Telemarketing definition

Let's have a proper definition of the word - and disassociate it from any of the bad, so called telemarketing calls you may have experienced

Telephone sales and telemarketing in general have a horrible, grubby, even somewhat sleazy reputation

Unfortunately by and large that reputation is deserved. You don't really expect to see the words "professional" and "telephone selling" or "telemarketing" in the same sentence, do you?

However, it's not the activity itself that's bad, it's the way it has been carried out that's earned it the poor standing.

So we're going to get some of the horrors associated with it out of the way right now. If we look at a couple of definitions of telemarketing we see nothing sinister there:

Whilst each of these definitions of telemarketing is fine as far as it goes, let's take it a stage further and say, briefly, what professional telemarketing is not.

1. It has nothing in common with the telephone sales calls that most of us are subjected to on an almost daily basis in our business and home environments
2. It is not related to the pressurised, hard sell individual who implies, and sometimes actually says, that if you don't take advantage of this offer immediately then you're an absolute fool and you deserve to fail
3. It bears no resemblance to the ill-prepared soul who telephones you to sell you a product or service about which they know only the very rudiments and haven't really a clue as to how it could be of value to you
4. It does not involve telephoning someone, reading from a script, and expecting them to patiently wait until you have delivered your "pitch" before they can get a word in!
5. Finally, it certainly does not include that little gem in consumer marketing whereby a pre-recorded message is played to you as soon as you answer the incoming call. The purpose of this type of telemarketing appears to be to inform you that you've won something and get you to call a premium 'phone line to find out more...