It's ineffective because the customer ends up feeling battered and bruised. Take off your telemarketing boxing gloves, throw away your sales pitch, and look at the customer with new eyes.

Recently, a friend of mine (the VP of marketing for a major chain) received a sales call. It was a telemarketing sales professional on the phone who launched into a telemarketing pitch. The pitch was well-crafted and full of well-written sentences.

The pitch sounded nice... but it something wasn't quite right. It just didn't make sense. So at the end of the call, my friend asked the telemarketing sales person, "Do you know what our company does?"

There was a moment of silence before the embarrassed telemarketing professional admitted that they did not know. As you can imagine, the call did NOT end in a sale. My friend felt insulted that his time was wasted.
My advice for that telemarketing professional and for all telemarketing professionals is to take off your boxing gloves and leave your sales pitch at home. Unfortunately, many telemarketing professionals use the sales pitch to railroad the conversation regardless of the prospect.

Doing this tells the prospect, "I don't really care about you or your time. I feel that my product provides the following solutions and no matter what your needs are these solutions will be appropriate." This is terribly unprofessional.

A sales pitch should just be a guideline, not the actual words you use in an attempt to make sales. What words should replace your sales pitch? Simple: An honest-to-goodness approach where you engage the prospect in a conversation...

- Ask them questions
- Build rapport
- Learn their needs
- Discover what's important to them
- Discover what isn't important to them
- Learn how they make money
- Learn what solutions they've tried in the past

Start the conversation with a dialogue (not a monologue) about their needs. Then, start to integrate into the conversation 2 or 3 specific ways that your product or service addresses those needs. Be specific and avoid over-used, generalized phrases like "it will cut your costs." Telemarketing sales is about engaging the prospect.

Be honest with them throughout the conversation by letting them know that you (unlike other telemarketing sales professionals) truly want to understand them by knowing what's important to them, how they make money, what their challenges are, and what their current situation is. Then listen to them... listen all the way to your next sale!

This happens when you discard your telemarketing sales pitch and engage the prospect in a conversation that truly cares about them.

It's easy to default your telemarketing sales pitch: it gives you a feeling of control and some parameters for your call. However, it also leaves your prospect battered and bruised and unlikely to buy. Get rid of your telemarketing sales pitch and instead build rapport, approach each person uniquely, and earnestly seek to know their individual situation and how your product can help them.