Posts Tagged ‘power dialer’

Mojo’s new Lead Alert Service helps you avoid getting “turtled!”

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
When potential customers get bombarded with information overload, they will retreat into their shell to block out any additional sources.

When potential customers get bombarded with information overload, they will retreat into their shell to block out any additional sources.

My son, who just started Little League, is still getting used to the idea that baseball is a game of urgency.

It’s vital to sprint to first base before the ball gets there instead of a casual stroll. It’s kinda important to take the ball out of your glove and throw it to the appropriate base without taking the time to admire the cloud formations. Hey, he’s getting the hang of it!

Of course, in the sales world, taking your sweet time to respond to an Internet lead is like hanging a signboard around your neck that reads “PLEASE BRING YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE.”

Here’s the reality about consumer behavior and this definitely applies to me when I am looking to connect with a new business for landscaping, plumbing, pest control, mortgages, home renovations, appliance repair and basically anything else I blow my paycheck on…. The first few companies to call me back are the ONLY ones who have a chance at my business. And if the first one to return my call or email gives me a reasonable quote, I’m taking it.

Here’s why. I hate shopping. A lot of guys hate shopping. Sure, I want the best price, but I am not going to spend a week playing phone tag to save 10 bucks. During holiday time at the shopping mall, I’m the guy who just parks far away from the get-go. I hate the idea of circling around a lot for 30 minutes looking for a parking space.

The marketing experts call this phenomenon “turtling.” After getting a few quotes from businesses, the savvy consumer will check out the Website or some references/testimonials and figure out which price is the best bang for the buck. Once the process has begun, and another business calls back a day or two later, it may as well be a bride or groom showing up eight hours late to their own wedding. Sealing the deal with you will be a tough sell after you’ve already “married” or liked the “proposal” from the competition.

Back to the turtle metaphor!  The customer will retreat into his or her shell and block out any additional information once they feel they have enough to choose from. In fact, they will even start to be annoyed when the phone rings from another company if they have already made up their mind.

So you gotta be first to call them back.

Here’s how Mojo can help!

Mojo's Lead Alert Service will contact you at up to three phone numbers (home, work, cell) the moment you get a new Internet lead!

Mojo's Lead Alert Service will contact you at up to three phone numbers (home, work, cell) the moment you get a new Internet lead!

When a potential customer fills out the contact form on your Website or at a referral Website, Mojo’s Lead Alert Service immediately calls you at up to three numbers (work, cell and home). You answer Mojo’s call and press “1″ to be connected to the prospect. Your call and lead’s contact information will also be automatically entered into Mojo’s lead management database.

Should you get an answering machine or if there is no answer, Lead Alert will contact you at preset intervals to still give you a shot at reaching them first. Remember, you can’t run casually to first base — and you can’t get information to a potential client who can’t hear you inside their shell.

Here’s something else that makes life a heckuva lot easier for sales reps.  At the same time you receive a text message notifying you about an Internet lead’s inquiry and their background information, your prospect will receive a text message announcing: “Hi, My name is ________ with So-and-So Company. Thanks for contacting us!  I am your assigned agent for your recent Internet inquiry.  I will be calling you in a few minutes to discuss your inquiry with you.”

Because they are the ones who initiated contact with you, AND you gave them a courtesy heads up that you would be calling, they are going to be far more welcoming when they answer the phone.  Remember, the customer is likely calling three or four or more places cold and we can’t assume they will immediately recognize your name.  This special Lead Alert feature gives you a leg up for being well received by the customer.

Best part of all, our Lead Alert Service will soon be included free with the Mojo Sales Engine!

Don’t let yourself be turtled ever again!

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Posted in Features, Hot Tips, Insurance Agents, Prospecting Tips and Tricks | No Comments »

Introducing Mojo Voice – your new personal secretary for inbound marketing

Friday, June 11th, 2010
Mojo Voice is like having your own personal secretary!

Mojo Voice is like having your own personal secretary!

If you’re running a successful business, chances are you have not put all your marketing apples in one basket.

In addition to prospecting for leads with outgoing phone calls, you likely have several other avenues to spread the word: brochures, face-to-face networking events, advertisements, Web site, blogs, etc. For those delightful occasions when people are knocking on your door, you naturally want to be there to answer it.

Now, no matter whether you are on a sales call, on the golf course or in the bathroom, Mojo has a tool for you to make sure your response is as swift and professional as possible.

It’s called Mojo Voice, and it’s the next best thing to a personal secretary who’s available 24/7.

When someone calls you, Mojo Voice will try to locate you at up to three additional phone numbers (office, cell and home — or anywhere you wish) and the caller will believe you have been reached at your desk. Or, if you choose the Domino setting, the caller will receive messages indicating they are being connected to second or third phone number. The message: Their call is your priority and you will stop what you are doing if possible to take care of their needs.

Best of all, if the incoming caller has already been in conversations with you, you’ll instantly be sent a text message indicating their customer history so you can personalize the discussion. If they are not already in your Mojo database, the call will automatically be cross-referenced with the white pages and their name and number will be entered into your prospective leads.

