Telemarketers bear a terrible stigma. Therefore, the telemarketer must employ techniques of reverse psychology to transcend the negative impressions of the customers. However, there are other approaches which are chosen by most and which have been successful, but have also failed for many:

Friendliness may fail in many situations because it can make it easier on the customer to reject the salesman/ product. It may also sound unnatural, dishonest or pretentious. The salesman might set himself up for easy rejection by being unnaturally nice. Only people who are naturals at sounding friendly will succeed. They gain trust through friendliness after being heard initially. How many people are naturally friendly varies per call center.

Professionalism can sound pretentious much like friendliness. In order for the salesman to exude a natural and honest professionalism, the customer must respect the product and see the value in it. Natural professionalism is most difficult to acheive when selling something that has little use to the customer. Natural professionalism may work, but like natural friendliness, it can make it easier on the customer to reject the salesman/ product in a nice way.

Aggressiveness can work, but only if the customer is more passive than the salesman, or else there would be aggressive or passive unwillingness in the customer. The customer would do as the salesman says because the salesman is overbearing and overpowering, not because they want the product. Aggressiveness tends to work (though dishonest). It is also rather difficult for most salesmen to act out since many are not aggressive by nature.

Humbleness can be successful if used well. If the salesman sounds level headed, clear, honest and sensible, he/ she will be successful despite a foreign accent or pittiful voice. Foreign accents and pittiful voices may be interpretted as humbleness or weakness. It may be interpreted as a weakness by opportunistic or prejudiced listeners. But humble by customers who are willing to give the salesman a chance. Thankfully, most customers are the latter.

Painting a picture may work at times, but it requires much exertion. Not to mention, a salesman may paint a fabulous picture all they like but the customer may find another excuse to reject the salesman and his product, such as the way salesman sounds or how he stumbles, and so the customer might refuse. Painting a picture is an attempt to sell on the actual value of the product as opposed to selling on impression alone. But the customer must believe that the product is a limited time offer, or at least exclusive in some way. The reason is because the customer will most likely chose purchasing the product if offered by competitors in an up front approach.

Forced nature is an oxymoron. Feelings, enthusiasm and moods cannot be switched on and off by a salesman.

The purpose of this theory is to propose a single, universally successful approach.

If a salesman cannot convince the customer of the value of the product by being themselves, they must convince the customer by reversing the psychology of the customer using voice tones, frequency and articulation. Each and every human being tends to believe that they know what is best for themselves as opposed to a stranger on the other end of the phone, so there is little a telemarketer could say that the customer would utterly and completely agree with. Words are truly, far less important than the sound of the telemarketer indeed. An natural, honest sound is the key to success. But unfortunately for most salesmen, it cannot be faked. This is why there must be an alternative, universal technique to selling over the phone.


The Limits of the Script

Some scripts are direct and straight to the point. Some focus on getting on the customer's good side before getting to the point. A script that focusses on reversing the psychology of the customer will have the greatest results.

In theory, hypnosis cannot be applied without a command. The salesman must have a command in order to hypnotize. In many telemarketing jobs, there are no commands in the scripts, but to ask questions and to probe the customer for the most part.

Inner impressions are considered in psychology to be the main factor that influences perception.

If inner impressions determine psychological perception, then a combination of the corresponding external impressions communicated should manipulate the psychology of the listener at a given time.

For example, one may combine humbleness and professionalism in a predicate logic order depending on which of its corresponding inner impressions most strongly contributes to the unwanted psychological bias.

Nicholas, what are you looking for here. Agreement. Disagreement. You are just stating some fairly mundane observations relating to telemarketing that are unlikely to interest anyone not involved in the field. Could you clarify the intent of the thread please.

Taking all of the above mentioned approaches and grouping them under an even broader scope of customer-telemarketer stereotypes, I arrive at the notions of "sympathetic" vs. "unsympathetic" approaches.

Some telemarketing trainers might relay the idea of "empathy words" in each call, but this is so broad a description as to render it meaningless. Now, by themselves, the sympathetic/ unsympathetic concept is a hollow shell, wherein the customer's psychological content is waiting to fill. Crack that shell, once filled, and the customer will be open to your musings. One need not understand the customer through the patience-trying effort of psychoanalytical examination. But simply to make the everyday assessment of the customer's tone of voice and attitudes, then, select from a narrow list of options, which combination of the sympathetic vs. unsympathetic approaches to use. As one might have guessed, the salesman remains a sort of enigma behind his product while in the attempt of a sale and so the customer's attention is drawn to inner reflection and curiousity as opposed to like or dislike of the presentation.

Example:

Sympathetic/ unsympathetic - humble professionalism

Unsympathetic/ unsympathetic - aggressive professionalism

Unsympathetic/ sympathetic - professional aggression

etc.

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