I realize that some people will not like this article, but please try to remember I am not asking anyone to buy anything they do not want to. The purpose of this article is just to get to know who telemarketers are and I am not suggesting that anyone should have to buy or even listen to a telemarketer’s spiel if they do not want to.
Now for my story:
I subscribe to a motivational e-zine in which one particular edition was dedicated to our conscious and unconscious behaviour towards others. The editor commented about sitting 30 minutes with a telemarketer, asking herself whether she would react differently towards that person if she was up close and personal.
Here is my letter in response to that comment, which I would love to share with you at this time.
Dear Editor,
My comment is about telemarketers, as you have questioned your own response to them. This comment hit home. You asked if you would think differently of telemarketers should you speak with them in person for 30 minutes. I truly believe you would.
What gives me the audacity to believe that?
Well I am a telemarketer and I know beyond a doubt that you would like me.
My personal story is that I was a single mom for just about all of my son’s life. I struggled in the beginning years after losing my job, my husband, my grandmother (the person who raised me) and my self-respect all within the same year.
I was on the welfare system for about five years then decided to go back to work. I went to school to upgrade my secretarial skills. I had the opportunity to work for only about a year. Due to the recession at the time, my work history was sporadic and entailed short periods of employment: five months here, two months there, etc.
Finally when I was not getting anywhere as jobs were closing down all the time in Montreal (in the early 90s), I decided to go to university and do what I always wanted to do, which was psychology.
I struggled seven long years in university while being a single parent and financially distressed. My son was a juvenile delinquent so I had more than I could handle but miraculously I handled it. I received my masters in counseling psychology in June 1999.
At the time I was in school I thought for sure that there was a golden job waiting for me. I thought my life would suddenly change by 180 degrees. Guess what–there wasn’t a dream job awaiting and my life was not about to change one iota. I am still looking for a job in my field but the only job of abundance in Montreal, the telemarketing capital of North America, is telemarketing. I had to swallow my pride and do what I had to do, which was to get a job and pay the bills.
So who are telemarketers anyhow? We are young people with no skills getting our first job. We are older women returning to the workforce after 20 some odd years as a stay-at-home mom. We are single parents needing to juggle raising our children around working outside of the home. We are wives or husbands who desperately need to make that second income to support our families. We are students who supplement our income or pay our way through school by working.
Furthermore, we are university graduates who have not been able to acquire our first job in our fields as of yet. We are older people who have had wonderful careers and have now found ourselves out of work because we are too old, the company downsized, or they went out of business. Similarly, we are entrepreneurs whose businesses have failed. We are visible minorities who have been faced with discrimination in the job market all of our lives.
Finally, unique to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, we are unilingual English-speaking Montrealers who cannot find work because we don’t speak enough French.
Please note that the fact that a telemarketer’s hours are flexible facilitates the part-time hours required for many people, such as students working around their study schedule and parents who have to juggle their working hours to accommodate their children’s needs.
Now that you know who we are, it is time to decipher what we are.
Are we the low-life individuals who gave telemarketing a bad name? You know, the ones who swindle senior citizens out of their life savings? Absolutely not! These people are not telemarketers- they are crooks, and individuals without a soul. They are frauds and con artists posing as telemarketers.
Telemarketers are in fact decent people like everyone else, just trying to make a living. Do we let down our morals, principles, and values to do the job at all cost? I would say perhaps 20% do and they rise to the top making loads of money. However, most telemarkets barely eke out a living.
Why is that you might ask? The answer is plain and simple; because most of us have morals. We can’t sell a product that we don’t believe in. Inother words, we can’t sell binoculars to a blind man or snow to an Inuit. Because of this, we don’t generate the amount of sales required to make the big money.
We hesitate in our presentation and oftentimes will lose a sale on purpose because our conscience will not allow us to sell to the individual on the line knowing the circumstances. Oftentimes we are fired because our sales volume is low, or we quit on principle.
The lesson we learn from this experience is to choose our next telemarketing company more carefully; separate the good companies from the bad, or if we are lucky enough we can find another job more suited to our needs and special talents. So Dr. Sandra, would you feel differently about a telemarketer if you sat and talked with one of us? I know you would!
