Exeter Archives - Page 5 of 6

Let’s start with data

Posted on 31 May 201830 June 2023 by Doug Roots

We live in a world where data is everywhere, it’s more widely available than it ever used to be, and we use it more than we’ve ever done before!

As telemarketer’s, data is invaluable to us. The simple truth is that we are only as effective as the data that we use. It is our job to understand who we are calling and to establish a need, all culminating together to create a lead or opportunity for our client. With the correct and clean data, we are able to do this in an efficient manner, understanding the target market, key message and target for our clients.

But, with bad data we struggle from the outset. Using out of date, irrelevant, or confusing data causes delays to our calling, meaning we call less relevant data and have less worthwhile conversations resulting in a worse return on investment for our clients.

Data changes quickly, especially if you are working with large quantities:

Staff change roles or leave companies
Companies change locations or details
Businesses close
Company mergers happen

And this can all change the data that you hold about that company.

Telemarketing is still proven to be an extremely effective method of business development when used correctly. Here at Air, we focus on the ROI that you receive when working with us, our average return is £18 for every £1 our clients invest. But to work as effectively as possible we rely heavily on working with the right data. For this reason, we have always partnered with high quality compliant data providers who we can rely on to deliver what we require to meet our clients needs.

With GDPR changes on their way in, data has never been so under the spot light. With this in mind, we’ve created our GDPR Readiness Statement, using plain English to explain how we have got ourselves ready, to give you confidence in our operation and to provide guidance for yours.

If you’re considering starting a telemarketing campaign, get in touch for a chat to find out how we can help you with your business development and data needs.

We’re thrilled to be named Most Outstanding Business

Posted on 24 May 201830 June 2023 by Doug Roots

We were absolutely thrilled to have been recognised in the Express and Echo Business Awards, winning one of the three awards that we had been shortlisted for, in the category of Business Growth of the Year (over 25 staff). On top of this, we were then overjoyed to hear that a surprise award for Outstanding Business of the Year, was also awarded to us, ahead of the other amazing category winners on the night.

We have achieved a huge amount since our launch in 2016, growing to a team of 40 people within 2 years and working with clients such as Funding Circle, Crowdcube and GoCardless.

Owen Richards, our Managing Director said, “We put great emphasis on the importance of our people, who play such an important part in everything that we achieve. We’re proud to be recognised within the Exeter business community, and without the whole team effort we simply wouldn’t have grown at the speed and scale we have, with more growth predicted again this year.”

If you are looking for help with telemarketing, telesales, lead generation and appointment setting, and would like to partner with an experienced award-winning company – Air could be just what you have been looking for. To find out more, get in touch 0345 241 3038.

Celebrating business success together

Posted on 15 May 2018 by Doug Roots

It’s that time again. The Express & Echo Business Awards are back for 2018, celebrating business success and giving businesses in Exeter and the surrounding areas the recognition they deserve.

Within the Best New Start Up Business category of this year’s awards are both Air Marketing Group and Grow Marketing Ltd. Both Grow and Air are still relatively new to the Exeter business scene, however, they have both made huge impacts on the local marketplace and have worked with each other for almost a year now.

Air Marketing Group was started in March 2016 by Managing Director Owen Richards and, in the two years since, Air has grown from 1 person to a team of 40 staff, boasting a strong, varied and retained client base including brands such as Crowdcube and Funding Circle. Air has worked hard to help boost Exeter’s economy, create careers within the city, and has partnered with both St Petrocks and Balloons Charity for 2018, having donated a total of £1,111.06 so far to these charities.

Grow Marketing Ltd have been trading for less than a year and have centred their entire ethos and business approach around being relentlessly positive and adding value to the local economy. This has set them apart from many other media sources and created a real ‘feel-good’ movement within the local and regional business community. In less than a year, they have pioneered meaningful initiatives (such as the ‘100 Most Influential Women of 2018), attracted support and funding from key local stakeholders and also formed key commercial partnerships with many local businesses and organisations. With some truly exciting projects and partnerships in the pipeline (watch this space), the team at Grow are looking to the future with great positivity and determination.

Both #TeamAir and #TeamGrow look forward to seeing many of you at the Express and Echo Business Awards and, whoever wins, both organisations will be moving into the rest of the year with a spring in their steps and a smile on their faces.

Have you discovered the full potential of your voice?

Posted on 14 May 201830 June 2023 by Doug Roots

We’ve all heard the famous saying, ‘you have a face for the radio’, which can be taken offensively by some who work in the industry, but there is something to be taken from this saying. People who are successful in the radio industry have such huge personalities that they don’t need to be seen to make an impression.