It doesn’t matter if consumers are shopping for roses, insurance or electronic widgets, if no one answers the phone, they’ll just hang up and move on to the next business they found on Google. Even if you can’t answer the phone at that moment, Mojo Voice keeps you in the game. Mojo instinctively captures and logs the phone number in your lead management program.

And the caller will be invited to record a voicemail, which will be immediately emailed to you or an assistant.

If a potential customer is calling you cold, you know they are calling some of your competitors cold, too. At this stage, if there is not a drastic variable in price or services, the winner is the first business to reply to their call.

mojo-voice

As a bonus, all users of Mojo Voice will receive free local phone numbers for your marketing needs. These local numbers will pop up on caller ID, making it more likely the prospect will pick up the phone. Also, the numbers can be used on all your marketing literature and Web pages. If you are licensed for real estate or insurance in multiple states, people are far more likely to respond to the local contact.

Mojo Voice is now in its Beta testing phase.  Drop us a line and let’s chat how you can be one of the first businesses to integrate our personal secretary into your Mojo lead management system!

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Posted in Features, Hot Tips, Insurance Agents, Prospecting Tips and Tricks, Realtors | No Comments »

Insurance sales star: “Mojo’s Triple Line Power Dialer replaced my entire call center!”

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

ethan-selph

Over the years, Utah’s Ethan Selph has sold satellite dishes, cable TV packages, security systems, water filters and prepaid legal services on the phone.

Today, he’s one of the rising stars in the health insurance industry, sharing advice to other sales people how to maximize their chat time. To Selph, it doesn’t matter what you are selling as long as you don’t come across as the stereotypical sales guy.

“Don’t sound like a total marketer,” he suggests. “I don’t even mention the name of my company. I say, ‘Hey, it’s Ethan’ instead of trying to come across as some big corporation. I try to sound like the Joe down the street.”

Another tip to project confidence: Don’t think of yourself as “bothering” or “interrupting” the people on your prospect list.

“There are a lot of people out there who NEED your help, people who WANT to talk to you,” he says. “Everyone wants to save money. My philosophy is that every client is worth $20,000. My goal is to make a thousand dollars a year for 20 years. I want to service them for life.”

“Even with all the fuss over health care reform, the business really hasn’t shifted around much. Health insurance is a necessity. It’s not like going on vacation to Hawaii or going out to eat, the things that get cut back first.”

Selph swears by the Mojo Triple Line Power Dialer, which he has been using for the past 10 months. Before implementing the auto dialer, he hired a telemarketing call center to do the dialing for him. The call center was charging $10 a transfer and Selph was spending between $600 to $800 a week for the privilege to continuously talk with live human beings.

That’s now $800 more in his pocket each week thanks to the Triple Line Power Dialer, which ensures that you’ll never hear a busy signal, fax machine pitch or answering machine again when you are on your sales shift.

“It’s totally revolutionized my whole business,” Selph says. “If I didn’t have the Mojo Power Dialer, I’d really be up the creek.”

In addition to the money saved from not using a call center, the Triple Line Power Dialer has also totally eliminated Selph’s need to buy additional leads. Having built up a critical mass of 5,000 prospects, he now devotes each day’s 100-200 live calls exclusively to insurance renewals. Business is so brisk, he doesn’t even need to bother to tap into new leads, which were costing him a steep $16 each!

Given that insurance companies typically lure customers in with low introductory rates and seldom lower them the following year, it makes sense to check in on active clients at least once every six months.

Before using the Mojo power autodialer, Selph did not have enough time to even call all his renewal prospects within his window of opportunity.

“I was losing accounts,” he recalls. “After 9 to 12 months, they’d just switch insurance companies without me. And once you lose somebody, it’s tough to get them back. Basically, Mojo has tripled my business.”

And the increase in sales meant hiring three people to work out of unfinished basement and eventually moving everyone to an office near the University of Utah to take advantage of the college labor pool.

Selph said he has previously tried two other auto dialers, but was either unsatisfied by its slow pace (one call at a time) or the response time to his customer service calls rerouted to overseas call centers.

“With Mojo Technical Support, I can usually get someone on the chatline within two or three minutes,” he says.

Given our occasional role as frustrated consumers in our own personal lives, we can think of no greater testimonial.

One last tip from Selph: Set your autodialer at six rings instead of three rings. Give your prospective customers a chance to get to the phone without sprinting for it!

“I used to get a lot of calls back right away, saying WHO’S THIS?” he says. “I’m now getting a hold of a lot more people the first time.”

(Click here to find out more on why Mojo lead management software and power dialer technology is ideally suited for the competitive insurance industry.)

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Posted in Hot Tips, Insurance Agents, Power Dialer Technology, Prospecting 101 | No Comments »

Away from the mothership, Mobile Mojo recaptures wasted downtime

Thursday, April 1st, 2010
Think of your Mojo-loaded desktop as the Mothership and the Mobile Mojo-loaded iPhone as your roving Explorer Ship

Think of your Mojo-loaded desktop as the Mothership and the Mobile Mojo-loaded iPhone as your roving Explorer Ship

The wait has been worth it!

