Use Legit Telemarketing To Combat Its Scamming Counterpart

Every now and then you would hear about the latest scams involving telemarketing frauds. Naturally, this is bad press for the industry but worst of all, it has been rapidly misleading people (at least consumers) into the belief that no telemarketer is legit.

Legit Telemarketers VS Anonymous Scammers

First off, perhaps it would be better if the public at large should also tone down on their desire to crack down on these swindlers. Yes, they should be caught. It is only expected that consumers cry out their rights and demand action.

That is not the same as the witch hunts which follow where businesses and telemarketers alike are lambasted for so much as pressing the number on a dial.

To protect your own right as a business, review your reasons for why you dial numbers in the first place: lead generation and customer support.

• Business leads – It is generally not enough to simply exchange emails. You still have to formally sign the deal and even before that, B2B solutions generally entail lengthy discussions on price, project duration, as well as the bottom-line purpose and results of it all. It also helps to keep close in touch with your provider and have them keep an eye on those who make false calls on their behalf. You can even give them the mental incentive by saying somebody shady is sabotaging their work. 

• Customer service – Customer service is not always about just receiving inbound calls day after day. Sometimes a company would like to conduct a small survey and have them contact their customers directly. As with business leads, make sure your business has a way of giving your callers an identity. It might also be best to use additional channels of communication to announce said survey. 

Related Content: How Customer Service Can Be Its Own Lead Generator

Speaking of which, you will notice that the biggest advantage you can give against false association is to make sure your contact center agents have a verifiable means of identifying themselves. Furthermore, that identity also verifies their affiliation with your company, thus showing it to be legit. Make sure your telemarketers take the following measures regardless if they are outsourced or in-house:

• Database is under lock and key – Access to prospect and client information is regulated and breaches are swiftly dealt with. Any outsourced telemarketing company must have the same level of security as a well-guarded, corporate infrastructure. 

• Have trustworthy personnel – Applicants as well as present agents should always be held with a certain level of responsibility over data security. Do necessary background checks and make sure recruiters ask them to file basic clearance requirements. 

• High awareness of possible breaches and responses to scams – There is a difference between being highly aware and completely paranoid. Do not always respond to every telemarketing scam unless it directly involves your business. But in the case that it does, send word to your telemarketers and act immediately! 

Related Content: Why People Are Cautious About Telemarketing Services And What You Can Do About It

As for what actual actions to take, make sure both of you collaborate closely together in your response. Set up a page on your website that can differentiate your telemarketers from that of posers. If you are outsourcing, constantly check in with your provider and make sure they are in the loop on what is happening in case bad news starts floating around. Only use professional telemarketers to combat their shady counterparts!

Simple Lead Generation Facts: Knowing Where And Where Not To Get Information

Monitoring customers isn't just limited to consumer businesses. Even B2B companies need to observe their targets for lead generation. It is easy to understand just how much you need information that guides you on what prospects find most interesting and relevant to their business needs.

On the other hand, this behavior can have the same backlash as their B2C counterparts. More specifically, you don't want to violate the privacy of potential customers. Not only is it bad PR, bad PR has clearly negative effects on both future sales and lead generation success.

Avoiding This Image Is The Key To The Information You Seek

How do you avoid this image? More importantly, how do avoid it but at the same time, get the information you need so that your marketing efforts really touch on what a prospect is looking for. To find the answer, look first to how you get your information, who gets, and where that information is stored. One good place to start is your contact center.

Related Content: Avoid Bad PR In Telemarketing And Other Marketing Channels

Now whether you've outsourced it or managed to build one up in-house, it is very likely that you use this center as your main tool for interacting with your market and getting information. You don't always just use it for B2B lead generation or taking care of customer support but possibly both! In today's business world, you will need all the information you can get and that requires different sources. Without that information, you might kill any chance of success for future campaigns:

Related Content: The Top 3 Ways To Kill Your Telemarketing Campaign

Meanwhile, the conduct and practices deployed by your agents are what can define your business as either a faithful service provider or a creepy stalker. To find out which, ask yourself the following questions:

• Where do you establish your presence? - First off, it's good to use multiple channels so that you have the means to converse with your market in anyway that is desired. Secondly however, are they aware of the regulations governing each medium? It would be very awkward for them to encourage proper online marketing practices but don't think twice about neglecting the ones for telemarketing.

