The sales process of telemarketing services goes like this: Initial attraction generates sales leads … sales leads generate sales presentations… and sales presentations generate customers. So, assuming that an organization is effectively staffed to handle leads, presentations, and customers, is this: How do we create that initial attraction? Once that initial attraction is developed, the other elements fall into place with hard work and skill.

The first step in creating that “initial attraction” is to determine what kind of lead you’re after. If it’s business sales leads, for example, you can position your offering in such a way that will promote the benefits that your product or service offers to their business. If you can help them increase profit, decrease employee downtime, minimize expenses, or increase their customer base, tell them that! Always frame the concept in the terms of a benefit to the business. (Of course, for individual or personal sales leads, you need to frame the benefits in those terms).

Don’t fall into the habit of merely listing what it is that your product or service looks like or can do. These are the features of the product and they’re simply not important to the customer. What is important – what will attract sales leads – are the benefits. Forget “it smells nice”, or “it’s 3 feet tall” or “it comes in blue”. Instead, focus on what the customer gets out of it: “a more efficient office” or “increased profit” or “happier employees”. These are the things that businesses care about. These are the things that business sales leads respond to when a telemarketing services company offers them.

The second step is to disseminate the information. This is done through an effective strategy that may not necessarily start with telemarketing services. For example, you might have a mail-out campaign or a television commercial blitz and follow that up with telemarketing services. Sometimes, it’s appropriate to pick up the phone as the initial contact… this is telemarketing lead generation . When those people are interested in the benefits offered (no matter what initial attraction marketing strategy you used) and they respond to the marketing, they become business sales leads.

Now the third step: This is where you take those sales leads and you pick up the phone and start dialing. At this point it’s a combination of skill and hard work that will turn those sales leads into people who are willing to be presented to a little more formally (for example, with a visit to their office). Numbers matter here, so make sure that your staff are dialing and not wasting time on administrative or trivial work that can so easily distract employees.

Once your staffs has taken those business sales leads and turned them into warm prospects (for the formal presentation) it’s time to send someone in to present, close the deal, and turn them into customers.

In all, it’s a multi-stage strategy that starts with some kind of initial attraction to generate leads. And where it really makes the difference is when you take those sales leads and pick up the phone and use telemarketing services strategies to start the sales process.