For the past eight months, we’ve been fine-tuning our first iPhone app for our lead management and power dialer software service — and now you are free to make your calls anytime and anywhere.

We don’t mean you are free to call prospects at 11 o’clock at night or on Thanksgiving Day.  Normal sales etiquette and protocol still apply.

But now you can use your Mojo Triple Line Power Dialer outside of your office without lugging around your laptop.  With Mobile Mojo, a totally free download at iTunes, you can look up the status of a sales lead, make follow-up calls or make fresh cold calls straight from the iPhone.

As Mojo founder Davis Mangold puts it, think of the Mojo on your desktop computer as the “Mothership,” and think of the Mobile Mojo as a “little rocketship with limited capability but carrying a lot of firepower.”

Currently, we offer the only iPhone app in existence that uses data and voice at the same time.  But more importantly, we’re first to the market to improve your sales lifestyle in this innovative way. No other lead management software or power dialer company enables you to operate a satellite office in the palm of your hand.

Mobile Mojo LogoWhen you should you use the Triple Line Power Dialer with your iPhone?

Let’s say you are a real estate agent showing a home and your client calls and says he is running a little bit late. Instead of staring at the walls, why not turn on the Mojo and turn those wasted minutes into a potential windfall?  Naturally, everything in the iPhone app is integrated with the Mojo “Mothership,” so you are truly squeezing more business opportunities out of the day.

How about when you are at the airport and the plane is delayed — or you are in the auto shop waiting room?

We know of plenty of Mojo users who use their laptops in their “car office” to make calls during downtime. Now you just need your phone. The process is so much more organic.

The application is free and the use is free for our customers — no extra charges or hidden fees to tap into the power of this new convenience.

If you’re a current Mojo customer, click on the iPhone below to give Mobile Mojo a try.  If you’ve been thinking about trying out Mojo to handle all your lead management and power dialer needs, check out our demo and know that you’ll have the freedom to use Mojo ANYWHERE!

Click on the iPhone for our free Mobile Mojo app that will revolutionize the way you make cold calls "on the go!"

Click on the iPhone for our free Mobile Mojo app that will revolutionize how you make cold calls "on the go!"

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Posted in Features, Insurance Agents, Realtors | No Comments »

Power Dialer Insanity: Pushing the limits of human endurance

Friday, March 26th, 2010
Successful phone sales requires the patience and endurance of a marathon runner

Successful phone sales require the patience and endurance of a marathon runner

California real estate agent James Festini is a recreational runner, about to compete in his fourth San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon.

For Festini, cardiovascular exercise is a great way to keep in shape to counter the sedentary nature of making cold calls — an activity he feels comfortable doing up to 12 hours a day. And San Diego’s R & R Marathon is more about fun than winning, featuring a course that runs through Sea World, that has up to 2,000 cheerleaders on the sidelines, has live music acts at each mile (past artists have included Smash Mouth, Hootie and the Blowfish and Pat Benatar) and offers free beer at the finish line!

You know what else is fun? Pushing the limits of the human brain and seeing how many sales calls you can make at once.

Festini, an 18-year-veteran of the real estate biz, recently rigged up special headphones to allow him to juggle four power dialers at once. You have to see it to believe it:

Let’s shove aside the technology for a moment. The most remarkable thing about this video is watching a seasoned pro handle the ebbs and flows of cold calls — a tide of rejection pushing in a few valuable seashells. Notice how calm he is when people say they are NOT interested in putting their home on the market. Without even changing his tone, Festini thanks them and moves on. The average live call takes about eight seconds. Why waste the energy getting upset over rejection when there are more numbers to try?

Festini is making cold calls to every homeowner not on the Do Not Call registry, and he really appreciates Mojo’s lead management software that organizes your phone numbers as you call them and categorizes them based on what your next step should be. We call it Advanced Call Logic and it automatically sorts your lists into redial calls, do-not-call results, hot and warm leads, while you focus on engaging potential customers on the phone.

But back to the amazing stunt of handling four power dialers at once. Festini put both ears on double duty, sticking ear buds in his ear canals and foam headphones on his upper outer ears. Just to make things interesting, he later stretched an old fashioned pair of studio headphones over all four audio sources so he could listen to a favorite movie as background noise.

With four autodialers going at once, he made about 1600 calls, and actually talked to 200 people in only three hours!

Real Estate, of course, is a pure numbers game. You can’t get sales without converting leads and even the best phone number list in the world (the ones without pesky fax machines, apartments and businesses) is useless if you don’t make those calls as efficiently as possible.

“If you are going to make calls,” Festini says, “you don’t have the option NOT to use an autodialer.”

Like Arizona Realtor Curt Stinson, another Mojo advocate, Festini is working in an especially tough market.  California’s Riverside County has one of the worst foreclosure rates in the country. “Working in the center of epicenter of the bad economy,” he says that Mojo Triple Line Power Dialers and lead management software help him stay competitive.

“I haven’t even scratched the surface yet of all the possibilities,” he says.