• How is the information given away? - Believe it or not, you are not always in the wrong for gathering information from public sources. That is because the source is, well, public. It is available to many. No prospect should fault you for acting on information that they have made available to everyone else. This should be your immediate defense. One clear difference between stalking and observing is that the former uses information that has been obtained without consent. Despite that, prospects in turn need to realize that even something as simple as publishing a social media profile should be done with the expectations of people acting on it.

• Where do they draw the line? - Following the previous point, your agents should know where to draw the line. If they are certain that a prospect is not willing to impart certain information, they should respect it. At the same time though, they must be able to obtain more trust so that they can use it for the sole purpose of providing a better service.

The good news is that these are industry standards that apply to both in-house groups and outsourced companies. It just so happens that both marketers and prospects tend to have a flawed understanding of customer privacy. So on your part at least, make sure you hire professional telemarketers and other experienced professionals so that you will know when and when not to gather information.

What Telemarketing Can Cover Outside Of Facebook, Outside Of Social Media

One of the strongest points of telemarketing is the flexibility, speed, and the skill it demonstrates when it comes to both customer and prospect engagement. Today, these particular advantages are needed more than ever as online technology enables the vast and swift gathering of information but the efforts to determine and utilize its value are still way far behind.

Many marketers are saying that social media is at the top when it comes to that information with Facebook still remaining as the lead figurehead of the new medium. The most naïve even go as far as to say that traditional techniques like telemarketing would be completely phased out by purely digital tools.

However, even within the online sphere, professionals are saying that Facebook admits to the limits of its own user information. One of them is Robert Hof, a Forbes contributor:

“Social activity has long been embedded in most online services, from Google search (based on the collective linking choices of website owners) and email to Pinterest, Twitter, and those content sharing services such as ShareThis and AddThis. And now that Facebook has created its own ad exchange, allowing advertisers to use data from elsewhere on the Web to target messages to people while they’re on Facebook, even Facebook itself is acknowledging that there’s useful data to be gleaned from off-Facebook activity.”

Still, why focus on just the limits of Facebook? Why openly admit the flaws of online information and remain closed to the possibility of better information obtained outside the internet? It'd be much better to recognize both as equals that can form together to cover the gaps.

Now here are two of the several flaws of social media information and how telemarketing helps cover for these flaws:

• Anonymity – Facebook and other social media sites are still in the midst of cracking down on anonymous users. Still, that's the problem with digital technology. It's still relatively easy to fabricate multiple social media accounts, multiple online personas, and multiple pieces of contact data. More than half of these might not even be for ulterior purposes but are simply different branches of your prospect's business presence online. On the other hand, you might end up finding two of these branches but can only qualify their business as a whole. Sadly, this is something more easily avoided with just a call to the phone number instead of just instant qualification via social media.

• Online Security – Given the never-ending tide of hacker attacks and major online leaks, it's no surprise that business are still quite hesitant to put all business information online. And take note, much of that information is critical to qualifying them for sales leads. You may be able to glean the size of their business from social media but good luck trying to convince them to share financial information like their budget.

Social media is but only a percentage of total information you can find online. Though because of that, it shares its flaws. There is still too much anonymity and online communication remains to have many security. It's always more prudent to not depend on it entirely and use offline tools like telemarketing services to cover for its limitations.

Telemarketing Standards That Are Shared By Social Media

Many business professionals are hailing social media as the tool that's revolutionizing 21^st century marketing. It's new. It's young. It's keeping with the times. Plenty of social media experts are saying that even B2B companies should start looking to social media as their new mode for marketing. Could this be the end of traditional B2B marketing forms such as telemarketing?

