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Today on the Zero Noise Marketing Podcast we are facing down one of the ugliest monsters of the marketing world – cold calling! If you’re like most people you are immediately put in mind of skeevy scammers and dial for dollar telemarketers working in a vast sea of cubicles. Well, prepare to have your illusions of cold calling shattered. In Today’s episode, my friend Marc
You can reach out to Marc by visiting https://didemusconsulting.com/
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Episode highlights
3:06-When I pick up the phone and start doing telephone marketing, it’s just a job like any other job that I don’t even really think about getting ready for it.
3:58-When you’re new to it, nobody looks forward to it. Particularly when you’re bad at it.
5:37-But then I do remember vaguely, back then, being quite nervous about it and picking up the phone and doing that. But nowadays, I don’t think about it at all.
6:46-It’s important to be coherent but there is nothing wrong with having a strung on script that you tweak all the time.
8:33-So a couple of things that I found is everybody’s had a sales pitch.
9:35-I guess the main point that I’ll make here is that you use a conversational tone of voice just like we’re doing right now.
11:09- I think the attention spans have shortened. So you really need to be to the point.
12:05-My goal when I pick up the telephone to do the Telephone Marketing call is always to make an appointment with the decision maker.
13:15-Making it clear that you are offering something of essential value and that you have a legitimate state in what they’re doing and you just need to talk to the right person.
13:27-The receptionist is not the traditional adverse area that usually deflect. She is a partner of yours and you two are just trying to help her boss get something that they actually need.
14:26- “I wonder if you could help me, who would I talk to.” That is extremely powerful.
15:49-One of the things that Zig Ziglar talked about in one of his seminars that I bought was the importance of recording yourself and listening to how you’re coming across.
17:51-It is important to have those very defined hours and don’t do it for any more than an hour or an hour and a quarter or so. Do take a break.
18:20- So, where I’m going with this is you must be disciplined. Don’t let other things distract you.
19:40-You may not that phone call that you make may not be quite as good as if you’re right on your a-game but it’s a whole lot better than not making the phone call at all.
20:08-Making that phone call is still 100 percent better than not making that phone call at all.
21:46-They get distracted or they get emotional issues step in and they feel that they’re not confident enough to do it and that’s where things typically fall down.
25:12-You gotta make sure that if you say you’re gonna follow up, then you do follow up.
26:07-You’re not hounding them. You’re acknowledging the fact that you don’t know always what their cycle of consumption will be.
27:01-“Never sell anything to anybody unless you think you’re doing them a favor by doing that.”
29:33-If you believe in what you’re offering and that comes out in your voice then that’s also something that’s very beneficial for some that really help you with your task.
31:06-I got my game down. It’s not gonna get any better.
31:13- You’re in a very rarefied business too, that’s different. It’s not the one that you can go out and get a book specifically on selling your particular product and service because you are in a very tight niche.
32:38-It’s important to keep learning.
32:56- If you do sit still especially in this vast big world of sales, you’re dead meat.
34:33-The platforms are always changing with social media and you always have to make sure that you’re on the front edge of that.
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Jaeson: So, we have unusually bad sound quality here in this episode because we are at the Kingston Yacht Club. So, we can go down almost any rabbit hole when it comes to sales and marketing with Marc. But I’ve chosen today the one that I like the least which is Outbound Phone Selling which is something that Marc is very good at. And, we had a little preemptive conversation before the recording and I found that Marc’s answers were surprising, quite often, even though I have a background in phone selling myself. But Marc is way better at it than me. So, we’ll just listen to him. So, our first question is: What do you do to get yourself into the right mindset to start doing cold outreach by phone?
Marc: So, we are saying that if im 10 o’clock in the morning and I’m done some other tasks and I want to get on the phone to do telephone marketing what do I do to prepare for that? Mentally? Uhm, Zero. Nothing. Absolutely Nothing. So, I know a lot of people might upset themselves up or do this and do that. Sing mantras or hum mantras or whatever. Anyway, I don’t do any of that because telephone marketing you know, I’m a sales professional. I’ve been doing sales for over 30 years and telephone marketing is just something that I do probably 20 hours a week or so. And if you think I have a big pile of woods sitting on my property, and we heat our house with wood. And one of my tasks is to take that big pile of 12 foot logs and turn them into nice firewood, in manageable sizes right? So, step number 1 is pick up the chainsaw and put fuel on the chainsaw. And do you really need to do sing or hum a mantra to get sight to do that type of task?
Jaeson: No.
Marc: So in my mind, telephone marketing or physical call calling or any of those things are exactly the same. They are jobs. You do the job day in, day out. My job is to keep the number of people that we have in image advantage employed and to keep work coming in. So when I pick up the phone and start doing telephone marketing, it’s just a job like any other job that I don’t even really think about getting ready for it.
Jaeson: So, how many hours a day do you do that?
Marc: Depending. So, my whole purpose of all of the telephone marketing etc. is to make an appointment with my client, right? So, if everything is working a hundred percent then I’m spending no time doing telephone marketing. I’ll be sitting in clients’ offices performing sales with them. But of course, that’s not how it works. You’d have to make those appointments, right?
Jaeson: You fill in the pipeline though.
Marc: So, I’m probably on an average week, I would probably be spending 20 hours or so on the phone. Or maybe a little less, well maybe let’s say 15.
Jaeson: The reason why I’m bringing that up is because I’ve done telemarketing sales selling almost everything you can imagine. And when you’re new to it, nobody looks forward to it. Particularly when you’re bad at it. So, you obviously didn’t start out that way but you built up the muscle and that was the goal is to get to a point that you didn’t have to psych yourself up. It came as a natural part of your schedule. When you need the pipeline full, you could just dig in and do your four hours a day.
Marc: Right. And I and I did sort of remember when I started doing telephone marketing. And at that time I was working for a company called: Tandy Computers. Tandy own Radio Shack.
Jaeson: That makes me feel old.
Marc: Exactly, right.Makes you feel old. So, I was selling the first type beyond compatible PCs. And, so that was in a computer store in Kingston. The Tandy computer center of Kingston.Some old people might remember that. You know, older Kingstonians. And one of the things that Tandy was brought in was the new cellphones. And these items were something like that, big beasty things, ten of these long. And the new manager, the manager for our store, cause we were doing telephone marketing at that point said: “You know, when you guys spend some quiet hours I want you getting on the phone and make telephone marketing of these cellphones. You know, nothing resolved one. So, picking up the phone and doing that kind of marketing was new to us. We had zero training on it which was sort of unfortunate. And that’s what we had to do. We have to pick up the phone and figure out how to do it. Again, it would have been nice if somebody showed us properly how to do it. But then I do remember vaguely, back then, being quite nervous about it and picking up the phone and doing that. But nowadays, I don’t think about it at all. And sort of the nice thing is when I’m on the phone, I don’t think about it at all. I made tens of thousands of it anyway. Of telephone marketing calls. I have been with the same company which I founded back in 1998. Recently, I sold the company in 2014 but stayed on the same marketing background. So still doing the same thing basically. So I’ve been doing the same sales tasks with telephone marketing for 20 years. Right? So when I pick up the phone and go to make that sales call, I am not actively thinking about what I’ve gotta say. So, the words happily fall off right on my mouth and that’s pretty much how the phonecall goes. And, I’m not really thinking too much about what I’m saying, it’s just a habit or whatever.
