketing, no questionabout it. Once you’re through, you can’t afford to blow the opportunity.Start off with a simple statement of who you are, what you want, andhow long it will take.Use benefit statements. During this short, sweet introduction,let the prospect know what you can do for him. Puppo gives this example:”I have clients in your industry; I’ve raised their bottom lines20 percent.”Ask engaging questions. Keep the intro short, point outthe benefits of your goods or services, and then move quickly to questions.Asking whether the prospect, for example, is now outsourcing IT consultingor his employees’ coffee service engages him in a conversation. Followingup with more questions leads him further into your presentation. This,says Puppo, is far better than trying to force him to sit still duringa monologue detailing all the advantages of your wares.Initiate action. After establishing that the prospectuses — or could use — goods or services like the ones youare selling, move right on to close the sale or set up the sales appointment.Puppo can close sales for her own business services over the phone— and has done so, but she says most of her clients need to setup a sales appointment. To get the ball rolling, she asks prospects:”Do you have a calendar in front of you?” The purpose of thisquestion is to get them in action in response to her directive.Don’t offer too many choices. While she has read thatit is a good idea to offer a prospect a choice of dates for a salescall, Puppo prefers to take control of the timing. “If they’rein Lawrence, and I’m going to be in Lawrence on Wednesday afternoon,I’ll say `how about 3 p.m. on Wednesday,’” she says. If the answeris no, she moves on to choices, asking how is Thursday or Friday?One of the many reasons Puppo likes telephone marketing is thatits results are so easy to quantify. You know just how many callsit took to make 10 appointments, how many of those appointments ledto sales, and how much money those sales generated.A person who obviously loves her work, Puppo says she doesn’t haveto psyche herself up for a day on the phone. The fact that most ofthe calls she makes are for other people’s businesses helps. Any rejectionshe gets is not personal. “It insulates me,” she says.For Puppo, soliciting business by phone is a business. That also makesit easier for her to cut her losses. Are there prospects who stonewallher to death? Sure, and when they do, she says it’s time to say “Next!”and to move on.No matter what the message on the other end of the line, Puppo’s signoff never varies. “I always say `Have a great day!,’” shesays, sounding like she really means it.Top Of PageBiotechnology SymposiumThe Pennsylvania Biotechnology Association and the BiotechnologyCouncil of New Jersey team up to present Biotech 2002: Opportunitiesin the Nation’s Pharmaceutical Center. The two-day event begins onMonday, September 30, at 7:30 a.m. at the Philadelphia Downtown Marriott.Call 800-231-0022. Cost: Workshop, $475; symposium, $600; workshopand symposium, $975.Sponsors include the New Jersey Commerce & Economic Growth Commission,the New Jersey EDA, the New Jersey Technology Council, Bristol-MyersSquibb, Covance, Merck, Hale and Dorr, GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth, OrthoBiotech, and the University of Pennsylvania. Among the workshops:Introduction to biotechnology for the non-scientist. Thissession provides the non-scientist with a basic understanding of genomics,proteomics, stem cell research, and gene therapy. Speakers, includingWilliam Wunner of the Wistar Institute and James Maleckarof Aventis Pasteur, explain these technologies and their implicationsfor drug discovery and development and other processes.Business strategies for biotech companies. This sessionexamines fundamental business strategies for biotechnology ventures.Focusing on companies in the initial start-up, early, and middle stagedevelopment, it analyzes the critical issues underlying the creationand management of life science companies. Speakers include ThomasPenn of Meridian Venture and Michael Celano of KPMG.Law and biotechnology. This session examines issues inthe law that executives need to understand to manage transactionsin the biotechnology arena. Recent deals and current trends will beprofiled, and break-out sessions permit more in-depth analysis ofthese issues. Speakers include Manya Deehr and Randall Sunbergof Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.21st century technology transfer. This session is createdfor university technology transfer officers and researchers to discusscommercializing life sciences research. Participants discuss issueswith representatives of the National Institute of Health, Small BusinessInnovation Research, Advanced Technology Program, and the NationalScience Foundation. Topics include alternative funding solutions,commercialization, licensing, and federal and venture capital resources.Navigating the FDA approval process. The goal of thissession is to bring together senior representatives from the FDA,small biotech companies, and large pharma companies to discuss regulatory/industryinteraction and ways to improve the process. Clare Kahn of GlaxoSmithKlinemoderates.Virtual companies. With limited capital available to start-upbusinesses, virtual companies are playing a more important role. Venturecapitalists explain why this concept is important for early stagebiotech companies. Mid-Atlantic area resources for virtual companiesrequiring space, including the Port of Technology and the TechnologyCenter of New Jersey join the discussion.Next StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