Telemarketing is not too dissimilar to this. Our conversations are all held over the phone, so we do not have the advantage of meeting people face to face or viewing body language. Instead we focus on demonstrating our personality, giving a strong portrayal of the brand and using our tone and inflection to guide the conversation.

I’ve run campaigns at previous companies that have been scripted using tried and tested techniques. But the same question arises – When someone is saying the same thing on each call, how can their results differ so dramatically from call to call?

As I was paid on their results, I made it my mission to understand why this happened, so I listened to hundreds of call recordings. During that time, I found that if one voice tone was used, then within roughly 30-40 seconds the call would often be over. The tone I identified was when an individual’s voice tone/inflection went ‘up’ at the end of sentences. It was the verbal equivalent of having your fingers crossed. Used when someone doesn’t have confidence in what they’re saying or does not understand the subject well enough and even, at times, when trying to ‘fake’ enthusiasm. It was clear that when inflection went up, credibility in the message went down. And this was the difference between the calls using the same script.

What I learnt from this is that when asking questions and closing it’s very important to use a downward inflection in your voice, it commands authority and instils confidence in the decision maker.

For example – try saying with the tone and inflection going down at the end of the sentence, “So John, if you’re 100% happy with everything we’ve gone through, is it fair to say you’d be happy to meet with one of our consultants?”

Now try it again but this time with an upwards inflection at the end of the sentence. Which one would you rather be at the end of?

In understanding this, you can also learn a lot about your decision maker when they throw you objections, what is there tone and inflection; do they sound confident, does it ‘sound’ like a superficial objection or genuine? In understanding how you use your voice, you’ll learn a lot about how others use theirs.

What I have learnt is that voice inflection and tempo are vital and valuable skills that once mastered will improve your telemarketing ability when speaking with gate keepers and decision makers.

To underline the importance of tone and inflection here is a sentence for you to try, “I did not steal the money”. Depending on which word you put the emphasis on it’ll change the whole meaning of the sentence. Go ahead, try it for yourself!

Opinion piece by Oliver Kernick, Senior Account Manager, Air Marketing Group

Sales and Business Tips – How Best to Question During the Conversation

Posted on 4 May 201830 June 2023 by Doug Roots

Asking open questions develops a conversation with a prospect but when asking questions it is important to ensure they are natural and you dig deep on certain points raised to make the most of the conversation to move into the close. Take a look at our latest video to find out more on this tip:

The 5 mistakes to avoid when doing telemarketing

Posted on 30 April 201830 June 2023 by Doug Roots

When executed correctly, B2B telemarketing can be one of the most effective methods of speaking with your target audience and building your pipeline. As with all business development techniques it is vital to do the right research upfront and put a clear strategy into place before commencing. Telemarketing is also well suited to working alongside the other business development activity that you already have running such as email marketing, direct mail or social media marketing.

We’ve refined our telemarketing strategy over the years but have seen plenty of mistakes in that time also. Here are the 5 mistakes to avoid when conducting your telemarketing campaigns:

Inadequate preparation

You may think that telemarketing is all about being on the phone, making as many calls as possible and crossing your fingers a little. This simply isn’t the right approach to take.

Taking the time to prepare before a call, thoroughly understanding your company, the USP’s of the product/service you are selling, and the decision maker you want to talk to. This preparation may seem like its wasting your time or putting you behind – but this will make your call much more professional and efficient.

Having no freedom from the script

Nobody wants to be in a role where they are just reading from a script like a robot – and no prospect wants to have a conversation with someone who is defined by a script and lacking personality.

A script helps you cover some key aspects, but diallers should have the freedom to move the conversation wherever it requires. Not only will this give more enjoyment to the team making the calls, but it will also allow a much better personalised, intelligent and consultative conversation with the prospect.

Boring them with talk!

We’ve all had these sales calls – where instead of listening to what the caller is saying we are counting how long they’ve been talking without taking a breath, just wondering if they might pass out from exhaustion!

What does this achieve? Absolutely nothing. You cannot sell to someone if you haven’t identified their needs and whether your product/service may satisfy those needs. And how are you going to find out these needs? By asking questions and allowing the prospect to steer the conversation.

Unable to handle objections

Not every prospect is going to need your product/service or want to buy from you. So, when objections to your sales pitch do arise you need to be prepared for them.

This is all about training, ensuring you understand what objections you may receive and how you can best overcome this. The biggest mistakes to avoid are mumbling, changing the subject or continuing your sales piece talking over them.