Jaeson: So I think that is an essential part of it. People think that you have to be a Social Servant to be able to do this. Or some kind of a genius. It’s important to be coherent but there is nothing wrong with having a strung on script that you tweak all the time.
Marc: Absoultely. I think you need to start with a script. For someone to start doing this, you must have a script and that’s why I sort of talk about the training a little bit. Just when you start, it is very important to have a script and to work from that and then as time goes on you know, I can’t remember the script I’m supposed to use or whatever. I’ll just blah blah blah and again it all falls in.
Jaeson: So, is there anything you are doing in your position to make you a more well caller? And what I mean by that is anything in particular that you do to tighten your preparation or your research to make you someone who someone goes “oh yes, of course. That’s Marc Didemus from image advantage.”
Marc: So, this is when I’m calling them the first time?
Jaeson: Exactly. What we’re more interested in the initial contact.
Marc: So, my wife works with me and she certainly do many of these calls and she actually tells me my voice modulation changes depending on who I’m talking to. I don’t do it consciously. So apparently, again, I don’t know that I do this but when I’m speaking with a woman I speak softer but I think it is not something that I don’t do consciously but she picks up on it and I do believe it is a thing that I do as I don’t do it consciously. So a couple of things that I found is everybody’s had a sales pitch. Your cell phone rings or your home phone rings like people don’t have those anymore. But your cell phone rings and you get a telemarketer on your cell phone, right? And you’re selling insurance or their selling baking services. So, a lot of times I get on the sales professionals. I do this for a living. And I hear those scripts coming at me from some person from some baking center or some call center wherever I might be: “Hello, my name is Bob and I… do you find that you do not have enough money to go on vacation every year?” Or some whatever the sales pitch might be, right? And it tends to be this very monotone type of voice and you just can tell that Bob is new at it and very unsure of what he is doing. So, I guess the main point that I’ll make here is that you use a conversational tone of voice just like we’re doing right now. So, possibly think that you’re talking to your best friend about the football game yesterday. So, that’s the kind of tone of voice you wanna use. And when you get it right and I think the only way to do this is to experience. You know, your first ten phone calls are gonna be horribly awkward. 90 to 100 are gonna be better, 100 to 1000 you’re gonna be better and etc. etc. But the again, just use a conversational tone of voice and when you phone them and say “Hi, my name is Marc Didemus. I am from image advantage. We’re document scanning center comfortably located in Kingston Ontario and we offer the service of in this case scanning of by-laws for your municipality. Which we’ve done for 17 municipalities. Do you have your by-laws and council minutes scanned and carried on?” So conversational tone of voice and the one thing that I’ve also found is that you noticed there: Who am I? What’s my name? What company do I work for? What do we do? Where are we located? And what service do we offer? Right? Very precise. Very to the point. Because again, people with attention span these days with all that computer stuff is not what I think it was 20 or 30 years ago where people would let you talk for 30 seconds without “click” right? I think the attention spans have shortened. So you really need to be to the point. And everybody’s heard these very wordy type of… they commend with this benefits first and how would like more time in your life or how would you like more money or whatever the benefit might be. Or how would you like it to taste better? And they commend with these big wordy benefit and you’re saying: “Ok, what are you trying to sell me?” Right? Click! You know?
Jaeson: And is it true that in most cases, particularly when you’re dealing with professional organizations doing B to B, that you’re dealing with a gatekeeper anyway. So, I call it the dogfood principle where the person you’re talking to is not the person consuming the product.
Marc: Absolutely. Well in my case, I am always talking with the receptionists.
Jaeson: So, you got a receptionist there and what is your goal? What is your approach to dealing with that?
Marc: Ok, so my goal when I pick up the telephone to do the Telephone Marketing call, my goal is always to make an appointment with the decision maker. Ok? So, you’re trying the receptionist first, “Hi, I’m Marc Didemus. I am from image advantage. We’re Document Scanning Center located in Kingston. Who would I speak to about the scanning of your paper records?” Or whatever it might be “Who would I speak to about this?” And if your tone of voice and everything works out really nicely, that person will tell you who to talk to. Is that person available? Not right now, they’re on a meeting. Ok. Well, can I get that person’s name please? And the extension number? And then that goes into your database and you call them later and they may or may not be in but they’re in your database and they’re in your call priority list and then you call them again next week and then you call until you finally get hold of the person. So that goes 2 level of that telephone marketing script, one for the receptionist and then the other one for the decision maker.
Jaeson: Okay, so let me just unpack that a little bit. So, rather than trying to get around the receptionist, you’re making it clear that you are offering something of essential value and that you have a legitimate state in what they’re doing and you just need to talk to the right person. So, the receptionist is not the traditional adverse area that usually deflect. She is a partner of yours and you two are just trying to help her boss get something that they actually need. And that changes or shifts……
Marc: Yeah, I hear that term “gatekeeper” a lot. And, so I don’t have a problem for the most part with the receptionist not putting me in touch with the person I need to talk to. One of the things,one of the little small secret things or whatever that I find it really helps with that is “Hi, I’m Marc Didemus. I’m sales marketing blah blah blah… I wonder if you could help me. Who at your company does your records management?” So, those couple little words: “I wonder if you could help me.” Cause everybody wants to help. Everybody is nice. People like you. That’s right. So, I wonder if you could help me, who would I talk to. Right? And that is extremely powerful. So, do you use that? Anyway, I just find it… Even if I don’t do that. I just find that the receptionist will put me through who I want to talk to and maybe that has something to do with being an older man and having that tone of voice like the dad voice or whatever that might be, I don’t know. But very seldom do I have that the gatekeeper don’t put me through who I want to talk to. And again, we’re talking about physical cold calling or telephone marketing, I could remember 20 or 30 years ago where somebody would hang up on me or be rude or whatever. And that just doesn’t happen anymore. Just because again I don’t know. Well, I don’t quantify this stuff. It’s just the only thing I can say is just experience. It’s that I’ve done thousands of them. Everybody is nice to you when your voice is really well. You know.
Jaeson: After well, if you’re doing it right, you sound like you’re supposed to be there.
Marc: Oh, yeah! You don’t sound like: “Hi I’m Bob, I’m gonna sell you blah…” You know, so you’re speaking conversationally and you’re just exactly right.
