2021 UPCITY Telemarketing Agency Award

 

Howard Larson  Larson & Associates has been nominated to UPCITY Top Telemarketing Agencies In The United States Working in the covid world of 2020-21 has shown the business model of a virtual office that Howard Larson and Larson & Associates starting using back in in 2006, not just to lower our carbon footprint but to give the Larson & Associates staff greater job satisfaction and control has allowed us to give us a quicker response to the needs of our clients. Not that it has been easy this year. We ourselves have not lost 1 day or even 1 hour or work due to covid. Our philosophy of the Big Fish in a Little Pond and purposefully staying small, seeking out small to mid-sized companies, the majority of our clients continue to be small businesses with revenue of $500,000 to 10 Million with 3 to 12 sales people remains in tact.  In 2020-21 despite covid, our year over year clients who are using the Larson & Associates 3 Legged Stool Method of Marketing have been seeing growth above 14% as well as grabbing increased market share with bold covid expansion programs.  Thank you for your continued support of the Larson Philosophy of Marketing. Now in our 47th year it is because of you that we are still here and continue to be a success. It is your belief in us that makes us who we are. You give us the freedom to work quick, hard and fast. You are the people who let us out run, out produce and out perform the competition. UPCITY Top Telemarketing Agencies 2021

|According to Bright Local, 80% of consumers have keep their trust in your businesses. You have also increased your online "Recommendability Rating", which has helped you rank higher on UpCity and built your trust as a supplier companies have come to trust.

Selection of individuals  "is based on reference value". Individuals become eligible for listing by virtue of their positions and/or noteworthy achievements that have proved to be of significant value to clients and society. An individual's desire to be listed is not sufficient reason for inclusion.

Larson & Associates
 

We Make Good Businesses Great and Great Businesses Even Better

Our mailing address is:

Larson & Associates
3475 Steeplechase Way     Suite 101
Grayslake IL 60030
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassocaites.ws
www.larsonassociates.ws

Who Is Making Your Calls?

 

Teleprospecting / Telemarketing / Telesales

Who is making your calls? Your Sales People Or A Trained Teleprospecter? How long would it or will it take for your outside sales people to learn about phone work? 1 Week? 1 Month? Maybe never? Telemarketing generally involves a high volume of sales calls made to long lists of recipients. The goal of the telemarketer is to reach a as many people as possible to start moving them along a structured sales process. i.e. the sales pipeline. It most often involves a scripted pitch or bullet point free  form if the telemarketing is good enough. It can be very one sided if the person working the phones has not taken the time to know about you and your company. The interaction is not usually very complex as the caller is offering a simple product or service to a targeted niche audience. the more targeted the better the result. With our wide range of ONSHORE telemarketing services include, inbound sales, inbound customer services, outbound research, teleprospecting, telemarketing, telesales and outbound lead generation. We have the person you need.

Larson & Associates Telemarketing Services

Cold Calling Services Instead of scripts, the goal is to engage a decision maker in a meaningful interaction to gain an understanding of their business needs and to help match those needs with a solution, service or product which you already know you provide to build healthy long-term relationships with your clients with our excellent communication skills. Because of this, a telemarketer needs to be more seasoned, with the experience to understand the nuances of a business conversation, and with the ability to listen intently and ask the right questions to draw out qualifying lead information. Wait did I say ask questions? Where did that come from? The goal of the call is to learn and determine if your product or service will be able to meet the specific business needs of the prospect and then set next steps in the sales process. If you nitched yourself the answer is 95% yes.

Who are they calling? In teleprospecting, before a caller even picks up the phone they will have been researched for the best title contact(s) at a company who would be involved with the decision making process. A teleprospector will make calls to high level evaluators and key decision makers with whom they can start a conversation, often if possible using referrals to target the key decision maker. Because of the complex nature of the sale, it is appropriate and necessary to reach the highest level executive in the organization responsible for the business solution being pitched.