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Posted in Power Dialer Technology, Realtor Prospecting, Realtors | 4 Comments »

Reduce real estate stress with the Mojo-REDX Dream Team!

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
You'll feel like 500 pounds has been taken off your shoulders with the stress-reduction real estate prospecting tools from Mojo and RedX

You'll feel like 500 pounds has been taken off your shoulders with the stress-reduction real estate prospecting tools from Mojo and REDX

OK, so we all agree that there is no magic formula to improve your real estate sales performance.

It’s a simple equation:

MORE LEADS = MORE SALES CALLS = MORE APPOINTMENTS = MORE DEALS

If you’re on this blog, you likely already know how Mojo’s Triple Line Power Dialer makes your sales team three times more productive by ensuring ALL their time is spent chatting on the phone with no time wasted with hang-ups, wrong numbers or answering machines.

BUT let’s go back to the first part of the success equation. There’s no one to talk to if you don’t have the phone numbers in the first place. Where do all those expired listings and For Sale By Owner (FSBO) listings come from anyhow?

For FSBO listings, it requires checking newspaper and on-line real estate ads daily and then manually cross-referencing if it is a duplicate lead from weeks or months before.  For each expired listing harvested from the MLS, agents have to monotonously repeat the following five steps:

1. Cross check against the MLS Actives and Solds to see if it is relisted or sold.

2. Look up homeowner information on tax records.

3. Go to online people search companies and do a search on homeowner’s name, property address, and mailing address. Some searches require fees for each piece of information.

4. Cross reference phone numbers against the National Do Not Call Registry.

5. Check their own note system to see if they previously connected with the homeowner.

Pretty dizzying, huh?

Real estate agents tell us it can take an average of 5 to 15 minutes to research contact information for each expired listing. That’s a lot of time and energy just to verify if the phone number is worth calling, especially since many of those calls may result in a 15 second conversation or hang-up.

When you are playing the numbers game, it makes sense to reduce the aggravation ratio. The less time you spend vetting numbers, the more time you spend talking to actual people. After all, phone numbers don’t make any purchasing decisions.

Real Estate Data X-Change (The REDX) is the largest expired and FSBO listing research company in the United States. We highly recommend REDX to all our real estate clients because quite frankly, REDX supplies the “bullets” for the Mojo “machine gun.”  They mirror our philosophy that sales people need to be spending their time selling, not pressing buttons or clicking the mouse.

Heck, you can’t get carpal tunnel syndrome from talking!

We recently caught up with Renita Dastrup, REDX’s director of business development. In this brief Q & A, she explains why REDX and Mojo are the best combination since peanut butter and chocolate.

Q: Have you gotten any feedback from real estate agents regarding their stress levels?

A: The most common feedback is how we make life so much easier by doing the menial task of look-up so that they can focus on making connections with people.   Many agents say that after spending hours looking for information, they are drained of the energy needed to make the call.  Many agents have a fear of dialing the phone (call reluctance) and having the REDX system allows them to focus on connecting with the homeowner on the other end.

Q: So how does Mojo fit in as a logical extension of REDX?

A: Mojo is a perfect solution when it comes to agents with call reluctance.  It’s amazing how just the simple task of dialing the phone will cause procrastination. It’s like trying to give yourself a shot — it’s so much easier and quicker to give the nurse your arm and brace for the pain, and when it’s all over, it wasn’t that bad!  For the agents that don’t have a problem with making phone calls, they can make so many more calls then if they were to just dial the phone.

Q: Why do you recommend Mojo to your clients versus other competing services?

A: We are already set up to export to Mojo so that makes it easy for the agents, plus Mojo has the ability to recognize when a lead has re-listed and stops the agent from making a call that won’t lead to a listing.

Sometimes we refer to prospecting like panning for gold.  REDX narrows the mountain down to a manageable pile of dirt that has the highest potential for a golden return.  Mojo would be like a sieve that would help you sift through the dirt faster!

Q: How does the bad economy play into the prospecting equation?

A: Many coaches and trainers are saying that in this economy back to basics is essential, and prospecting is the number one activity an agent can do to get business.  REDX and Mojo both are productive tools that help get the agent out there in front of prospective clients and use their time wisely.

(To learn more on how Mojo can dramatically improve your real estate prospecting in this tough economy, click here.)

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Posted in Hot Tips, Prospecting 101, Realtor Prospecting, Realtors | No Comments »

Bringing Mojo to San Jose

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

Every day I share with people what Mojo can do for them and ultimately, their business goals.  Altogether it’s not too difficult a job, relying on rudimentary sales principles: identifying needs, offering solutions and if the two jive, we walk away with a great business relationship.
On February 7, I had the opportunity to travel to the West Coast for the first time so I could share the Mojo experience in-person.  I took a plane ride from Manchester, NH to Chicago, IL and then I was off to San Jose, CA to Tom Ferry’s Business by Design 3-day event. Face-to-face, to the thousands passing by our booth, I had the responsibility of conveying  a software-based triple-line power dialing and lead management program capable of emailing, dropping prerecorded messages on answering machines, and CID substitution.
Regardless of how daunting of a task that sounds, I don’t think it could have turned out better.  With the help of everyone at the event, from those on Tom’s team to the staff at the San Jose Convention Center, the experience was certainly one worth writing home to Mom about.