Jaeson: Yeah. So, one of the things that Zig Ziglar talked about in one of his seminars that I bought was the importance of recording yourself and listening to how you’re coming across. So, if you’re struggling with this, you may notice right away. How? what? What is new? Rise, quality or your enunciation. Your tone, your pace, it’ll jump right out at you. Or ask your wife, she knows what all your problems are.
Marc: Exactly. Yeah! That’s right. Yep, I haven’t done that but a good thing could be a good idea.
Jaeson: Well some people don’t have to. You’ve been doing it for 20 years, you got it all figured.
Marc: They didn’t have video technology back then, so exactly.
Jaeson: Exactly. So what is your personal pattern there when you’re reaching out for prospects.You’ve got saved on your average four hours a day there weren’t going to be what are you gonna be doing in your pattern?
Marc: Okay pretty good question. So let’s say I’m in the office and it’s what am I in the office days. So I have my day very well defined. So I committed 8 o’clock. My telephone marketing starts at 9:15.
Jaeson: That’s very cool! 50?
Marc: No, no. 9 1 5, 9:15.
Jaeson: That’s very precise.
Marc: That is precise and that’s pretty close. Ok? Good, i think you should do that? Right. Yeah, so that first hour and 15 minutes you might do the Linkedin marketing. You might be doing building your database or whatever other sales tools that you might have to be doing. Phone reports or whatever about. 9:15 rolls around and I make telephone calls from 9:15 to 10 o’clock then I go shoot a game of pool. And then from 10:15 to 11:45, I make telephone calls. Go for lunch. 1:15 to 3:00 o’clock is telephone calls. 3o’clock I should have give the pool. 3:15 to 4:15 is telephone calls and then 4: 15 to 5 is other tasks. So it is important to have those very defined hours and don’t do it for any more than an hour or an hour a quarter or so. Do take a break and whether you go walk your dog or do something. I’ve got the owner of the building and it is his pool table so being in these set times that we should pool. Okay. Another way, don’t play me pool for money because I play every day. You know? But you have be disciplined. So, where I’m going with this is you must be disciplined. Don’t let other things distract you. You know, I’m in my office doors closed. If somebody needs to talk to me, they will talk to me but they probably know that I’m on the phone and they probably won’t because they knew you won’t interrupt me while I’m on the phone. So you know people in the opposite will tend to send me emails or messages or whatever they please. Come to my office when you have time or whatever. But yeah you have to be very disciplined and it’s really easy while you’re on the phone. You’ve been on the phone for 45 minutes, oh the SoCon, that puppies on youtube or something like that. It’s really easy especially with social media these days. And computers and people tend to do that a lot. It’s really easy to get distracted because it is hard. It’s tough. Right? And it’s tough to do that for an hour to a quarter an hour and 20 minutes. But you got to stay disciplined. You got to do it. Another thing too is let’s say you’re hungover. Not that you would have of. Well, hypothetically speaking, yeah might happen with me occasionally or you didn’t hear that chat right Jessica is sold a company to anyway or let’s say you got a headache or let’s say you’re just having a bad day. Doesn’t matter at all. Zero. You may not that phone call that you make may not be quite as good as if you’re right on your a-game but it’s a whole lot better than not making the phone call at all. So I find that a lot problem that a lot of people have wasn’t there doing telephone marketing or cold calling is. You’re not always on your a-game. There’s sometimes, something hurts or you got a headache or whatever it might be it doesn’t matter. Okay. You do, you stay disciplined. You stay on it because making that phone call is still 100 percent better than not making that phone call at all. It may not be as good as your a-game phone call but it’s still better than not making the call.
[ctt template=”8″ link=”8Yn5e” via=”no” ]”Making that phone call is still 100 percent better than not making that phone call at all.” -Marc Didemus [/ctt]Jaeson: Yeah. I personally found that if I’m in a streak where I’m doing a bit of sales if, I stop it’s very hard to get back to it. So they sting staying on that disciplined pattern, it’s way easier than starting and stopping starting and stopping. Of course that has that doesn’t faze you at all because you never started and stopping stuff.
Marc: Doesn’t matter. I’m doing my part. What I’m cutting by picking up the chainsaw and fueling the chains out. They just thought you know, I know you said that you know what on Monday morning, actually Monday morning I do make up to-do list and you know I have to do a proposal, I have to write up a tender for this big government contract or whatever else it might be. And I say so. That type government contract is Tuesday and Wednesday morning. In the morning and then later in the evening because it’s gonna take four or five or six or eight hours or whatever sometimes but I do like to keep those hours from about 9:15 to 4:15 for other telephone marketing or physical cold calling or meeting with customers. So the active where you know those are the only times that you can really do that with those customers. Everything outside of that is sort of off hours and that’s where the administrative stuff and do other types of things get done.
Jaeson: So that’s gonna be the free download for this episode. I’m gonna create a sample of Marc’s personal schedule there so you can copy that if that that’s something that you feel you’d like to model. So I know. I would. That sounds so simple.
Marc: Yeah this is easy. Just gonna do it. That’s simple. But that’s where people fall down. They get distracted or they get emotional issues step in and they feel that they’re not confident enough to do it and that’s where things typically fall down. It’s if you’re just nice and calm and smooth and cool. And you know, if somebody’s mean to you on a phone call which will happen when you’re new at it, you know this really is a school. Whatever kind of up quick somebody’s made you vote then that’s over and water off the dock and gunk. Get on the next one.
Jaeson: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, excellent. Thank you very much for that. So let’s see here what is the next question. So you do excellent follow-up. I know I’ve seen your pattern. I just watched Marc do a demonstration with one of his consulting clients on how he goes to his follow up system and he ranks them by high, medium, and low. So my question to you is: how do you know when to abandon a prospect when they’re in your follow-up system?
Marc: When they say to you clearly that they will never ever ever want to use your service and have no need for your service.
Jaeson: And how often does that happen?
Marc: Oh regularly. Yeah. So again we do a lot of work with administer counties at health units and how scheduled authorities etc. So let’s talk about a municipality. I called up a municipality last week. And so we have a number, a range of services that we can offer to a Municipality. Now, they were a small municipality. They only had three people in the office so forget all the electronic records management that high and stuff. So really we’re talking about the scanning of their bylaws and council medicine possibly assessment rules. And that’s really all that we can offer to them. So I call I called to say the clerk of municipality and said:
“Hi, you know…… Marc Didemus…… offers scanning of bylaws and council minutes……”
and
“Oh! We already have our Bylaws and Council minutes scanned.”
and I said: “Even going back to the 1850s or so boundbooks?”
“Oh yes we had a company come in and do that.”
“Well, good for you. Your assessment rules since then are all digitized?”
“Yes we had the same company digitized all of our assessment rules.”