The truth is every trend has its critics and the emphasis on social media being all young and hip is one prime area of vulnerability. A good example was just published last week by Inc.com: 11 Reasons a 23-Year-Old Shouldn't Run Your Social Media.

What's interesting is that the reasons do not only identify the traits of a more appropriate social media manager. These same traits have long been sought out in professional telemarketers and call center agents.

“1. They're not mature enough.” - Maturity is critical for any kind of marketing agent, regardless if they use telemarketing or social media. Maturity and accountability are important ingredients in marketing as well as sales.

“2. They may be focused on their own social-media activity.” - You think only social media managers need to be monitored? Think again. Productivity is not just demanded of telemarketing agents but all employees in general.

“3. They may not have the same etiquette--or experience.” - It can actually be argued that telemarketing has a higher standard than social media when it comes to this. Long before social media ever became a marketing trend, telemarketing companies have been recording and reviewing messages for substance and consistency.

“4. You can't control their friends.” - Using company resources to communicate with friends has never been a good idea to begin with, whether it's social media or through telemarketing. It's not very professional.

“5. No class can replace on-the-job training.” - The experience of actually working in the field has always been a common selling point among telemarketing companies. On the other hand, even extensive experience on social networking is shorter in comparison given that it's still a young face in the whole of marketing.

“6. They may not understand your business.” - Naturally, any sort of marketer should be familiar with what they're marketing. Again, social media isn't alone. Don't forget that there are other effective marketing practices, such as telemarketing.

“7. Communication skills are critical.” - Communication is another key ingredient in marketing. Agents should be able to relay it clearly, whether in writing or speech.

“8. Humor is tricky business.” - It's not just about humor but propriety. Just as social networking needs to draw boundaries, so should telemarketing agents.”

“9. Social-media savvy is not the same as technical savvy.” - Being good at talking on the phone isn't a mark of a good telemarketer either. They too are required to have additional skills like database management as well as familiarity with processes like appointment setting.

“10. Social-media management can become crisis management.” - Handling emergency cases is necessary when telemarketing is used for customer support. They're not eager to make common mistakes either nor are they eager for their consequences.

“11. You need to keep the keys.” - Having access to records and controlling the tools being used isn't exclusive to social media or even telemarketing. There are limits to free reign and where they start is where higher management begins.

To summarize, the dangers of hiring inexperienced social networking managers are no different from the dangers of hiring any other kind of inexperienced marketing agent. Fortunately, telemarketing has long set up standards to minimize these dangers whereas social media has just begun!

B2B Lead Generation – New Sales Skills Need Complimentary Marketing Support

B2B lead generation is a tool that offers sales not only opportunities but also insight on their prospect. That insight is critical given the rise of new sales techniques that are allegedly doing away with the old.

At least, that's what Lynette Ryals and Javier Marcos are saying on the HBR Blog Network. To summarize, they're echoing the beliefs of many other sales professionals that the old modes of traditional selling are making way for the type of selling that emphasizes on relationships prior to the sale. These in turn would require new skills from sales people and thus, marketing should be able to come up with complimentary support to help them meet these new demands:

“Commercial skills and capabilities are about financial insight, business acumen and customer insight — specifically, insight beyond what the customer has articulated.”

This only raises the amount and grade of information that marketing services should acquire. The methods also need to be more subtle. Techniques like taking surveys need to ask questions that are formulated based on knowledge and analysis that's beyond the capability of prospects.

“Relational skills and capabilities include the ability to manage multi-level, multifunctional relationships, to understand relational dynamics and to inspire trust.”

Establishing trust is one of the initial tasks in any marketing approach. You don't attempt the sale when you're first contacting a prospect. They have to be qualified first and more interest needs to be established. That interest however can be affected by the amount of trust that you gained. Acquiring said trust means you're helping sales to develop a connection and gain more and more permission to stay connected.