Failure to close

You have called that prospect for a reason – you want to arrange a telephone appointment, a meeting or a sign up. So as the call is going well, you need to be able to recognise when to ask for the sale and close the deal.

Training and experience will teach you when to close this sale. But failure to identify this means a missed opportunity and time wasted on both sides.

If you’re looking for telemarketing guidance or sales training, Air can help you with this. We often run sales training workshops not only for our internal staff but also for clients and local business owners. Get in touch to find out more.

Lessons from Rugby by Chris Bentley

Posted on 10 April 201830 June 2023 by Doug Roots

True north

Culture is a massively used term in rugby union. The top teams love to refer to theirs and the losing teams aspire to get it. There are many ways to define the culture of a winning team but the best way from my time was simply the team closest to finding their True North.

Different from magnetic north and grid north, True North is the direction along the earth’s surface to the north pole. We used to substitute our team goals for true north and then explore the behaviours that would get us there.

If everyone can identify the target and agree on the behaviours that will get there and those that won’t it suddenly becomes very clear. However, this list can often be quite broad, by coining a cover all phrase like true north we were able to have a reference point to consider actions and behaviours… ‘is that true north’ we could often ask one another when perhaps behaviours suggested otherwise.

Having worked as a team to agree on the direction we could then self-police one another and create a peer led culture rather than one with direction from above. This made it easier to adhere to (after all, we’d designed it) and created an arena where the critical mass stayed on task.

Stab in the belly

‘Et tu brute’ – the immortal last words from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar as his close ally joined the assassination party. It was at this moment that his will to fight back erodes and he bowed to the Machiavellian plot. Being stabbed in the back is a term that still exists today and can cause a huge amount of problems with trust eroded, reputations tarnished, and teams damaged.

In sport as in business things go wrong and people make mistakes. This isn’t a problem but dealing with things going wrong often is. Its human nature to deflect and try to play down problems, nobody likes to be told off or have mistakes highlighted but this can be turned to a positive if you are on the same wavelength and willing to face issues head on.

During my time in rugby the culture was always to ‘stab in the belly’ and highlight problems you can foresee as early as possible. This wasn’t a freedom to cause consternation or have arguments but a strength of character to give and receive criticism, appreciate that it’s for the good of the team and move on.

This maxim only works if the team has the trust to accept, as well as give, honesty. Quite often the challenge is to be robust enough to take a criticism on the chin, appreciate its aimed at a ‘true north’ goal and move on positively.

Opinion piece by Chris Bentley, Client Relationship Director, Air Marketing Group.

Sales and Business Tips – How to Present What You Do

Posted on 26 March 201830 June 2023 by Doug Roots

Once you’ve worked hard to get in front of a decision maker, the next stage of introducing yourself and presenting what you do is really important. Don’t just talk about what ‘we’ do, how ‘we’ help, instead flip your language to talk about how we can help ‘you’, what we can do for ‘you’. Find out more tips for how to present what you do from our MD, Owen Richards.

Will we see you at the South West Business Expo?

Posted on 13 March 20187 July 2023 by Doug Roots

We are looking forward to exhibiting again this year at the South West Business Expo, being held this Thursday (15^th March) at Westpoint Exeter.

We really enjoy exhibiting at this expo as it opens up a perfect opportunity to catch up with our local business contacts and customers. We’ll be on stand 131 – and would love to see you!

This expo is the largest one day business show in the South West, attracting over 3,000 visitors. This unique expo is specifically tailored towards start-ups and SMEs looking to start or grow their business. The expo features a world-class speaker line-up, 12 inspirational seminars and interactive masterclasses, a whopping 260+ exhibitors, 3 speed networking session, live Cookery Kitchen and much much more. It has everything you need to gain the vital skills, knowledge and expertise you need to start or expand your business – plus, it’s completely free to register for tickets!

To top it off, Google Digital Garage will also be at the event, where you can receive free digital training from the world’s most influential business. They will be offering 1-2-1 training and showcasing a series of seminars on critical digital topics to help you become more visible online and generate more enquires to your business.

To find out more about the expo, take a look at the event website. If you’d like to arrange a coffee and chat with us whilst we are at the expo please get in touch.

Tag: Exeter

Let’s start with data

We’re thrilled to be named Most Outstanding Business

Celebrating business success together

Have you discovered the full potential of your voice?

Sales and Business Tips – How Best to Question During the Conversation

The 5 mistakes to avoid when doing telemarketing

Lessons from Rugby by Chris Bentley

Sales and Business Tips – How to Present What You Do

Will we see you at the South West Business Expo?

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