“Well thank you very much ma’am, you’re well on the right track. Good job for you. Thank you very much.”
and then they are dropped but they’re still in my database of course. But they’re no longer a contact that I will follow up with and there’s nothing that we can offer to them. But if there is something that still that we can offer to them I don’t drop them.
“So, Oh would you like the scanning of your bylaws and council minutes?”
“Well, we don’t have any budget for that this year.”
“Oh are you thinking about doing it next year?”
“Well we might possibly think about doing that next year.”
“Do you mind if I follow up with you in November when you’re starting to work on your budget?”
So you always ask them if you can follow up with them. And then the real trick in which I find nobody does this is: you must follow up in November. If you do that and you put into your database and if they say call me back or they’ll you want you to call you back then they’re there at least going to be in your heart through your mediums because they’ve already given you permission to call you back. And they may do it in 2000 and 19, so why wouldn’t you call them? But do call them. That’s where I find a lot of other salespeople where. Like they say: “Can I call you back?” and then they don’t do it. Which again is another place where you can fall down. So you gotta make sure that if you say you’re gonna follow up, then you do follow up. And if you just remember how when we were looking at our database and some of the clients that I had made sales to is I have a history of all of the calls that I made. And as you can see the ones you know there was something that made sales to- and there was ten calls leading up to that final sale. So that’s all. And the way my wife puts it is I I just beat them over the head with a bat until she succumbs “no no no no no no no. Okay then!” So you just keep following up.
Jaeson: For the new telephone sales person listening to this. They may listen to that and say: “it’s not in my nature to Hound people.” But it’s not. Again, just to unpack this for you because I know exactly what you mean. You’re not hounding them. You’re acknowledging the fact that you don’t know always what their cycle of consumption will be. When they’re going to be ready and you’re simply reasserting in the most gentle way possible that you are still ready.
Marc: Absolutely. Yeah. So a couple things is that, you know you want to be there when they’re ready to make the decision. Right? So number ways to be there is with telephone marketing, and there’s also LinkedIn marketing. There’s other avenues of ways that you can put your presence in front of them so that when they do make a decision they think of your company with branding. You know there’s all these types of things. But we’re talking about telephone marketing right now. So when I call that person and we talked about Zig Ziglar previously. One of Zig Zigler’s most famous model that sticks in my mind is: “Never sell anything to anybody unless you think you’re doing them a favor by doing that.” So I know because I know more about municipal records management than these people I’m calling by far. So when I call this person and they don’t have their bylaws and Council minutes scanned, there’s actually laws that says that they have to. No, I don’t beat them overhead with this but I know I’m doing them a favor by digitizing their bylaws and councilman’s and assessment rules. There’s permanent records of municipality and that municipal clerk is legally liable for those records. They could be sued personally. It’s now bill eight minimis new new Canadian laws. Yeah they’re gonna be super personally if they didn’t. Those records are destroyed or if they don’t are not able to service those records to the purpose. So I know I’m doing them a favor and I just stay on them until they do. I don’t beat them over the head with that.
[ctt template=”11″ link=”Pb6w2″ via=”no” ]“Never sell anything to anybody unless you think you’re doing them a favor by doing that.” -Zig Ziglar [/ctt]Jaeson: To me, to be a wonderful way as maybe nervous salesperson to reflect on what it is that I’m doing that serves the customer in a way that the absolutely has to in a way that that benefits him. I have no questions asked coz I’m trying to move work through my nervousness and if I shift away from focusing on my nervousness and think about the actual service I’m providing to someone who desperately needs it. You know, no ambulance driver in the history of the world has ever shown up at someone’s house and tentatively knocked on the door because he’s there to perform an essential service and so if you understand and recognize how your offering is an essential service it gets much easier.
Marc: Yeah. There’s something for example, I wouldn’t sell something that I didn’t believe in. That’s important. Let’s do this, say that there’s a car brand and to say I’m a car salesman and I don’t believe in the car brand. Well, I just don’t think you could be successful. You know prior to starting image advantage I was a photocopier salesman. By the way, if you want to learn how to do sales become a photocopier salesman for 10 years, that’ll teach you fast. And not as a photocopier salesman for 10 years unless you are a good salesman. But I did believe in the company and I believed in the product. Prior to that I work for Tandy computers. I believe way back when, you know, I believed in that computer. I thought it’s really a good computer. And so if you believe in what you’re offering and that comes out in your voice then that’s also something that’s very beneficial for some that really help you with your task.
[ctt template=”10″ link=”Y945q” via=”no” ]”If you believe in what you’re offering and that comes out in your voice then that’s also something that’s very beneficial for some. That really help you with your task.” -Marc Didemus [/ctt]Jaeson: So another maybe tell if you’re nervous about phone sales, you may want to do some reflection and say: “How deeply do I believe in the thing that I’m selling or am I just selling another widget?”
Marc: Yeah. If you deserve as a salesperson just trying to make money, you know, trying to make a living. Nothing wrong in making a living. But if you don’t believe in your product, then you need to find another prospect to sell or go find another career. Because you shouldn’t do that. If you don’t believe in what you are selling then you’re just putting up some words in my head. Find another career.
Jaeson: So I’m all about self-improvement. What have you done to improve the quality of your outreach when you make phone calls?
Marc: Practice, I guess. Because I really like picking up the chainsaw right? Well what do I do when I pick up the chainsaw, be better up putting gas to it. Nothing, you just do it. I don’t know. I don’t read books on this. I just meet people a lot. But I’ll tell you, I don’t know if anybody that’s done better than me in telephone marketing. So, you know, people might give you some input or whatever this or that. But I got my game down. It’s not gonna get any better.
Jaeson: You’re in a very rarefied business too, that’s different. It’s not the one that you can go out and get a book specifically on selling your particular product and service because you are in a very tight niche. So, the message I think to take away from this for our listeners is that: you may be in an area or you may not be where you have a very specific niche product that you bring into market and like Marc there maybe guidelines and principles. I know you read Zig Ziglar?
Marc: Yes, well i did once. Well, I don’t read a lot of Marketing books which I know a lot of people do.
Jaeson: But you have your good mindset and you’re iterably improving the quality of your outreach by experimentation and practice.
