Why shouldn’t you yell at telemarketers who visit your business?

As a former business owner, I can remember times when I was so busy and had so much to do that I didn’t want to talk to salespeople and often asked them how they got my personal phone number on my cell phone. . He made me angry that I was being interrupted in the middle of the day. Sometimes I’d just yell at them, tell them to put me on their “do not call list” like that really mattered, because it doesn’t apply to businesses, and then hang up. Later, after speaking with a business consultant, I realized my mistake and how I was missing out on industry insights and competitive intelligence. Let me explain.

You see, you shouldn’t hang up on telemarketers who call your company to sell a specific item that companies in your industry normally buy. Rather, what you need to do is question the telemarketer who is wasting your time about the types of items and price points and categories of goods and services that your competitors are currently purchasing from the telemarketer’s company. You will find that the telemarketer will be eager to give you information because he will believe that if you give him information he will develop a good relationship with you, and that could help secure the sale. He also knows that if he dodges her question or doesn’t answer it, she won’t trust him and therefore won’t buy anything anyway.

You basically have someone calling you on the phone ready to give you information for free, but if you yell at them, they’ll never give you anything. In fact, they may not put you on the “do not call list” at all, they may actually duplicate your number on the list many times, so you are completely harassed on a weekly basis by the same company, but maybe different telemarketers . Telemarketers are often quite competitive within their own organization and like to trick their co-workers so they can win the sales contest of the week.

Now, after learning all of this and trying out this strategy, I was amazed at how well it worked. The consultant was right, and although he wasn’t very good at advising on most business matters, he was right on this point. I was amazed at how much intelligence gathering I could get from a simple phone call from a potential vendor I would never buy anything from in the first place. And I felt much better getting free information from someone who was wasting my time than yelling at them and hanging up. For me it was a win-win situation. In fact, I hope you will please consider all of this and think about it.