On Facebook.
One fact I learned from Tom Ferry: the fastest growing demographic of Facebook users are women over 55.  Now it makes sense to me why my mom, sister, aunts, and their friends are all getting down on FB like they are.  Their lives are hectic so time is of value.  Social networking appeals to the busy lifestyle; texting ”hi” is easier than taking five minutes out of your day to try to catch a person by phone.  Our lives today require not just instant communications, but convenient and reliable ones.  That’s why Facebook and Twitter are becoming staples of our daily lives. That’s also why Mojo is becoming the experience thousands of people are counting on every day make their day-to-day operations more reliable and convenient.
While I’m not a real estate professional, I took away an enormous amount of insight in just the few moments I was able to catch what Tom had to share.  Not only was he able to keep my ear to the ground in regards to what’s going on in social media, I also gained knowledge from web design and internet practices to how choosing your interactions with those around you helps better enable you to become the master of the market you’re in, not a victim of it.
The highlight of the trip was meeting people who already had their Mojo.  Michaelangelo Guevara was attending the Business by Design event and I had set up a Mojo account with him a week or two prior to the San Jose event. He let me know that within the first two days of using Mojo, he landed a listing appointment for a house valued at $2.2 million.  The look of excitement was clear on his face; he knew what having his Mojo was all about.  His experience made me think, though, if that was the 79th call in a list and he became too frustrated with hand-dialing by call 78 of that day, would he still have had the same look on his face?
Michaelangelo is like most professionals out there - looking for solutions that will stand up in today’s business world and keep them on track to where they want to be in a year, as well as a decade, from now.  So many of the people at Tom Ferry’s Business by Design mega-event were looking for the same solutions.

They all walked away with that, and a little Mojo.

~ Josh

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Posted in Realtors, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Telemarketing sales ethics no different than face-to-face business ethics

Friday, December 18th, 2009
One disreputable telemarketer tarnishes us all.

One disreputable telemarketer tarnishes us all.

The Federal Trade Commission is suing three companies that have been making automated recorded phone calls to sell “worthless” credit card interest reduction programs, charging customers an up front fee as high as $1,495 and delivering zilcho.

Here’s a snippet from the official government press release:

“According to the three FTC complaints, Economic Relief Technologies, LLC, Dynamic Financial Group (U.S.A.) Inc., and JPM Accelerated Services (JPM), and related defendants made illegal pre-recorded robocalls to consumers, using names like “card services,” “credit card services” or “account services.” The robocalls allegedly claimed the defendants’ services could lower the interest rate on consumers’ credit cards. In each case, consumers who pressed 1 after hearing the automated call were transferred to live telemarketers who allegedly misrepresented that consumers could dramatically lower the rates on their credit card.

The telemarketers also said consumers would save thousands of dollars in a short period of time by lowering their interest rates and would be able to pay off their debts faster – for an up-front fee ranging from $495 to $1,495. The defendants then falsely stated that if consumers did not save a “guaranteed” amount – typically $2,500 or more – they could get a full refund of the up-front fee. However, after securing the fee, the defendants allegedly did not negotiate lower rates on behalf of consumers and provided few refunds to those who were dissatisfied with the service.”

Here’s the deal.  Every time consumers get ripped off by sleazeballs using telemarketing technology, it makes all of our jobs harder. Getting robbed on the phone is certainly preferable to getting mugged on the street, but that is little consolation to these scam victims.

What’s more astounding is that companies are still choosing to use pre-recorded sales calls at all.  Since Sept. 1, 2009, recorded sales pitches have been illegal with the exception of a few rare instances — such as the customer previously requesting such calls in advance (like that’s gonna happen!)

The reality is that sales calls are about building personal relationships and talking to machines is a total turnoff.

The reality is that targeted leads often welcome telemarketing calls, such as is the experience of stellar Arizona real estate agent Curt Stinson.

With Mojo lead management software and power dialer technology, you project the friendly human interaction as your first impression — even on the first hello.  No robotic recordings.

The Mojo power dialer with lead management will make 250-300 calls an hour, constantly feeding you the live customers as they pick up!

Moreover, with no robot interaction, your sales staff will encounter far fewer hostile responses — making their work shifts less stressful and more productive.

Now if we could just invent a device to weed out the unscrupulous scam artists!

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Posted in Insurance Agents, Power Dialer Technology, Prospecting 101, Realtor Prospecting, Realtors, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Telemarketing gets an image boost

Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009

Telemarketing

Deserved or not — and we think NOT — the telemarketing professional is burdened with many negative stereotypes. Particularly the image of the telemarketer as a short-term, unfocused employee who is just biding time for another “better” job to come along.

The reality is that telemarketing is simply a sales tool — a way to more efficiently sell your products and expand your market base. If your product is exciting, if it solves a problem or even entertains your prospective client, the scripted call can easily transform into a fun conversation.

