Telemarketing Jobs From Home Summary
Telemarketing or telesales is a work at home option for people who have a knack for talking to different people and making a pitch to sell something. There are telemarketing jobs from home perfect for those looking for entry level online jobs and even for those who have previously worked in a traditional call center.
There are now companies searching for remote staff, and you could find a work at home job from these companies as a telemarketer. As a telemarketer, you have the potential to generate leads and profits for the company, so your work is very important for the business.
Know What Telemarketing Is
Some people might think telemarketing is easy. Yet, no job is easy if you do not understand what the role is. You need to know the purpose of the job so you know what your possible goals are.
Telemarketing involves contacting, canvassing, and qualifying prospective leads via telecommunications devices (such as telephone, internet and fax). Most times, calls are unsolicited and contacts come from the list of leads that the company will provide. The employer will tell you (you may also ask) what kinds of calls you will make so you will use the correct approach when making the calls.Duties and Responsibilities
Telemarketers are also sales representatives whose main responsibility is selling the products and/or services of the company. As a telemarketer from home, you will perform this task using your computer setup, telephone, internet and other required tools.
In most job offers you will find, the duties of a telemarketer may include contacting potential and current customers for product promotion, answering queries of potential clients, relaying questions and concerns to a supervisor, maintaining customer accounts, and scheduling appointments with prospective leads. Each job offer may have a unique set of responsibilities depending on the job or the company hiring the telemarketer from home. Look at Figure 1.
Figure 1
From this job post, you'll see that the job is more than making a simple call to someone. In one day, you need to make about 80 to 100 outbound calls with a quota of 10% correct contact rate within a 4-hour dialing shift. The tasks also include taking part in team/company meetings and workshops.
Education and Training
The educational requirement for telemarketing jobs from home will depend on the company and on what the actual job involves. There are job offers whose educational requirement is at least a high school diploma or equivalent certificate. Others look for people with specific college courses or bachelor’s degrees like sales, business, psychology, communications, information technology and medicine-related courses. It is common to find job advertisements which prefer individuals who have taken up courses in business and sales since this is a job mainly about business sales.
If you like to further improve your qualifications when pursuing a career in telemarketing, you could take up classes in communications, drama, and speech and even call center skills training. There are companies willing to train their employees, but it is great to take the initiative if you have the means and the resources.
Skills and Attributes
1. Communication skills are on top of the list of required skills a telemarketer must have. Your task involves talking to prospective and current clients and possibly to other employees of the company that hired you. You need to establish a rapport with people, whoever they may be.
2. Sales skills are the second most important ability for a telemarketer. While it may help to use a casual and friendly tone at first to persuade the contact to engage him to talk to you, your main purpose is still to make sales. Some employers, therefore, prefer applicants with at least a year of work experience in sales. Experience in sales may include having worked in a retail store.
3. Organizational skills are necessary for keeping up with your quota. Organization involves making and sticking to a plan for your workday. You must track your calls, your customer’s details, etc. Some companies will provide or tell you which software you need to use, but some only rely on Microsoft Excel and similar spreadsheet programs.
4. Your job as a telemarketer from home may involve familiarity in using specific programs and applications. You are alone in your home office, so whenever the computer hardware acts up, you also need to know how to fix the problem.
5. Motivation is also an important attribute for a telemarketer. This is especially important when you need to meet a quota. Talking non stop is already a taxing job, but a quota to meet could discourage you.
6. Positive attitude is important when performing telemarketing tasks. There are different people you will encounter. Some will receive your call politely and others will not. You need to maintain a sunny disposition no matter how rude the person you are talking to is.
7. Considerable knowledge about the products or services you are selling is an important factor for making effective sales pitch. This is an attribute that you could develop once they hire you. You need to study the company’s products and services so you could talk about them with confidence to customers.
8. Knowledge about the target market is also another attribute that you need to learn upon your employment. Understand the issues of the target buyers and how the products/services you are selling will help them.
Technical Requirements
Anyone working online from home needs a computer and internet connection (and possibly a phone). These are only the basic tools of the trade. The exact technical requirements will vary per job. Some telemarketing from home positions requires a landline. Others will route the calls through your laptop or computer.
A noise-canceling headset is another requirement, just like when you are teaching English online. It is ideal to read the job advertisement well to know if your current computer system will pass the required technical specifications or if you need to upgrade it. Figure 2 is only an example and does not apply to all job offers on telemarketing.
