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Members News
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Written by System Administrator
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| Key Connector Member of the Month |
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 Established in January 2006, Appointments 4U is the brainchild of Julie Smithard – a woman who has variously been described as the “Telephone Terrier” and the “Girl with the Golden Phone”, based on her skills in telemarketing.
Demonstrating both tenacity and perseverance in cold-calling on behalf of clients and an amazing ability to establish a rapport with people at all levels of the corporate ladder, Julie is a gifted professional whose services are in demand by a wide range of clients.
Surprisingly, she puts her successful track record down to listening, rather than a seductive sales spiel. “Being able to listen is very important,” she explains. “If you listen, you can gauge how a person is responding to your call, simply by the tone of their voice. That way, you can react very quickly in order to keep them engaged in conversation.”
With extensive experience in business development, marketing and sales management, including 12 years generating leads and sales appointments for a printing company, Julie is perfectly-placed to provide her expertise to clients and organisations both large and small.
Along with a hand-picked team of like-minded professionals, she is committed to complimenting the existing sales force within a client’s organisation, identifying business opportunities, developing customer relations on their behalf and supporting their marketing strategy. In short, she becomes an extension of a client’s sales and marketing operation, and is regularly credited as the key to gaining new business by many successful companies.
Julie believes you should make the most of Networking and Key Connectors is a great organisation Some Reasons why you should network?
To meet new people
Meetings and seminars are great places to meet because they have come to meet people too. A good follow on technique is to return to the same meeting and sit next to that important person.
Building a pool of prospects
A bigger picture of networking is creating a pool of contacts, then you can review, call upon to arrange meetings or invite to your other networks, hopefully they’ll invite you to their networks!
Build relationships quickly
I think you’ll agree Networking is all about building relationships and connecting with people, handing out business cards and making new connections, another great way to build relations quickly.
H2O Print
As commercial printers with experience in screenprinting, litho printing and, more recently, digital printing, H2O Print has built an excellent reputation over the past 30 years. And while the company’s top quality design and manufacturing expertise was exceeding current clients’ expectations, trawling for new customers was proving something of a headache for managing director John Hillier.
“Making appointments, cold calling and chasing leads is actually quite difficult,” says John, “and I’m usually too busy selling our printing services to be able to do it properly. But since Appointments 4U are doing it professionally – why not use experts to do it for you?”
John had previously considered using other telemarketers but didn’t like the way they wanted to do business. “Other companies quoted per appointment, which wouldn’t have suited me. Appointments 4U works for me one day a week, and keep me very busy with a constant supply of leads and appointments. Obviously not every appointment pans out, but it’s certainly worthwhile. I’m a lot busier these days and there’s a real buzz about the business.”
John doesn’t have any doubts about recommending Appointments 4U.
“Julie and her team do a fantastic job: in fact, the only way they could improve is if they physically brought the business in themselves – and I guess that’s my job!”
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