Marc: So when it comes to physical cold calling or telephone marketing, I don’t think there’s anybody, I don’t think there’s a book that can tell me that I’m already doing it. I’ve just done so many of them so I really got that down to a science myself. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not always learning. And as you knew, I recently improved my skills in digital marketing. For example: Search Engine Optimization, and Social Media Marketing, and those types of things that I think I might be also be good at those. So, it’s important to keep learning. But when it comes down to telephone marketing and cold calling, I don’t think there’s a lot of people around that could tell me about that. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t always be learning and improving my skills as a Sales Marketing Manager of Image Advantage because if you do sit still especially in this vast big world of sales, you’re dead meat. So you can’t sit still. By the way, we just had a meeting of the Kingston Sales and Marketing Club here, and it’s a meeting of Sales and Marketing Professionals in Ontario. Many of them are Social Media Marketing Experts. And I’m always picking their brains about Instagram. Do you find instagram useful? You know. Or Twitter. You know, I just talked about Twitter a while ago, I don’t use Twitter. It’s not useful for me. But many organizations would be, right? So, I’m always thinking that there is that one sales skill or that one sales technique out there that I missed the boat on. And that’s a good mindset to have. So, you always try to find that one thing that you’re just not doing or that one skill you can improve. But with me it’s not gonna be telephone marketing or cold calling, it’s gotta be more on the digital skill or some new thing that comes out especially with the younger crowd these days. There’s so many platforms, social media platforms and you might remember as a search engine Alta Vista. Ok, right. Where’s Alta Vista now? So facebook maybe with the way things are going these days for facebook, so facebook might be the next one that somebody a new tween or whatever says “What’s Facebook?” So the platforms are always changing with social media and you always have to make sure that you’re on the front edge of that.
[ctt template=”5″ link=”17HJM” via=”no” ]“If you do sit still especially in this vast big world of sales, you’re dead meat.”-Marc Didemus [/ctt]Jaeson: Okay. Yeah, great! Well, I really appreciate you spending time with me.
Marc: Thanks Jason.
Jaeson: This has been The Zero Noise Marketing show. Connecting with the right prospects in an authentic way doesn’t have to be complicated. If you think authentic Zero Noise Marketing might be right for your business, find out for sure by contacting us for a free consultation session. We can be reached at 613-379-3051. You might be eligible for a complimentary test campaign. I’m Jason Tanner thanks for tuning in.
Marc: So, we are saying that if im 10 o’clock in the morning and I’m done some other tasks and I want to get on the phone to do telephone marketing what do I do to prepare for that? Mentally? Uhm, Zero. Nothing. Absolutely Nothing. So, I know a lot of people might upset themselves up or do this and do that. Sing mantras or hum mantras or whatever. Anyway, I don’t do any of that because telephone marketing you know, I’m a sales professional. I’ve been doing sales for over 30 years and telephone marketing is just something that I do probably 20 hours a week or so. And if you think I have a big pile of woods sitting on my property, and we heat our house with wood. And one of my tasks is to take that big pile of 12 foot logs and turn them into nice firewood, in manageable sizes right? So, step number 1 is pick up the chainsaw and put fuel on the chainsaw. And do you really need to do sing or hum a mantra to get sight to do that type of task?
Jaeson: No.
Marc: So in my mind, telephone marketing or physical call calling or any of those things are exactly the same. They are jobs. You do the job day in, day out. My job is to keep the number of people that we have in image advantage employed and to keep work coming in. So when I pick up the phone and start doing telephone marketing, it’s just a job like any other job that I don’t even really think about getting ready for it.
Jaeson: So, how many hours a day do you do that?
Marc: Depending. So, my whole purpose of all of the telephone marketing etc. is to make an appointment with my client, right? So, if everything is working a hundred percent then I’m spending no time doing telephone marketing. I’ll be sitting in clients’ offices performing sales with them. But of course, that’s not how it works. You’d have to make those appointments, right?
Jaeson: You fill in the pipeline though.
Marc: So, I’m probably on an average week, I would probably be spending 20 hours or so on the phone. Or maybe a little less, well maybe let’s say 15.
Jaeson: The reason why I’m bringing that up is because I’ve done telemarketing sales selling almost everything you can imagine. And when you’re new to it, nobody looks forward to it. Particularly when you’re bad at it. So, you obviously didn’t start out that way but you built up the muscle and that was the goal is to get to a point that you didn’t have to psych yourself up. It came as a natural part of your schedule. When you need the pipeline full, you could just dig in and do your four hours a day.
Marc: Right. And I and I did sort of remember when I started doing telephone marketing. And at that time I was working for a company called: Tandy Computers. Tandy own Radio Shack.
Jaeson: That makes me feel old.
Marc: Exactly, right.Makes you feel old. So, I was selling the first type beyond compatible PCs. And, so that was in a computer store in Kingston. The Tandy computer center of Kingston.Some old people might remember that. You know, older Kingstonians. And one of the things that Tandy was brought in was the new cellphones. And these items were something like that, big beasty things, ten of these long. And the new manager, the manager for our store, cause we were doing telephone marketing at that point said: “You know, when you guys spend some quiet hours I want you getting on the phone and make telephone marketing of these cellphones. You know, nothing resolved one. So, picking up the phone and doing that kind of marketing was new to us. We had zero training on it which was sort of unfortunate. And that’s what we had to do. We have to pick up the phone and figure out how to do it. Again, it would have been nice if somebody showed us properly how to do it. But then I do remember vaguely, back then, being quite nervous about it and picking up the phone and doing that. But nowadays, I don’t think about it at all. And sort of the nice thing is when I’m on the phone, I don’t think about it at all. I made tens of thousands of it anyway. Of telephone marketing calls. I have been with the same company which I founded back in 1998. Recently, I sold the company in 2014 but stayed on the same marketing background. So still doing the same thing basically. So I’ve been doing the same sales tasks with telephone marketing for 20 years. Right? So when I pick up the phone and go to make that sales call, I am not actively thinking about what I’ve gotta say. So, the words happily fall off right on my mouth and that’s pretty much how the phonecall goes. And, I’m not really thinking too much about what I’m saying, it’s just a habit or whatever.
Jaeson: So I think that is an essential part of it. People think that you have to be a Social Servant to be able to do this. Or some kind of a genius. It’s important to be coherent but there is nothing wrong with having a strung on script that you tweak all the time.
Marc: Absoultely. I think you need to start with a script. For someone to start doing this, you must have a script and that’s why I sort of talk about the training a little bit. Just when you start, it is very important to have a script and to work from that and then as time goes on you know, I can’t remember the script I’m supposed to use or whatever. I’ll just blah blah blah and again it all falls in.
Jaeson: So, is there anything you are doing in your position to make you a more well caller? And what I mean by that is anything in particular that you do to tighten your preparation or your research to make you someone who someone goes “oh yes, of course. That’s Marc Didemus from image advantage.”
Marc: So, this is when I’m calling them the first time?
Jaeson: Exactly. What we’re more interested in the initial contact.