How do you measure success?  Perhaps the most defining aspect between telemarketing and teleprospecting is how success is determined. Everything is about results. After working through a list a telemarketer will have a number of successful calls based on numbers of dials, numbers of actual sales or appointments made, or even the number of people they were able to pass along down a sales pipeline. Normally if there is a sucessful call made it is unlikely we will revisit those prospects again as the call will have ended in a simple yes, no, or incomplete.In teleprospecting, the success of the call is not as easily measured by numbers. The goal for a complex B2B call is to develop qualified, actionable sales leads.

Questions to ask yourself before determining if you should use telemarketing

Is your solution, product or service complex or commodity? Do you have a defined niche market or can you cast a wide net? Will your business benefit from high volume transactions or a targeted, complex sale? Both telemarketing and teleprospecting have their place in a successful sales strategy – applying the right methodology in the right situation at the right time will determine the success of your telesales efforts.

It is time for you to make one more call! Face it, would't you would rather be making sales and running sales appointments than sitting at your desk and making phone call after phone call to find that one YES. I have a customer who hates making phone calls. I mean he hates it with a passion. In the time it takes Geno (I'll call him Geno because that is his name). In the time Geno to make 1 call Elizabeth can make 9! That's right 9 times the productivity.  So what do we do for him? We pick up the phone and make calls. One after another. We are happy and he is happy! So pick-up that 100 pound phone to call for the help you want and make your last cold call to 847-991-1294. We will talk to you as a fellow sales person who has been down in the trenches looking for clients. Call us because. . .   We Know How! Larson & Associates

We Make Good Businesses Great and Great Businesses Even Better Larson & Associates 3475 Steeplechase Way    Suite 101 Grayslake IL 60030 847-991-1294 howard@larsonassociates www.larsonassociates.ws

3 Parts of Telemaketing

 

3 Primary Ways to Use Telemarketing
to Grow Your Business

Ask yourself or any business owner to name a few of there best marketing channels for bring in more business and they’ll reel off an array of answers. You’ll probably hear social media, email marketing, direct mail and other digital strategies. It is wonderful to have so many ways to market as well as confusing. Today’s businesses have a entire plethora of marketing alternatives to utilize for outreach, growth and retention. All those many choices can cause you to forget about one of the more conventional channels sitting right in front of your face on your desk. Your phone! TELEMARKETING Telemarketing is one of the most overlooked marketing tools. The traditional idea of picking up the phone to drum up business is out of fashion. The fact is, though, that when done correctly, telemarketing can indeed help you to grow your business.

The 3 Arrows In Your Quiver

Telemarketing is one arrow in your marketing quiver. If you have a unified marketing plan with all your channels aimed at the same place from different directions you come out a winner. Within this vast array you have lots of channels to work with. You’ll want to use as many as you can in combination and in the most effective way possible. Don't use more then you can work 100% effectively but only those that you can execute at a high level of expertise and saturation. That is why companies like Larson & Associates are here. We can help take you the next level In the case of telemarketing, that doesn’t mean old-fashioned cold calling like we did 20 years ago. It means taking an intelligent approach to growing your business using the phone. Here are the three significant parts we take to grow your company with telemarketing: 1.    Telemarketing to existing customers 2.    Telemarketing to lost customers 3.    Telemarketing for lead generation

Telemarketing to Existing Customers

Growing your business doesn’t always mean attracting new customers. Don't get me wrong, new customers are nice but achieving top drawer customer retention to keep what you already have, easier, less expensive and can often be a better way to achieving your yearly sales goals. Keeping your present customers on board can make more of a difference to your bottom line than you might think. Telemarketing can aid your customer retention in a variety of ways. Customer care or research calls are good examples. In these instances you are showing your customers that you care, creating a more positive view of you and your company. That makes it less likely that they, the customer will abandon you and start using a competitor. Researching out to your existing customers can also help you find new opportunities. Asking questions, getting feedback on your products or services can help you fix problems before they become problems. By taking the time to talk about the different and changing needs of the industry, you can find future paths for your business to expand with them. It is also possible to do some cross-selling or up-selling while telemarketing to existing customers. If someone already buys from you, they’re more then likely to be interested in other products or services you have. They have first-hand experience of your quality of your work and the products and services they are now using so why not more ? Ask! And, existing customers via telemarketing are more likely to answer the phone.