But back to the stereotype that phone sales is the kind of job that nobody wants, like say cleaning out a chicken coop (no offense to chicken coop cleaners). Turns out that now more than ever, telemarketing careers are becoming appealing to more college graduates and professionals in other industries.

This year, Time Warner Cable in Milwaukee built a huge call center dedicated to retaining the company’s TV, phone and Internet customers — and to convincing them to go for service upgrades. Here’s how the Business Journal of Milwaukee explains the decision to create a new state-of-the-art telemarketing center:

“Cable companies have been losing video service subscribers in recent years, but are capturing more revenue by selling profitable broadband and phone services, said Chris Marangi, an analyst with Gabelli & Associates, New York City. With satellite television and services like AT&T’s U-Verse taking cable customers, the cable firms have had to become creative in pursuing subscribers via telemarketing and other strategies, he said.

“They’re being aggressive about courting subscribers,” Marangi said.

While telemarketing jobs have a reputation of being low paid and their work force transient, Time Warner officials are proud of its benefits and workplace environment. The Time Warner positions require a high school diploma, but many of the new hires have college degrees and post-high school training, (TW vice president Bev) Greenberg said.”

When your company needs to be aggressive about courting new customers — and keeping the ones you have — it makes sense to give your phone sales team the sales tools they need to be most productive.

For starters, Mojo lead management software and power dialers ensure that your telemarketers are never wasting their time with busy signals, answering machines or hang-ups. Our power dialer technology ensures that your sales reps spend 100 percent of their time talking to live people. And after all, it is live people, and not answering machines, who make purchasing decisions!

And our Triple Line Power Dialer is so fast, it lets you hear the first “hello,” not the third or fourth, so your prospective customer isn’t turned off by those awkward delays that telegraph that a sales pitch is on the way.

Give your phone sales team a little Mojo!  Click here for a free Mojo software demo.

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Posted in Prospecting 101, Prospecting Tips and Tricks, Realtor Prospecting, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Mojo Sales Engine Thrives in Tough Real Estate Markets

Friday, November 6th, 2009
Tucson realtor Curt Stinson credits Mojo auto dialer and lead management software for QUADRUPLING his business

Tucson Realtor Curt Stinson credits Mojo lead management software for QUADRUPLING his business contacts

Take a look at the gorgeous landscape above. It’s Saguaro National Park in Tucson, Arizona.

But there’s also something intensely ugly going on in Tucson. Property values have recently plummeted by 45 percent, making the area one of the worst hit cities in America alongside Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Despite it all, real estate broker Curt Stinson, a 15-year industry veteran, is smoking with leads from cold calls. For the past four months, he’s operated a call center with five telemarketers using the Mojo auto dialer and Mojo lead management tracking program, which automatically qualifies prospects after a phone call and moves the data to the next stage of the deal flow.

“As more and more agents drop out of the business, we’re picking up their customers,” says Curt. “And all my business is coming from prospecting. I don’t pursue bank referrals because those will eventually dry up when the market comes back.”

Curt’s call team dials more than 2,000 numbers a night and goes with this basic script: “We recently just sold a home in your area and we’re checking if you might be interested in selling your home.”

“It’s amazing how many people say yes,” he notes. “It’s hard for me to follow up on all the leads I generate and that’s a great problem to have.”

The Tucson broker credits Mojo’s Triple Line Power Dialer, which minimizes downtime by never stopping its dialing and only giving you live calls, for boosting his results from generating 8-9 contacts per hour to 30-40 contacts per hour.

Real estate is a pure numbers game. Making more contacts = more appointments = more listings = more sales.

“Over the past year, our overall business has increased by 20 percent and a good portion of it is because of Mojo,” says Curt. “Next year should be even better!”

He adds that he is looking forward to exploring Mojo’s Live Lead Feed, our system of automatically tracking Internet leads without having to manually enter data, when he ramps up his Website side of the business.

For now, though Curt is too busy handling the business generated by phone and offers this advice for any industry peers considering adopting Mojo: “Be prepared for a huge boost and be prepared to follow-up!”

Perhaps Curt’s Mojo experience can be duplicated in your market. Find out more about how our lead management auto dialer software can dramatically impact YOUR real estate business!

(If coincidentally you happen to be hunkering for a piece of Southern Arizona real estate, you can contact Curt at www.homesbycurt.com)

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Posted in Realtor Prospecting, Realtors | 6 Comments »

Prospecting for Listings – The “Battle”

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

Successfully prospecting on the phone requires three components: good leads, a quick method of calling and good sales skills.

A power dialer is not the only key ingredient to a successful sales effort on the phone. If it was, anybody, with any level of sales skills, could easily make a six-figure income calling on Expireds, FSBO’s and Just Listed/Just Solds. You and I both know, this is not the case.

The Battle

We can easily draw parallels from prospecting on the phone to battle on the battlefield. In battle, you would not just run onto the field guns blazing, right? No – if you value your life, you would get the proper training, come up with a plan of action, and educate yourself on your opponent and their strategies before engaging them. You would also make sure that you had the tools necessary to defeat your enemy – superior weapons and the right ammunition. Even the best plan of action will not succeed if you are not prepared or have the correct tools at your disposal to support your training.