Marc: So, my wife works with me and she certainly do many of these calls and she actually tells me my voice modulation changes depending on who I’m talking to. I don’t do it consciously. So apparently, again, I don’t know that I do this but when I’m speaking with a woman I speak softer but I think it is not something that I don’t do consciously but she picks up on it and I do believe it is a thing that I do as I don’t do it consciously. So a couple of things that I found is everybody’s had a sales pitch. Your cell phone rings or your home phone rings like people don’t have those anymore. But your cell phone rings and you get a telemarketer on your cell phone, right? And you’re selling insurance or their selling baking services. So, a lot of times I get on the sales professionals. I do this for a living. And I hear those scripts coming at me from some person from some baking center or some call center wherever I might be: “Hello, my name is Bob and I… do you find that you do not have enough money to go on vacation every year?” Or some whatever the sales pitch might be, right? And it tends to be this very monotone type of voice and you just can tell that Bob is new at it and very unsure of what he is doing. So, I guess the main point that I’ll make here is that you use a conversational tone of voice just like we’re doing right now. So, possibly think that you’re talking to your best friend about the football game yesterday. So, that’s the kind of tone of voice you wanna use. And when you get it right and I think the only way to do this is to experience. You know, your first ten phone calls are gonna be horribly awkward. 90 to 100 are gonna be better, 100 to 1000 you’re gonna be better and etc. etc. But the again, just use a conversational tone of voice and when you phone them and say “Hi, my name is Marc Didemus. I am from image advantage. We’re document scanning center comfortably located in Kingston Ontario and we offer the service of in this case scanning of by-laws for your municipality. Which we’ve done for 17 municipalities. Do you have your by-laws and council minutes scanned and carried on?” So conversational tone of voice and the one thing that I’ve also found is that you noticed there: Who am I? What’s my name? What company do I work for? What do we do? Where are we located? And what service do we offer? Right? Very precise. Very to the point. Because again, people with attention span these days with all that computer stuff is not what I think it was 20 or 30 years ago where people would let you talk for 30 seconds without “click” right? I think the attention spans have shortened. So you really need to be to the point. And everybody’s heard these very wordy type of… they commend with this benefits first and how would like more time in your life or how would you like more money or whatever the benefit might be. Or how would you like it to taste better? And they commend with these big wordy benefit and you’re saying: “Ok, what are you trying to sell me?” Right? Click! You know?
Jaeson: And is it true that in most cases, particularly when you’re dealing with professional organizations doing B to B, that you’re dealing with a gatekeeper anyway. So, I call it the dogfood principle where the person you’re talking to is not the person consuming the product.
Marc: Absolutely. Well in my case, I am always talking with the receptionists.
Jaeson: So, you got a receptionist there and what is your goal? What is your approach to dealing with that?
Marc: Ok, so my goal when I pick up the telephone to do the Telephone Marketing call, my goal is always to make an appointment with the decision maker. Ok? So, you’re trying the receptionist first, “Hi, I’m Marc Didemus. I am from image advantage. We’re Document Scanning Center located in Kingston. Who would I speak to about the scanning of your paper records?” Or whatever it might be “Who would I speak to about this?” And if your tone of voice and everything works out really nicely, that person will tell you who to talk to. Is that person available? Not right now, they’re on a meeting. Ok. Well, can I get that person’s name please? And the extension number? And then that goes into your database and you call them later and they may or may not be in but they’re in your database and they’re in your call priority list and then you call them again next week and then you call until you finally get hold of the person. So that goes 2 level of that telephone marketing script, one for the receptionist and then the other one for the decision maker.
Jaeson: Okay, so let me just unpack that a little bit. So, rather than trying to get around the receptionist, you’re making it clear that you are offering something of essential value and that you have a legitimate state in what they’re doing and you just need to talk to the right person. So, the receptionist is not the traditional adverse area that usually deflect. She is a partner of yours and you two are just trying to help her boss get something that they actually need. And that changes or shifts……
Marc: Yeah, I hear that term “gatekeeper” a lot. And, so I don’t have a problem for the most part with the receptionist not putting me in touch with the person I need to talk to. One of the things,one of the little small secret things or whatever that I find it really helps with that is “Hi, I’m Marc Didemus. I’m sales marketing blah blah blah… I wonder if you could help me. Who at your company does your records management?” So, those couple little words: “I wonder if you could help me.” Cause everybody wants to help. Everybody is nice. People like you. That’s right. So, I wonder if you could help me, who would I talk to. Right? And that is extremely powerful. So, do you use that? Anyway, I just find it… Even if I don’t do that. I just find that the receptionist will put me through who I want to talk to and maybe that has something to do with being an older man and having that tone of voice like the dad voice or whatever that might be, I don’t know. But very seldom do I have that the gatekeeper don’t put me through who I want to talk to. And again, we’re talking about physical cold calling or telephone marketing, I could remember 20 or 30 years ago where somebody would hang up on me or be rude or whatever. And that just doesn’t happen anymore. Just because again I don’t know. Well, I don’t quantify this stuff. It’s just the only thing I can say is just experience. It’s that I’ve done thousands of them. Everybody is nice to you when your voice is really well. You know.
Jaeson: After well, if you’re doing it right, you sound like you’re supposed to be there.
Marc: Oh, yeah! You don’t sound like: “Hi I’m Bob, I’m gonna sell you blah…” You know, so you’re speaking conversationally and you’re just exactly right.
Jaeson: Yeah. So, one of the things that Zig Ziglar talked about in one of his seminars that I bought was the importance of recording yourself and listening to how you’re coming across. So, if you’re struggling with this, you may notice right away. How? what? What is new? Rise, quality or your enunciation. Your tone, your pace, it’ll jump right out at you. Or ask your wife, she knows what all your problems are.
Marc: Exactly. Yeah! That’s right. Yep, I haven’t done that but a good thing could be a good idea.
Jaeson: Well some people don’t have to. You’ve been doing it for 20 years, you got it all figured.
Marc: They didn’t have video technology back then, so exactly.
Jaeson: Exactly. So what is your personal pattern there when you’re reaching out for prospects.You’ve got saved on your average four hours a day there weren’t going to be what are you gonna be doing in your pattern?
Marc: Okay pretty good question. So let’s say I’m in the office and it’s what am I in the office days. So I have my day very well defined. So I committed 8 o’clock. My telephone marketing starts at 9:15.
Jaeson: That’s very cool! 50?
Marc: No, no. 9 1 5, 9:15.
Jaeson: That’s very precise.