“Managerial skills and capabilities needed by people in sales roles include people management skills (because so much business-to-business selling is now done in teams and cross-functionally); high ethical standards and integrity (growing customer demands in relation to corporate social responsibility and ethics are changing selling behaviors); openness to change and adaptability; and influencing skills.”

Now just because high managerial skills are necessary doesn't mean you can't make your marketing efforts easier to manage. If sales is willing to lay out clear-cut requirements, then the marketing approach must be ready to meet those requirements. The same goes for their ethical standards (make sure your practices are legitimate and acceptable). An openness to change also extends to marketing given that different forms of marketing are often the result of changes in market behavior.

“Cognitive skills and capabilities include innovative problem solving; the ability to identify opportunities; ”

Seeing as how generating leads is all about indicating opportunities, any additional information from marketing should ultimately serve to assist in identifying problems. This is where it's most critical for sales to lay out specifications while at the same time, marketing strategies should end up delivering leads that meet these specifications. Some sales teams won't demand anything too complicated but others might. In the end, it's all about how one party coordinates with the other.

The new skills described in this article can apply to B2B sales in any industry. Thus, it's not surprising that you can demand complimentary marketing support for it from any type marketer out there. You can have these requirements for online marketers as well as professional telemarketers. A change in sales will always demand complimentary marketing support.

The Different Ways To Generate Permission For B2B Telemarketing

Decision makers are in a position of authorization. Authorization implies permission. Therefore, if you had ways to get that kind of permission, B2B telemarketing would be lot easier.

So then, why is it still so hard? Well, the challenge is not just in the telemarketing but at least half of it (or more) lies in getting that permission. Their authority wouldn't be all that important if was that easy to get now would it? To succeed in B2B telemarketing though, gaining that permission has its long term benefits so you should make sure that your telemarketers are trying out the following techniques. These techniques can be used by in-house and outsourced agents alike.

• Online Engagement – Online engagement can be less direct than telemarketing and is therefore good for asking permission first. Usually, it's either done through email or social media conversations. Remember to focus on the engagement though because that's the core of these tactics (social media especially). Once the conversation starts feeling too long and drawn-out however, you can ask permission to call. Their consent will not only get you past their gatekeepers but also enable future follow-up calls. 

• Inbound Marketing – Instead of directly asking for it, you can also attract permission via inbound marketing. You can set up an informative website with a contact form for phone numbers for example. Forms that are filled will serve as the signal to call as well as their consent. But in order for this to be effective, you need to know proper targeting. Use advertisements only when you know that your intended market is viewing them. Have your website optimized with the right keywords. The call should also be used to get more information beyond that was spelled out on the contact form. 

• Customer Database – You can also target your current customers if you've already established several good B2B relationships. You've already done what was necessary so that they're no longer cautious of your calls. The only challenge now is to maintain that trust. Using your own customer database will only work if you have entirely new products and services that they might be interested in. Therefore, customer feedback is important. It will guide innovation and development so that you'll have something worth marketing to them.

Getting the permission of a decision maker isn't always easy but once you acquire it, it can be smoother sailing for the rest of the sale process. Why? Because asking their permission shows that you care about their authority and their business. Inbound marketing can show that you're aware of what's going among their businesses but aren't afraid to learn more about each of them. Targeting your customer database shows that you haven't just left them on their own once the sale was made. You're still willing to keep hearing from them. Using online engagement prior to calling demonstrates that you're not eager to sell and want to first find out their problems before offering a solution. There are many different ways to generate permission for telemarketing but don't forget the values that you can learn from each technique!

Why People Are Cautious About Telemarketing Services And What You Can Do About It

Even B2B telemarketers themselves will admit that more than a handful of people either don't like what they do or just have a negative understanding of it. There are good reasons for that though and they're either the result of bad telemarketing practices or just a lack of transparency. In both cases, it's the duty of those in telemarketing services to avoid such practices and be crystal clear about what they do when engaging with businesses.

