Time Management For Work-At-Home Telemarketing Agents
One of the challenges you face as a work-at-home telemarketing professional is time management. Few can call for a full 8 hours a day- especially in an unstructured environment. To stay fresh and at the top of your game over the long term, you need to pace yourself. I’ve found that calling 3-hours (part-time) to 6-hours (full time) daily is an optimum schedule for most agents.
But, how do you distribute that calling time across an 8 to 12-hour workday?
Borrowing a page from Tony Buzan (inventor of Mind Mapping), I recommend a pattern of 30 minutes calling followed by 5 minutes rest. You should use your rest break to move your body a little. No only does this have beneficial health effects, but it gives your mind a chance to rebuild its energy reserves. We can only concentrate for so long before our minds begin to lose focus.
Commit to completing at least 3 30-minute blocks of calling at a time. Most experienced telemarketing agents will tell you that it takes time to get your engines revved up when you start your calling. If you take very long breaks between 30-minute calling blocks, it’s like having to re-start your engine every time. You want to keep your momentum going for at least 90 to 120 minutes.
Once you’ve completed your 3 or 4 30-minute calling blocks, take a 15 to 30-minute break… or longer if you need the flex time to take care of other things before coming back to calling.
Start each 30-minute calling block with a quick review of what you learned in your last 30 minutes of calling. What new prospect scenarios did you come across? What new objections did you hear? Could you have improved your responses? Take notes. Discuss your new ideas or discoveries in sales training calls.
By looking at your calling time as a learning experience and then actively processing the new information, you avoid the trap of telemarketing becoming boring. If telemarketing becomes boring to you, your prospects will hear it in your voice and your results will suffer and you will burn out.
Experiment with work patterns that suite you best. You may find that longer work periods are better for you. The key is to track your results and how you feel.
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Gene, I always love your educational information – real substance that makes a big difference!
We have tried outsourcing telemarketing. I found that only one in ten can really generate leads or close sales so do your home work and check out the companies references FIRST. It could cost you your business if you don’t. Otherwise just do it in house, that is if you know how to write a good telemarketing script . Go the google search to find for free tips to help you along the way. Don’t do this in house if you cant write scripts or you will pay dearly. Good luck.
Interesting post – I guess it comes down to self discipline really. Some people really struggle with the motivation to get stuck in, and others find it easy.
I remember working from home when inbetween jobs, and just set myself mini targets.
By this I mean, 1 hour solid calling, 15 min break, 20 mins prospecting, 15 min break etc. This made the day easier to manage and tackle – but it comes down to self discipline.
Very interesting post. The technique you are advising to be used is really effective. This way you can work at home with great productivity, which is the main goal.
This kind of time management is great. I mean, how can it be better. You will surely never get bored and you will be productive. It is really hard if you have bad time management so, this is great.
Thank you! Brilliant–I’ve been toying with a bunch of ways to structure the time but this is by far the best.