Figure 2
This job requires you to have a laptop or desktop computer with an i5 processor and a minimum of 4GB RAM. You must install the VOIP and video call platforms that the employer requires.
You also need a webcam and a noise-canceling USB headset. Have a minimum of 10 Mbps main internet connection and a minimum of 3 Mbps back-up connection.
Set up your home work space in a quiet and dedicated room.
Career Improvement
Telemarketing can be your stepping stone to more lucrative careers. While you are working as a telemarketer, be sure to invest in it your dedication so you could gain the skills for career advancement. If you are now working as a member of a team of telemarketers, you could be the team leader soon if you can show how hard working and passionate you are.
How To Apply/Join
For the job of a telemarketer from home, you could apply and/or also join an agency that mainly offers telemarketing services. Browse online for job positions, and you will probably find them from online job portals. You can apply through the job portal where you found the job post.
Also, when you are searching online, you could come across some articles and videos explaining what a telemarketer job involves. It is highly likely that these articles contain a list of legitimate agencies hiring virtual staff. You need to sign up to these websites to become one contractor to whom they will offer a job such as telemarketing.
Check out this video below which discusses which companies frequently and quickly hire work at home online (telemarketing and others) professionals.
Be careful in choosing the agency you want to join. Scammers are abundant online and you need to look for red flags when applying or signing up. It is a must that you do not pay when applying.
You could also fall prey to a possible scam if you will give money to get trained for the job.
If your instinct tells you that something is weird about a company, never give out your personal information. If a job seems too good to be true, such as a very high salary rate for just a simple task, it is possible that the job is unreal.
It is probably better to apply through well-known job portals instead of through the website of a company you just discovered from a pop-up ad. Jobs listed on job portals usually contain application procedures and steps, such as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
Take the application process written in job ads seriously because the instructions are usually the screening steps of the company. Failure to comply may lead to your rejection.
In Figure 3, you have an instruction on what to put in the subject line. You also need to tell about your previous work experience in 2-3 sentences. You can read here that you must follow the instructions per word or your application will just turn futile. Skype interviews await shortlisted applicants who will also get small assignments as part of screening.
Potential Income
Experience and location are among the factors that affect a telemarketer’s salary rate. Potential earnings in telemarketing include basic pay and other payments like performance commissions.
According to Payscale, the average telemarketer salary per hour in the Philippines is Php 290.00. You could use this as a basis when comparing salary rates. Yet, this is only an approximate value. Each job offer has its unique offered salary. You could choose one you think will give you a good pay.
Figure 4
From Figure 1, the part time job in the US will pay $15 an hour. In Figure 4, the full-time telemarketing agent or appointment setter will get a weekly payment of Php4,250 plus bonuses and commissions. According to this ad, the company’s average representatives get Php19,100 to Php45,000 a month. If you can perform excellently, you could receive a salary of Php50,000 in one month.
Work Schedule
The company sets your work schedule and hours of work. Some employers have flexible schedules while others will require that you work on a particular schedule or shift. The key idea to remember regarding work schedule is that you need to make the calls when the potential leads are awake. This could mean day time in other parts of the world where the people you will call are living.
The company that hires you will have guidelines and also expectations on how you will use your time as its telemarketer.
Look at Figure 1. Here, the schedule you will work for is 8 AM to 5 PM EST Monday to Friday. This is a part time job that requires 20 to 25 hours of work.
From Figure 4, you will work on a graveyard shift of 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM EST.
Benefits / Bonus/ Increase/ Training Provided
Just like the work schedule, benefits/perks, pay increase and training are according to what the employer will provide. Look at Figure 5.
Figure 5
This job offers 100% commission so you will earn Php2,750 for every verified appointment lead you make. You will also have a training/graduation bonus. If you will work with no absence for the first month, you will also receive an attendance bonus.
Conclusion
PROS
CONS
Initially, you might think telemarketing is easy since you only have to call people and try to sell them the company’s products and services. However, this can be a challenging job, especially if you are not well-prepared. It is great if you have previous experience or if you can take short courses related to the job. It also helps if you can find a job offer where the company will provide necessary training.
Another possible issue with telemarketing from home is the internet connection. You have higher chances of getting a good job if you live in an area where the internet connection is fast (meets the requirements of an employer) and stable.