Jan 21, 2014
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to play with these guys. When I do have opportunity, I like to talk to them. Take as much time as possible. Listen to every detail, ask as many questions as I can think of. They hate that. They really do. Think about it - they reason they tell you to hang up if you are not interested, and use computerized robocalls, is because it increases THEIR profits. Talking for an extended period of time to a bad lead (like me) wastes their time, costs them money, and causes them to possibly LOSE a valuable sale. They used to have live operators, but even a live operator getting hung up on costs too much money. So they moved to robo dialers and pre-recorded announcements. They now depend on the calls that get through to be decent sales leads. I've gotten e-mails from telemarketers that absolutely hate the idea that you will take their time to talk to them, and end up with NO SALE. Telemarketers I've dragged along and figured it out have cursed me out. The DNC isn't enough. Other technological telemarketing 'solutions' just shift the burden to those that are less capable and more vulnerable. Help with the effort, talk to them! Not everyone needs to do it, just a fraction of a percentage of the thousands of calls they make daily.
This is a numbers game, and the telemarketers know it. Make the numbers work for us, rather than them. I've kept telemarketers on the phone for 20-30 minutes at a time by being 'interested' and 'pleasant'. If only 15 more people out of the thousands of calls they make do the same, it effectively takes out 1 live salesperson. Rinse, repeat, and just a small group of like-minded, crowd-sourced, enthusiasts can sabotage an entire campaign. They lose money. And eventually, they will quit doing it because all the profit is gone. Make no mistake, they are calling you to make money. Stop the sales and the money flow, and only an idiot would continue to telemarket.