Marc: That is precise and that’s pretty close. Ok? Good, i think you should do that? Right. Yeah, so that first hour and 15 minutes you might do the Linkedin marketing. You might be doing building your database or whatever other sales tools that you might have to be doing. Phone reports or whatever about. 9:15 rolls around and I make telephone calls from 9:15 to 10 o’clock then I go shoot a game of pool. And then from 10:15 to 11:45, I make telephone calls. Go for lunch. 1:15 to 3:00 o’clock is telephone calls. 3o’clock I should have give the pool. 3:15 to 4:15 is telephone calls and then 4: 15 to 5 is other tasks. So it is important to have those very defined hours and don’t do it for any more than an hour or an hour a quarter or so. Do take a break and whether you go walk your dog or do something. I’ve got the owner of the building and it is his pool table so being in these set times that we should pool. Okay. Another way, don’t play me pool for money because I play every day. You know? But you have be disciplined. So, where I’m going with this is you must be disciplined. Don’t let other things distract you. You know, I’m in my office doors closed. If somebody needs to talk to me, they will talk to me but they probably know that I’m on the phone and they probably won’t because they knew you won’t interrupt me while I’m on the phone. So you know people in the opposite will tend to send me emails or messages or whatever they please. Come to my office when you have time or whatever. But yeah you have to be very disciplined and it’s really easy while you’re on the phone. You’ve been on the phone for 45 minutes, oh the SoCon, that puppies on youtube or something like that. It’s really easy especially with social media these days. And computers and people tend to do that a lot. It’s really easy to get distracted because it is hard. It’s tough. Right? And it’s tough to do that for an hour to a quarter an hour and 20 minutes. But you got to stay disciplined. You got to do it. Another thing too is let’s say you’re hungover. Not that you would have of. Well, hypothetically speaking, yeah might happen with me occasionally or you didn’t hear that chat right Jessica is sold a company to anyway or let’s say you got a headache or let’s say you’re just having a bad day. Doesn’t matter at all. Zero. You may not that phone call that you make may not be quite as good as if you’re right on your a-game but it’s a whole lot better than not making the phone call at all. So I find that a lot problem that a lot of people have wasn’t there doing telephone marketing or cold calling is. You’re not always on your a-game. There’s sometimes, something hurts or you got a headache or whatever it might be it doesn’t matter. Okay. You do, you stay disciplined. You stay on it because making that phone call is still 100 percent better than not making that phone call at all. It may not be as good as your a-game phone call but it’s still better than not making the call.
[ctt template=”8″ link=”8Yn5e” via=”no” ]”Making that phone call is still 100 percent better than not making that phone call at all.” -Marc Didemus [/ctt]Jaeson: Yeah. I personally found that if I’m in a streak where I’m doing a bit of sales if, I stop it’s very hard to get back to it. So they sting staying on that disciplined pattern, it’s way easier than starting and stopping starting and stopping. Of course that has that doesn’t faze you at all because you never started and stopping stuff.
Marc: Doesn’t matter. I’m doing my part. What I’m cutting by picking up the chainsaw and fueling the chains out. They just thought you know, I know you said that you know what on Monday morning, actually Monday morning I do make up to-do list and you know I have to do a proposal, I have to write up a tender for this big government contract or whatever else it might be. And I say so. That type government contract is Tuesday and Wednesday morning. In the morning and then later in the evening because it’s gonna take four or five or six or eight hours or whatever sometimes but I do like to keep those hours from about 9:15 to 4:15 for other telephone marketing or physical cold calling or meeting with customers. So the active where you know those are the only times that you can really do that with those customers. Everything outside of that is sort of off hours and that’s where the administrative stuff and do other types of things get done.
Jaeson: So that’s gonna be the free download for this episode. I’m gonna create a sample of Marc’s personal schedule there so you can copy that if that that’s something that you feel you’d like to model. So I know. I would. That sounds so simple.
Marc: Yeah this is easy. Just gonna do it. That’s simple. But that’s where people fall down. They get distracted or they get emotional issues step in and they feel that they’re not confident enough to do it and that’s where things typically fall down. It’s if you’re just nice and calm and smooth and cool. And you know, if somebody’s mean to you on a phone call which will happen when you’re new at it, you know this really is a school. Whatever kind of up quick somebody’s made you vote then that’s over and water off the dock and gunk. Get on the next one.
Jaeson: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, excellent. Thank you very much for that. So let’s see here what is the next question. So you do excellent follow-up. I know I’ve seen your pattern. I just watched Marc do a demonstration with one of his consulting clients on how he goes to his follow up system and he ranks them by high, medium, and low. So my question to you is: how do you know when to abandon a prospect when they’re in your follow-up system?
Marc: When they say to you clearly that they will never ever ever want to use your service and have no need for your service.
Jaeson: And how often does that happen?
Marc: Oh regularly. Yeah. So again we do a lot of work with administer counties at health units and how scheduled authorities etc. So let’s talk about a municipality. I called up a municipality last week. And so we have a number, a range of services that we can offer to a Municipality. Now, they were a small municipality. They only had three people in the office so forget all the electronic records management that high and stuff. So really we’re talking about the scanning of their bylaws and council medicine possibly assessment rules. And that’s really all that we can offer to them. So I call I called to say the clerk of municipality and said:
“Hi, you know…… Marc Didemus…… offers scanning of bylaws and council minutes……”
and
“Oh! We already have our Bylaws and Council minutes scanned.”
and I said: “Even going back to the 1850s or so boundbooks?”
“Oh yes we had a company come in and do that.”
“Well, good for you. Your assessment rules since then are all digitized?”
“Yes we had the same company digitized all of our assessment rules.”
“Well thank you very much ma’am, you’re well on the right track. Good job for you. Thank you very much.”
and then they are dropped but they’re still in my database of course. But they’re no longer a contact that I will follow up with and there’s nothing that we can offer to them. But if there is something that still that we can offer to them I don’t drop them.
“So, Oh would you like the scanning of your bylaws and council minutes?”
“Well, we don’t have any budget for that this year.”
“Oh are you thinking about doing it next year?”
“Well we might possibly think about doing that next year.”
“Do you mind if I follow up with you in November when you’re starting to work on your budget?”
So you always ask them if you can follow up with them. And then the real trick in which I find nobody does this is: you must follow up in November. If you do that and you put into your database and if they say call me back or they’ll you want you to call you back then they’re there at least going to be in your heart through your mediums because they’ve already given you permission to call you back. And they may do it in 2000 and 19, so why wouldn’t you call them? But do call them. That’s where I find a lot of other salespeople where. Like they say: “Can I call you back?” and then they don’t do it. Which again is another place where you can fall down. So you gotta make sure that if you say you’re gonna follow up, then you do follow up. And if you just remember how when we were looking at our database and some of the clients that I had made sales to is I have a history of all of the calls that I made. And as you can see the ones you know there was something that made sales to- and there was ten calls leading up to that final sale. So that’s all. And the way my wife puts it is I I just beat them over the head with a bat until she succumbs “no no no no no no no. Okay then!” So you just keep following up.
Jaeson: For the new telephone sales person listening to this. They may listen to that and say: “it’s not in my nature to Hound people.” But it’s not. Again, just to unpack this for you because I know exactly what you mean. You’re not hounding them. You’re acknowledging the fact that you don’t know always what their cycle of consumption will be. When they’re going to be ready and you’re simply reasserting in the most gentle way possible that you are still ready.