So first off, what are some of the things that turn people off from telemarketing?

• Pushiness – B2C telemarketing isn't the only form of the practice that was stigmatized by the pushy attitude of both marketers and salespeople. Such hardheaded characters don't give decision makers any peace of mind because of their constant marketing calls. Gatekeepers can easily sniff out a persistent caller and take necessary security measures to block their calls completely.
• Contact Data – While decision makers are more or less used to the idea of publicizing their contact data, telemarketers still have an obligation to use that information responsibly. And once they know it's listed on your customer database, they expect you to keep it secure. A breach in that security will result in a severe breach of their trust.
• Impersonality – Impersonal marketing approaches are just that: impersonal. They're bland. They're repetitive. They're also a terrible waste of time. It's no wonder that not even company gatekeepers are impressed with a message that they've heard over and over again.

Now, what can be done about this? This might be surprising but those of you who were just considering outsourced telemarketing still have good reason to, despite the above flaws. Why? It's because many telemarketers have long taken the hint. The mark of a good company is one that is aware of these mistakes and has taken measures to avoid them. And if you're using your own in-house telemarketing team, you might be able to employ some the following yourself!

• Exercise proper follow-ups – Instead of being pushy, make sure your telemarketers find ways to get around instead of constantly hammering the decision maker. If they're not willing to talk just yet, then call at another time. They can also learn to use other channels of communication in order get permission (e.g. emailing them first or attracting their interest with a website).
• Treat data responsibly – Secure that data as much as possible. In the case of current customers, you should also make sure they're aware that you're using their data and know how you're using it. If you're contacting businesses to qualify completely new B2B leads, then you have tell them where you got their contact information when they ask.
• Diversify your marketing approach – Use other forms of marketing like blogging or social media to show that you're not just limited to telemarketing. You can also improve the telemarketing approach itself by turning it into an opportunity to engage with prospects so you'll know more about how your business can help theirs.

Ultimately, it's all about improving the quality of the telemarketing service and not really about doing away with it entirely. Even if it does prove a hassle for yourself, the continued existence of experienced B2B telemarketers is living proof that it can be done right.

And when it's done right, fewer people will be cautious about it.

Outsource A Telemarketing Company When Faced With The Flaws Of The Internet

Suppose that, for a while, online marketing has been your business' only means of getting in touch with prospects. It's not even a core process but you have to do it because you believe it's the most up-to-date way to market yourself (even for B2B). However, this new report from Mashable could mean that it's high time to outsource a classical B2B telemarketing company.

“A study conducted by Harris Interactive highlights just how widespread this lack of trust in information on the Internet is for most Americans.

According to the survey of 1,900 Americans, 98% distrust information found on the Internet, with 94% saying 'bad things can happen as a result of acting on inaccurate information online.'”

Take note, this isn't really to say that a telemarketing company is superior to online marketers. In fact, a quick read through the comments on the article will actually point to an irony: despite how 'unreliable' online information is deemed, the article itself is a form of online information. Therefore, why should anyone trust it? Doesn't that look like a typical case of shooting one's own foot?

Setting that irony aside though, both the comments and the article itself do prove a simple truth: the internet isn't always reliable. Therefore, relying on it all the time can be counterproductive. Here are just two ways that the flaws of the internet can affect the success of your overall B2B marketing campaign:

• Reliability On Information Found – Lead generation is a staple for B2B marketing and leads are more or less packages of information. More specifically, it's information you can find that can direct you to a potential client. Still, even contact numbers and email addresses found on the net aren't entirely accurate or up to date.
• Reliability On Information Presented – This can also reflect the way people view the information you've put on your own website. They might not entirely trust it and if it's just too insufficient, they'll seek out another company. A business that is just too limited to the internet also limits the means with which prospects can contact it, inquire about it, and verify what is being presented.