This is exactly why having a power dialer does not guarantee your success. There are other things you need to have in order to win the battle and close the sale. If you have a power dialer, you have the machine gun. Now you need good leads, the ammunition for the machine gun. If your leads are not accurate or the phone numbers are no good, what sense does it make to shoot at the enemy? Get yourself a good lead provider that does their due diligence in getting you Expired listings with good numbers and accurate owner data. Find yourself a source of Just Listed/Just Sold leads; these are great ammunition for a power dialer due to the fact that they are plentiful and provide you with an untapped source for listings.

So, now you have a loaded gun that is lethal. Great! Now what? My advice would be to make sure you know how to aim and shoot it. Also, you will want to make sure you know when to start firing and how to position yourself so that you are not shot – this takes knowledge, skill and training. Your competition is knowledgeable and trained, so you better be as well, or else you will be lying on the battlefield wondering what just happened.

The best investment you can make is not in your leads or machine gun, it is in YOU! You create your own success and, therefore, your destiny. If you want to make a six-figure income, you need to be involved in ongoing training and take learning seriously. If you think you know everything already, then your battle is already lost. Some good advice if you take selling real estate seriously is to get a coach. Engage mastermind groups and learn from your peers. Our most successful users are those who belong to a coaching organization and who frequent mastermind groups to find out how others are being successful.  Ongoing training is necessary because the bulk of the things we learn are forgotten. Practice does not make perfect; it makes permanent! Role-play the skills your coach teaches you with your peers and you will become a machine. You will not have to think about what to say on the phone; you will be programmed and it will come to you naturally.

It might be wise to ask this question of yourself: do you want to go at selling on the phone with a BB gun full of plastic BB’s and no idea how to shoot it? Or do you want to attack phone sales after weeks of boot camp and specialized training, armed with an M-16 full of armor-piercing bullets? It is up to you… We’ve got the machine gun.

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Predictive Dialing vs. Power Dialing

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

If you are a sales agent who has realized the value of using a dialer over manually calling your leads, you have most likely done some research to see what is out there. You have probably come across the terms predictive dialer and power dialer and may be wondering what sets them apart and which is best for your use. There is no point in implementing a system you do not understand or that may not be ideal for your business model.

For this reason, we will be publishing several blogs related to predictive and power dialers in order to give you a better understanding of how each works, their major differences, and how they can be of value to your business. Please check back over the next several days for these informative posts or subscribe to our company blog to be notified by e-mail of new blog updates.

How do predictive dialers work?

Predictive dialing is a system of outbound calling that dials without an agent on the line. The dialer places numerous calls simultaneously and, when a live answer is detected, it automatically transfers the call to an available agent. This dialer is predictive because it anticipates when the next agent will be available and when the next live answer will be detected. It is all predicted based on calling patterns it observes.

Predictive dialers work best for call center environments where there are multiple agents available to take calls. There need to be agents available for the dialer to transfer a call to in order to avoid dropping calls, which count towards the abandonment rate. If there are not enough agents available for calls to be routed to, the allowed abandonment rate of 3% can potentially be surpassed, which would be a violation of federal laws.

How do power dialers work?

Power dialing is also outbound calling but, unlike predictive dialers, the agent is already on the line. The agent begins the calling session and, when a live answer is detected, the call is patched through to the agent. There is no transferring of calls because, in this case, the agent is already live on the phone.

Power dialers are great for single-agent scenarios or in a remote-agent environment as it is not necessary to have multiple agents standing by for calls to be transferred to. In general, the abandonment rate does not come into play as the majority of power dialers dial on one line at a time, so dropped calls happen infrequently. A single-line power dialer makes 75-80 calls per hour.

Mojo Sales Engine incorporates a triple-line power dialer with lead management software; unlike standard single-line power dialers, it allows users to make 250-300 calls per hour while protecting callers from surpassing the allowed abandonment rate. Check back soon to read more about how we accomplish this!

Which is best for me?

Now that you know how predictive and power dialers function, you should have a better understanding of the differences between them. Predictive dialers work based on algorithms that direct them when to dial someone and which agent to transfer the call to. A power dialer is managed by the caller, allowing them to have complete control of calling without any doubt as to who they will be speaking with next.

Predictive dialers work best in a call-center environment where there are about 15 agents or more available to take calls. This is because the dialer is constantly making calls and then transferring them to an available agent. If all the agents are already on calls, the dialer would drop a call and it would be counted towards the abandonment rate, as previously mentioned. Again, the more agents in a call center, the more effective a predictive dialer would be.

Power dialers work better than predictive dialers in several cases, for independent agents, remote agents (home-based telemarketers), and in call centers with less than 15 agents. Power dialers are less costly than predictive dialers and do not require multiple agents for use.

Generally, predictive dialers are used for business-to-consumer calling while power dialers are used for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business calls. Predictive dialers are generally not used for business-to-business calling.