Telemarketing to Lost Customers

A second way to use telemarketing is when you are trying to grow your business via telemarketing that involves customers you’ve lost. It happens to all of us. The one who got away or we did not take a more careful watch over.  Telemarketing is the easiest and fastest way to restart that energy between the two of you. By that, we mean customers who bought from you before but haven’t done so for a while. That might be as they haven’t felt a need to purchase or could be because they’ve moved over to a competitor. Or it could just mean you messed up and no one had the for-site to call up to make things right.   It may surprise you how successful reaching out to lost customers really is. Just making the call can be enough to help to jog their memories as to how useful your products or services were. What’s more, it shows them how much you care and value their business. Calling and speaking to past customers can rebuild that severed relationship allowing you to again be the brand of choice. Even if you fail to win them back as a  customer, speaking to them can give you invaluable insight as to what happened. If you’re able to learn why they left you, you can make it less likely for you to lose customers for the same reason in the future. That will aid your customer retention numbers and thus help keep your business growing faster.

Telemarketing for Lead Generation

Lead generation is what most people think of when they think about telemarketing. Cold calling, dialing for dollars. Getting a targeted niche specific list of prospects is an effective way to warm those prospects up and get them to the next level of the sales cycle. When we are making calls it is not necessarily to make a sale but rather to set an appointment or pass a lead on to sales staff to send out information about your companies services. Selling isn't necessarily what you want to think about when talking to a prospect for the first time. Telemarketing for lead generation isn’t as popular as it once was. We here at Larson & Associates happen to love sitting here drinking coffee and making phone calls all day, one call after another for our chosen clients. Some one on your staff or us here at Larson's should be making those calls. As my sales mentor Hank Trisler use to say, if you were dropped off in Minot ND (which had a high temperature last Tuesday of -5) as a sales person you would have only two choices to makes sales fast. Start walking the streets and knocking on doors or sitting at your desk in your warm comfortable office making telemarketing calls. I think you could make more touches and more sales faster with a phone call to people who you already know use a service or product like you have.

3 Legged Stool Marketing Method

We do it but we do not normally think about telemarketing as the only tool you should be using but thought of as only a part of a broader strategy using different channels and tools to get you a faster, higher rate of return on your calling time and dollar. The Larson Method ties in lead generation calls with other marketing channels. Think about calling prospects who you’ve reached out to with an email but have yet to get a response. Or got that direct mail post card and were "meaning" to call you. The Larson 3 Legged Stool Method utilizes Direct Mail-Email-Teleprospcting. When put together it forms a 3 pronged attack that hits people, your valued prospects in 3 different ways making a powerful 1-2-3 punch. Need the knock out left hook? If that is not quite enough I get my Social Media Expert Fred McMurray of My Three Daughters (not sons) fame to work out all your social median needs and you have the can not miss of lead generation and ample supply of leads for a company of any size and kind from a 1-man army to Fortune 500. http://www.larsonassociates.ws/associations  We can put a plan together that fits you and you alone.  We get down in the trenches with you to help you find your niche so you can not just sell to receptive people and companies but to own that niche so you are the one everyone wants to buy from.

Larson & Associates

We Make Good Businesses Great and Great Businesses Even Better Larson & Associates 3475 Steeplechase Way    Suite 101 Grayslake IL 60030 847-991-1294

Sales Lessons From Baseball

Baseball, I remember the first time I went to a game. Going through a dark tunnel opening up to w wide green field. This

was as good as it gets. The big leagues.

It’s about individual efforts and the team.