An outsourced telemarketer is simply a cost-efficient way to expand your overall marketing capacity when a single channel proves insufficient. If you're relying on the internet for contact information, search for contact numbers and have the telemarketer acquire more information through the phone. That way, anything you've learned from a prospect via their website (or even a lengthy email exchange) can be confirmed. Using telemarketers can also give you new ways to gather information from both your target market and from among your current customers. On the other hand, having an outsourced call center will also allow your prospects to verify the information you've put out on your website.

The truth is dependence on a single medium isn't always the best idea. Before, people distrusted telemarketers for the pretty much the same reasons that people now distrust the internet (at least, the same reasons cited in the article). Expanding your marketing efforts is simply a way to paint a clearer picture of your businesses when one medium proves insufficient.

Outsource A Call Center For Phone-Related Marketing Efforts

Despite the prevalence of email, website, and social media, people will still use a phone. If these people are in business, perhaps it's even more so. While the other three, digital-based channels have the capacity to transmit more information, it has also indirectly given them more capacity to transmit junk and eat up time. You have spam messages, drawn-out content, as well as the need to be active on social media even when you have other important things to do.

Those are just some of the reasons why the phone is still used in marketing efforts. This doesn't mean that the pushy telemarketers are about to make their dreaded return. (DNC lists have put an end to that.) It only means that the phone is the best tool to utilize in business activities such as:

• Phone Surveys – Telephone surveys are a part of research. Research, in turn, has always assisted in shaping up marketing strategies, identifying targets, as well as qualifying B2B sales leads. The results could also indicate trends and changes in B2B buyer behavior. A phone survey could even more suitable for B2B because, as stated before, the phone is a channel still highly used in business.

• Inbound Marketing – When it comes to B2B, there's only so much information you can put out on your website or in your marketing emails. (And in fact, it's likely that you need to minimize the volume of that information as much as possible so that your prospect won't be overwhelmed). This calls for an inbound strategy which allows prospects to inquire only about certain things they wish to know about your business.

• Customer Service – One of the things that distinguish B2B from B2C is that there is a clearer emphasis on business relationships. Such a relationship goes beyond closing the deal. It's about ensuring that the client receives the full benefit of what you have sold. Neglecting customer service can result in bad referrals and a poor reputation all around. It's only worsened however if your prospects try to contact your business but end up frustrating themselves with long waiting periods and constantly being redirected.

On the other hand though, building up your own center can be very expensive. You need to hire more people and train them. In order to train them, you need to educate yourself first as well. Couple this with the costs of adequate technology and you might as well offer telemarketing services of your own in order to help cover for them.

Fortunately, that's why you have outsourcing. The only thing you need are the tools and the personnel after all. Outsourcing to telemarketing companies gives you access to those services without having to bear the heavy price of investing in them yourself. Another benefit to outsourcing is that it also saves you the time as well as the money when using the phone for the above purposes is a little bit too far from your core functions. Still, just because it's not what your business would normally do, doesn't mean you can't benefit from those who can do it for you.

Can Your B2B Sales Afford Your Lead Generator?

Many of those working to generate sales leads get so caught up with impressing their superiors about the benefits and advantages of their campaigns. They end up forgetting that it doesn't even matter sometimes! Some CEOs don't care too much about the complications or why one method works better than the other.

Sometimes, they just want one thing: results.

No matter how many statistics you cite or how many experts you consult, you're just wasting your breath if it just doesn't show in the final results. Therefore, whenever you encounter someone whose sole focus is on the results, why don't you try seeing things from their perspective?

Now just what is it in the results that they're so concerned with? Well in a nutshell, it's all about how much it costs to generate leads versus how much is being made off of them. You don't need to lecture them about how leads represent sales opportunities. They probably know that already. What they want to know is if the sales being made can afford the entire process and then some. In order to answer that question, you should figure out where these costs are coming from:

• Time – As the saying goes, time is money. Unless you can find a way to reduce the costs being spent over time, maybe you should check to see if there's anything in terms of time management that's raising the price of lead generation.
  