Finally, predictive dialers are more effective when the leads list has not been pre-selected and many of the numbers are expected to be not working, busy or unanswered. When you are working a list of quality leads, a power dialer may be the route to go so you will have a more quality connection.

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Phone Sales Tips #1

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

A career in sales is challenging and takes a lot of determination, especially if all of your sales are made over the phone. Below are some tips to follow to ensure your sales presence is effective and strong:

  • Take advantage of CRM technology

All sales representatives should utilize Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology to stay organized. It will allow you to keep notes on your prospects so you can continue building rapport as your leads flow through the sales pipeline. Schedule tasks for call backs and e-mails so you can keep on top of your prospects, as well as follow up with customers and reassure them they made the right choice.

  • Develop rapport quickly

You only have a few seconds to build rapport with a prospect on your initial call. It is critical you have a bright and cheerful personality during the initial contact as you are at a disadvantage in not being able to convey body language during your conversation. Use your personality to your advantage during your calls and try not to come across as being too salesy or scripted.

  • Schedule calls a week in advance

Plan your calls ahead and maximize your time, as it is extremely valuable. If you schedule your follow ups a week out, you will never run out of calls to make. Rank them by priority based on the nature of the call and call on them accordingly.

  • Recognize the importance of your clients time

Every time you call a prospect, you are interrupting their day so make sure they know you are aware of that. Ask if it is a good time to talk for a few minutes and let them know you will not take much of their time. If they say it is not a good time to talk, ask when would be a good time and schedule the call. More importantly, call them back at that time!

  • Be consistent in follow up

Follow up, follow up, follow up! It is a crucial part of the sales process, as it shows your prospects you in it for the long run. If you tell someone you are going to call at a certain time, follow through with it or you will begin to lose credibility with them. Once you lose credibility, you will not be able to regain it, especially on the phone.

Sales representatives must take advantage of the technology available to them in today’s marketplace. Your competitors are conducting business in the 21st century and you should too if you want to stay on top of the game. Use software to organize the data you have on prospects and provide reminders of tasks you have to complete. The rest of it is up to you, you are in charge of your own success!

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First ‘HELLO’ Technology

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

‘First hello’ is a term used to describe the predictive dialing feature in which a dialing system connects the prospect to the caller as fast as possible so the caller hears the first ‘Hello’ of the answered call.

‘First hello’ technology depends upon two main factors: the predictive dialer’s detection capabilities and the Telco pathway from the dialer to both the prospect and the caller. The second factor is crucial as the speed and reliability of the Telco pathways can significantly impact ‘first hello’ capabilities. The first pathway is from the prospect to the dialer. When the prospect answers, the Telco must pass the detection signals or voice immediately to the dialer. For some VoIP-based Telco services, this signal does not work with dialers or the voice is delayed while being relayed to the dialer, causing delays in the detection. The second pathway, from the dialer to the caller, is equally important. When the dialer detects an answer, the prospect’s voice is bridged to the caller. If the caller does not have a dedicated pathway back to them, the connection can be delayed. In order to maximize the effectiveness of ‘first hello’ technology, it is critical that both pathways are available for the dialers use.

With Mojo, ‘first hello’ technology is hosted on a dedicated copper line pathway. This provides superior call detection, which results in the caller successfully hearing the first ‘Hello’ when the prospect answers their phone, unlike VoIP-based dialing systems.

‘First hello’ technology creates an improved calling environment for both the caller and prospect. Companies can immediately see a positive impact on conversion rates using ‘first hello’. Callers also benefit since they experience less phone calls of a hostile nature, eliminating call anxiety.

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Finding Your ‘Mojo’

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

We all know that prospecting doesn’t rate too high on the ‘fun’ list. It probably rates in the ballpark of public speaking or getting poked in the face with a sharp stick. Sometimes, it feels more like a chore than a positive action for your business. You need to approach prospecting with MOJO. MOJO means getting in your groove, getting into a flow where you are alert, enthusiastic, and on top of your game. Nothing is worse than calling 20 numbers in a row and getting an answering machine or no answer for every single one. It puts a damper on your MOJO. When this happens, it zaps the energy right out of you. Calling number after number and not getting results changes your attitude rather quickly. Now, what if there was a way to turn the tables on prospecting and make it fun again? I am not joking about putting fun and prospecting in the same sentence. It can happen. MOJO gives you that edge. It cuts through all of your junk dialing and gets to the ‘good stuff’. When you are dialing 3 lines at the same time, you are tripling your speed and contacting three times the live leads. It is like hiring three telemarketers and having them transfer all the good calls to you. And, in these hard economic times, we know that hiring three people to do your calling is just not viable. For a fraction of the cost, you can have MOJO fill that position in your company. MOJO is a power dialer, not to be confused with a predictive dialer. With MOJO, you will not drop calls like you would with a predictive dialer. Save money, stay on your game, and triple your production. When you’ve got MOJO, sales happen.

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Posted in Insurance Agents, Prospecting 101, Prospecting Tips and Tricks, Realtor Prospecting, Realtors | No Comments »