1) A baseball team is made up of individual players who know how to play together.
2) Every great baseball player started out as a beginner.
3) Every Major Leaguer started out in the minors
4) All Pros are coachable
5) Baseball players warm up and practice before every game
6) Baseball players learn the fundamentals until they are automatic
7) All baseball players go through slumps
8) All baseball players make errors
9) All baseball players LOVE the game

The down side

1) Very few baseball players make it to the big leagues
2) Very few baseball players can lead
3) Very few baseball players can hit a home run or get that clutch hit
4) Errors in judgment can cost you your career
5) Cheaters do eventually get caught
6) There is not prize for second place
7) For fans to be loyal to the team the team needs to be loyal to the fans

Larson Notes & Satire: To succeed in baseball or sales you need to believe not just in yourself but in your teammates, you have to believe you and your team will win. You need to believe in your coach and your leadership.

So ask yourself
Who are you playing for?
Are you a winner?
How much do you practice a day?
How much of you is in the game?
Where is your loyalty?

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws

http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate
https://www.facebook.com/pg/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
https://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

P.S. We make teleprospecting for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you sould add teleprospecting into your marketing mix call today and find out.

A Quick View Of Some Of Our Services

Make The 4th Quarter Work To The Maximum!

Is It Time To Make Your Move? At this time of the year many of our clients add hours or start a campaign in the 4th and 1st quarters. With our trade showwork every year at this time, if you are thinking of starting a campaign or adding hours to your current campaign, contact us today! These two quarters are great times to prospect! And we don't want you left out. Here is a quick view of some of our services: Appointment Setting We get you actual sit down meetings with the prospects you are looking to meet! Lists are provided Inside Sales We can work your house accounts, dormant accounts, or smaller accounts for you; freeing up your strong sales people to be out closing! Data Cleansing Customer Surveys Association and Trade show work Membership Drives Renewal Calls Trade show Registrations Prospecting for exhibitors or sponsors Fill seminar seats If you want to finish the year strong, start 2020 strong, increase your current amount of weekly hours, or start a new campaign, CONTACT US TODAY! Give me a call at 847-991-1294, and we will get you started!

70% More Effective Marketing?

What if your marketing could be 70% More Effective?

Call it whatever you want: Multi-channel, Cross-Platform  Omni-Marketing: your marketing strategy needs to rely on both digital and traditional platforms online and offline to reach customers across multiple channels in various ways for the way they want to be contacted. Traditional forms of marketing such as print, trade magazines, direct mail, PR, radio, television commercials, and billboards if used together with digital marketing like email, social media, websites, blogs, YouTube, Pinterest starts to create a major spike in name recognition. Not surprisingly, cross-channel integration where online and some traditional forms like direct mail are linked together with the use of tracking software or bar code technology a telephone campaign and follow-up becomes 70% more effective.

I have 6 Tips for a Better Strategy

First you need to know your target audience. Who are they? What niche is it? Where are they? What channels work best for your business model? What are the channels your target nitch uses more than others? For example, an ad campaign for bath bombs might do well with a television advertisement or direct mail coupon. Events and musical concerts will get more ROI with social, emails and YouTube.

Second focus on the customer experience. Your marketing strategy should present information clearly and directly. Multi-channel digital campaigns should cater to not just convenience but also for after-sale 2^nd sale service, dependability, and responsibility—all qualities customers place value on. Consistency across all platforms is the key to talking about this success.

Third measure your results. After or even during any multi-channel campaign, review data to see which channels are working and how they are performing and which could use more improvement. And ask yourself why and are there other channels we should have or could have used? This will help allocate resources, time, and money more efficiently for the next wave or next attack.

Forth timing is everything. Constantly update your touch points. A successful strategy is well-timed and relevant. You might want to update your web page and send out emails the day before a big event. A drip campaign strategy allows you to space out information to generate interest and thus customers. Cross-channel integration brings your marketing strategies both online and off line together in a seamless flow. Incorporate a Twitter feed, use hash tags, incorporate bar codes in your direct mail, link your Facebook business page with your emails, generate printable coupons from your website or social business pages for in-store use. The more ways you can connect your customers to your brand, the better.

Fifth learn to change your strategies and platforms as needed. Don’t get too comfortable. What works one week may not work next week, so keep up to date on the latest marketing trends. And remember to track everything you can to know what works, where it is working and how it is working.