Marc: Absolutely. Yeah. So a couple things is that, you know you want to be there when they’re ready to make the decision. Right? So number ways to be there is with telephone marketing, and there’s also LinkedIn marketing. There’s other avenues of ways that you can put your presence in front of them so that when they do make a decision they think of your company with branding. You know there’s all these types of things. But we’re talking about telephone marketing right now. So when I call that person and we talked about Zig Ziglar previously. One of Zig Zigler’s most famous model that sticks in my mind is: “Never sell anything to anybody unless you think you’re doing them a favor by doing that.” So I know because I know more about municipal records management than these people I’m calling by far. So when I call this person and they don’t have their bylaws and Council minutes scanned, there’s actually laws that says that they have to. No, I don’t beat them overhead with this but I know I’m doing them a favor by digitizing their bylaws and councilman’s and assessment rules. There’s permanent records of municipality and that municipal clerk is legally liable for those records. They could be sued personally. It’s now bill eight minimis new new Canadian laws. Yeah they’re gonna be super personally if they didn’t. Those records are destroyed or if they don’t are not able to service those records to the purpose. So I know I’m doing them a favor and I just stay on them until they do. I don’t beat them over the head with that.
[ctt template=”11″ link=”Pb6w2″ via=”no” ]“Never sell anything to anybody unless you think you’re doing them a favor by doing that.” -Zig Ziglar [/ctt]Jaeson: To me, to be a wonderful way as maybe nervous salesperson to reflect on what it is that I’m doing that serves the customer in a way that the absolutely has to in a way that that benefits him. I have no questions asked coz I’m trying to move work through my nervousness and if I shift away from focusing on my nervousness and think about the actual service I’m providing to someone who desperately needs it. You know, no ambulance driver in the history of the world has ever shown up at someone’s house and tentatively knocked on the door because he’s there to perform an essential service and so if you understand and recognize how your offering is an essential service it gets much easier.
Marc: Yeah. There’s something for example, I wouldn’t sell something that I didn’t believe in. That’s important. Let’s do this, say that there’s a car brand and to say I’m a car salesman and I don’t believe in the car brand. Well, I just don’t think you could be successful. You know prior to starting image advantage I was a photocopier salesman. By the way, if you want to learn how to do sales become a photocopier salesman for 10 years, that’ll teach you fast. And not as a photocopier salesman for 10 years unless you are a good salesman. But I did believe in the company and I believed in the product. Prior to that I work for Tandy computers. I believe way back when, you know, I believed in that computer. I thought it’s really a good computer. And so if you believe in what you’re offering and that comes out in your voice then that’s also something that’s very beneficial for some that really help you with your task.
[ctt template=”10″ link=”Y945q” via=”no” ]”If you believe in what you’re offering and that comes out in your voice then that’s also something that’s very beneficial for some. That really help you with your task.” -Marc Didemus [/ctt]Jaeson: So another maybe tell if you’re nervous about phone sales, you may want to do some reflection and say: “How deeply do I believe in the thing that I’m selling or am I just selling another widget?”
Marc: Yeah. If you deserve as a salesperson just trying to make money, you know, trying to make a living. Nothing wrong in making a living. But if you don’t believe in your product, then you need to find another prospect to sell or go find another career. Because you shouldn’t do that. If you don’t believe in what you are selling then you’re just putting up some words in my head. Find another career.
Jaeson: So I’m all about self-improvement. What have you done to improve the quality of your outreach when you make phone calls?
Marc: Practice, I guess. Because I really like picking up the chainsaw right? Well what do I do when I pick up the chainsaw, be better up putting gas to it. Nothing, you just do it. I don’t know. I don’t read books on this. I just meet people a lot. But I’ll tell you, I don’t know if anybody that’s done better than me in telephone marketing. So, you know, people might give you some input or whatever this or that. But I got my game down. It’s not gonna get any better.
Jaeson: You’re in a very rarefied business too, that’s different. It’s not the one that you can go out and get a book specifically on selling your particular product and service because you are in a very tight niche. So, the message I think to take away from this for our listeners is that: you may be in an area or you may not be where you have a very specific niche product that you bring into market and like Marc there maybe guidelines and principles. I know you read Zig Ziglar?
Marc: Yes, well i did once. Well, I don’t read a lot of Marketing books which I know a lot of people do.
Jaeson: But you have your good mindset and you’re iterably improving the quality of your outreach by experimentation and practice.
Marc: So when it comes to physical cold calling or telephone marketing, I don’t think there’s anybody, I don’t think there’s a book that can tell me that I’m already doing it. I’ve just done so many of them so I really got that down to a science myself. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not always learning. And as you knew, I recently improved my skills in digital marketing. For example: Search Engine Optimization, and Social Media Marketing, and those types of things that I think I might be also be good at those. So, it’s important to keep learning. But when it comes down to telephone marketing and cold calling, I don’t think there’s a lot of people around that could tell me about that. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t always be learning and improving my skills as a Sales Marketing Manager of Image Advantage because if you do sit still especially in this vast big world of sales, you’re dead meat. So you can’t sit still. By the way, we just had a meeting of the Kingston Sales and Marketing Club here, and it’s a meeting of Sales and Marketing Professionals in Ontario. Many of them are Social Media Marketing Experts. And I’m always picking their brains about Instagram. Do you find instagram useful? You know. Or Twitter. You know, I just talked about Twitter a while ago, I don’t use Twitter. It’s not useful for me. But many organizations would be, right? So, I’m always thinking that there is that one sales skill or that one sales technique out there that I missed the boat on. And that’s a good mindset to have. So, you always try to find that one thing that you’re just not doing or that one skill you can improve. But with me it’s not gonna be telephone marketing or cold calling, it’s gotta be more on the digital skill or some new thing that comes out especially with the younger crowd these days. There’s so many platforms, social media platforms and you might remember as a search engine Alta Vista. Ok, right. Where’s Alta Vista now? So facebook maybe with the way things are going these days for facebook, so facebook might be the next one that somebody a new tween or whatever says “What’s Facebook?” So the platforms are always changing with social media and you always have to make sure that you’re on the front edge of that.
[ctt template=”5″ link=”17HJM” via=”no” ]“If you do sit still especially in this vast big world of sales, you’re dead meat.”-Marc Didemus [/ctt]Jaeson: Okay. Yeah, great! Well, I really appreciate you spending time with me.
Marc: Thanks Jason.
Jaeson: This has been The Zero Noise Marketing show. Connecting with the right prospects in an authentic way doesn’t have to be complicated. If you think authentic Zero Noise Marketing might be right for your business, find out for sure by contacting us for a free consultation session. We can be reached at 613-379-3051. You might be eligible for a complimentary test campaign. I’m Jason Tanner thanks for tuning in.
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