• Tools – What exactly is your approach? Do you stick to just one method you know best (e.g. telemarketing) or do you go the multi-channel route? Are any of these asking more money? What kind of equipment do you use? Here's a surprise: It doesn't really matter how cheap or expensive it is. If it's cheap but the poor quality is killing your efforts, then that's where you've been flushing down your company's cash. Likewise, it's the same thing if the tools are expensive but aren't used to the fullest.
  
• Personnel – How much do you invest in training the people who are actively responsible for making the calls, sending the emails, or maintaining your online properties? Did you hire the right professionals? Were they taught the right skills? Did you yourself teach them the wrong set of techniques or strategies?

Oddly enough, this can apply whether you were investing in an in-house lead generator or outsourcing lead generation services. You can judge either party using the same criteria above. And surprise, surprise, so can your superiors. Like them, you should be focused on how the results are reflected in the effort. The only difference is that it's your job to go further down into the details and discover the leaks.

You can really learn a lesson from their seemingly narrow-minded perspective. It's about realizing when and where the details matter. They don't matter if the result is your lead generator costing more than what sales can make. They matter when you're trying to find the problems and discover ways to make the lead generation process more affordable.

A Quick Contrast Between What Scammers Do And What Professional Telemarketers Do

Anyone with even average experience in the telemarketing industry would eventually learn about telemarketing scams. And painful as it is, it's usually when they're hearing someone hold them up as a reason why the industry is dead.

However, if B2B businesses have any say about it, it's still pretty much alive. You see there's a fine difference between what real telemarketers do and what scammers posing as them would do.

Today, telemarketing continues to stay alive because there is still a need for it to contact and engage potential B2B clients. All kinds of decision makers, from managers to all the way up to the CEOs, take a lot of means just to contact. The phone just happens to be one of them.

In the following, you will find just some areas where scammers and telemarketers differ greatly.

Targets

Scammers – Scammers typically target the most gullible. These would include people who have no easy access to confirming the things they say over the phone. They would go for areas that they think have low awareness with regards to telemarketing scams.

Professionals – B2B telemarketers target only businesses, and more specifically, certain people in charge of certain areas all in order to generate sales leads. The businesses themselves aren't very easy to navigate because you have gatekeepers and other safeguards to prevent people from wasting the decision maker's time. The businesses must also fit a certain criteria determined by industry, size, and factors that would indicate a need for whatever product or service they're offering.

Goals and information

Scammers – Scammers are basically thieves. The things they steal? Information. Personal information. These could be credit card numbers, bank account PINs, and other sensitive data that would allow access to people's money. And if they can't get that, there's always the classic case of duping people into directly sending them money by making up the same false promises (e.g. tax reduction).

Professionals – Real telemarketers are also after information but this information is only for the purpose of convincing either themselves or whoever is outsourcing them for it. Convince them of what exactly? A need. B2B transactions have their best value when there is a definite need for something and the money spent on the relationship or the project is worth every penny. You're talking about big business here and specific needs have to be confirmed. It's the only way they can get the qualified leads they need to determine who and who is not open to do business. The telemarketers themselves aren't attempting to sell and in fact, the closest thing to that would be when they do additional appointment setting. The sale itself still needs to be made by whoever needed to get the necessary information to act upon.

Technology

Scammers – Scammers are cheap or otherwise they wouldn't be so desperate to steal instead of pursuing more honest efforts. This is reflected in their use of low quality communications technology, fellow criminals who obviously never trained to communicate like a pro, and even those who use websites generally don't put effort to make it look convincing enough. That takes money and perhaps more money than what they rip off of people.

Professionals – These people use only the best and more. They're not just limited to the phone. They have a large database that they've built over the years so they don't have to start compiling numbers from scratch. Their equipment is selected to ensure clear, quality communication. Finally, they wouldn't be professionals if there wasn't some time invested in their training.