Sixth follow-up follow-up follow-up. Everything needs to be followed up on. You need to reach out and call someone. Yes the telephone. If you don’t make the reach out and make “that call” just save your money. The prospect is not going to call you 99.9% of the time. You have got to have a follow-up. Make that call or have me make it for you and your odds of a sale go up at least 10 to 20%

So now you only have to ask yourself:

Do I have the time?

Do I have the knowledge?
Do I have the connections?

Do I have the recourses?

If not we are here for you.

Howard Larson

Larson & Associates

Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition

Making good businesses great and great businesses even better

847-991-1294

howard@larsonassociates.ws

http://www.larsonassociates.ws

http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com

http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans

http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

Larson the Perfect Partner

I’m a Swede, well half Swede with the other half Norwegian, either way I’m happy with my back ground and the work ethic I was raised in.

So what are the top 15 reasons to form a partnership with Me?

1)     Punctuality – a meeting that was supposed to start at 1 o’clock will start precisely at 1 o'clock. If it s half hour meeting it will end at 1:30, not 1:35. It’s called prick kl.1. This meeting has been booked months ago. This is because we Swedes are great…

2)     Planners – we have already looking ahead to week 45 in 2020. You need to know where you are going if you’re going to get there. It’s called framförhållning.This means we are always...

3)     Prepared – we know how to predict, when to proceed and what to produce. We know what good things might happen, what bad things might happen so we are able to move towards the good and away from the bad and keep out of stormy seas and I hate stormy seas! Put simply, we are good…

4)     Performers– the proof is Sweden’s first place in just about everything. Swedes are also modest but we can talk about that another time.  We also have a passion for…
5)     Projects – these are lead by someone who is hopefully aware of what’s going on, understands what is going on and has a handle on the desired outcome. It’s called projektledning. Swedes are expected to be...               
6)     Participative – giving their opinions when asked for. There are no bad ideas just that some are better than others at bringing a faster outcome. It’s called the förankringsprocess. Everyone should feel part of the…

7)     Process - there are so many that someone has to learn how to manage them. Yet that does not mean anyone is left on the outside looking in. It’s called  processhantering. A process consists of many meetings. One type of meeting is the…

8)     Pre-meeting – it's a meeting before the meeting. Yes let’s get some issues out on the table so people have the possibility to pose questions before the real meeting on “Thursday”. This is because Swedes are…

9)     Precautious – decision making is a lengthy, risky process. It is not that risk is bad but we want to make the pathway that brings us to the end goal the fastest with the least amount of risk and animosity, we are still a team. It’s called the beslutsprocess. Being ultra-careful we might not say 'yes' or 'no' but they may say. . .

10)  Perhaps – which, for Swedes, is possibly a 'maybe'. But unlike an American  maybe which usually means no, a Swedish Perhaps means we will keep an open mind on the subject and not shut any doors just in case this is the right door. But if we  do say 'yes' then a promise is a promise. We will get on, do it and get it done in the shortest amount of time possible. By global comparison, we are very…

11)  Productive – The projection is probably a larger part of our companies GNP. Ya sure we might be talking small and needing some mico thought to everything but such progress is a result of many skills we possess. One skill is being particularly…

12)  Pragmatic - patiently putting solutions into practice, avoiding too much…

13)  Pressure – which can be both good and bad. It’s called lagom mycket. Too much panic and pressure causes Swedes to walk into the wall. So we prefer to be…

14)  Positive – as in having a positive attitude, positive energy, and a positive mind. It’s called arbetsglädje. And one of the most positive things of all in Swedish business life is the world famous…

15)  Parental leave and vacations – which is the Swedish way of combining being a family, a parent and a professional together. Yes there is life outside of work.
Larson Notes & Satire: So you’re not blonde, you don’t have blue eyes. Yust say “ya sure” and get on with it!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-1294
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://www.linkedin.com/in/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 10 hours a week. Maybe you could add teleprospecting into your marketing mix call today and find out.