What is Teleprospecting? | Outbound Sales 101

Teleprospecting is something that businesses and sales teams do every single day, whether they realize it or not. As a marketing strategy, of course, it’s got its own methods and tools, but even just on the fly, when you are speaking to someone who may have an interest in your product or service, you’re essentially teleprospecting- prospecting on the telephone. This is a bit different than telemarketing, offering a more targeted approach in many cases. 

Telemarketing usually refers to cold calls seeking interest and sales. Teleprospecting, on the other hand, is focused on creating a dialogue, usually with warm prospects, to help them understand the opportunities and benefits of their products. It’s more about creating a conversation and most salespeople would benefit from changing up their strategies with this concept. Of course, before you can benefit from it, you have to understand what it is and how it can improve your outbound sales. 

So, what makes teleprospecting different?

Teleprospecting is a more focused branch of telemarketing if you will. While telemarketers could be selling things, collecting survey data, or even just making cold calls to set appointments, teleprospecting focuses more on the specific customer need and finding the potential for a sale. This helps a business in several ways. For starters, there are always going to be new leads on the horizon, so companies won’t have to rely as heavily on prospecting. 

This means that the typical highs and lows of sales can be softened and businesses can often get a much more predictable sales forecast. It offers several other benefits, too, but the specialization focuses on conversational skills and improvisation to deduce a prospect’s actual, real need. 

Your teleprospecting agents may have a loose script to follow, but they only use that as guideposts, allowing leads to guide the conversation so that they can get to the need and help offer a solution. It is a more dedicated approach and it’s focused on getting a conversion, not just getting interest or making contact. 

What can teleprospecting do for your business?

There are several benefits to using this strategy along with your other cold and warm calling techniques. Your main goal is to increase your customer base, and yet the leading problem for most businesses comes in having the capacity and resources to find that new customer base. Not only does it take a lot of time, but it takes away resources from current clientele. By using teleprospecting, you can handle lead generation and qualification a lot more actively and quickly than ever before. You’ll be able to continually spot hot leads that need help solving a specific business problem. 

Essentially, this process helps weed through all those hundreds of prospects to find the most viable leads by learning how to have a conversation with prospects about their pain points and building rapport. This gives everyone a chance to see what a relationship would be like and how the two businesses can work together to create solutions for both. 

Teleprospecting can also make it easy to identify new audiences and find new possible solutions that your product or service could provide. As much as it helps you find people, it also helps hone your marketing message and find the key strengths and assets of the products/services you offer. 

Why traditional lead generation fails 

Too often, salespeople are left to handle their own leads one by one, calling and tossing, following through and then crossing them off, and waiting until a lead pulls through. Then, the leads are gone and there’s a lull until more are found. Some salespeople run out of leads quickly. Others seem to always have an infinite supply. How can you create a balance?

That’s where teleprospecting comes into play. When you hear people saying they’re “out of leads” or they don’t have a steady sales pipeline, you know they’re not using this unique method of screening possible leads and ensuring that the right people get the right attention. It can be hard to calculate how much revenue businesses are losing without continuous prospecting, but you can bet that a majority of opportunities are missed because of timing and resources. 

Outsourcing teleprospecting 

Speaking of resources, if you don’t have a sales team of your own or even if you don’t want to give them one more task to handle, you can consider outsourcing the teleprospecting that your company does. It works in much the same way as when you outsource marketing and sales calls, as well as other forms of lead generation. Simply partner with a company that offers these solutions and work with them to create a strategy that works for both of you. 

You’ll want to choose a company that knows what it is doing when it comes to outbound sales and outreach campaigns. If they can provide other solutions for your business, too, that’s even better. However, they at least need to have expertise in cold calling and outbound sales to ensure that they can help you make the most of your prospecting. 

Speaking of outsourcing, a partnership with Smith.ai could be the solution you need 

When you’ve already got a full agenda with your current clients and don’t have time for proper lead generation, or even if you’re just not confident in your abilities to handle teleprospecting effectively, you don’t have to settle for what you can get. You can partner with the 24/7 virtual receptionists at Smith.ai to assist with outbound sales and support, outreach campaigns, lead screening and intake, appointment scheduling, and so much more. 

We’ll consult with you to determine your needs and develop a strategy to manage them all, and we’ll integrate with your CRM and other tools to keep you informed every step of the way. 

If you want to know more, schedule a consultation to find out how a partnership with Smith.ai can give your business the around-the-clock support it needs. You can also reach us at hello@smith.ai or (650) 727-6484.