By Dan Baldwin, TA Founder (written in 1998)

Two years ago, shortly after starting the One Plus Agent Association, we conceived, wrote, and published (on our web-site) (www.opaa.org) our 70-page book, "How To Sell Long Distance." At the time it was the end all, be all in the industry as it covered all the basics a budding entrepreneur needed to know about getting into the long distance agent business. While the sales philosophies written in the book two years ago are still valid, we currently receive at least one request a day for an updated version. What we unveil in the month's column is a brief overviews of the update-"How to Sell Long Distance as an Agent-A Complete Plan for 1998/99."

Simply put, the plan has 4 parts. Identify your market, communicate with your market, build credibility with your market and finally, sell to your market. The One Plus Agent Association (soon to have a more modern name) has in the past, and will in the future lead the effort to provide agents and their vendors all the tools necessary to execute this plan.

Step one of the plan is for an agent to identify the market they wish to pursue (for reasons of brevity we will focus the particulars of this plan on the "telemanager" type agent. The agent who presents himself to his or her customer or prospect as a "telecommunication technology consultant." The general plan though works as well for the two other agent types-the "telemarketer", who simply sells low price alone, and the "marketer", who sells through an affinity-type organization.)

If we knew how to simply identify those 1,000 prospects that are just dying to have you call so they could buy, we would do that (actually we'd be picking stocks instead). Unfortunately the process is more like "the needle in the haystack." The biggest problem is simply picking the right haystack.

In our experience, the best prospects are the most obvious ones - small growing, single-location businesses that need to "communicate with the world." Manufacturers are the perfect example. They make their widgets in one place but sell them worldwide. Customers, prospects and suppliers call them (hopefully on their 800 number) and the employees then call them all back. The worst examples obviously are gas stations, banks and 7-Eleven stores-they simply make few if any long distance calls.

So how many prospects do you need on your list? That largely depends on your city or state. How many businesses are there? The first thing you'll need to do with your list is call through it to verify the names. A good number to start out with is 5,000. It's reasonably manageable (with a computer of course.)

Where can you get your list? The quickest place is your local library. Tell the librarian you want to get a list of all the manufacturing companies in you city or state. She'll show you one within 6 or 7 minutes. The biggest problem here is the list is probably just printed-not very useful. The most efficient way to get a list is to contact a list broker. Check your local yellow pages under "Mailing Lists." Expect to pay anywhere from $.05 to $.50 per name. (Mid-America, an OPAA Vendor can help.) If you need a starter list you can contact OPAA. Our list isn't the best but it's certainly not the worst and the price is right. Getting the list though is just the start. To be successful you need to scrupulously maintain it by adding new businesses as your hear about them. (Subscribing to your local or state business journal is a must!)

Step two with the plan is to communicate with your list. The easiest way is via e-mail-unfortunately your 5,000 won't give you their e-mail addresses unless there's something in it for them. (More on that later.) The quickest way to contact them is over the phone. Obviously telemarketing works or there wouldn't be so much of it. Unfortunately, most agents don't command the resources to pull off a logical, successful, long-term telemarketing program. One of the most expensive ways to communicate is via mass media. TV, radio and newspaper advertising though are best left to the big boys. The best way (in our humble opinion) to communicate with your list is via direct mail in the form of a newsletter. A well developed objective monthly newsletter containing "How to" articles written for the small business telecom decision-maker is by far the most reasonable and respectable way for a telecom agent to contact his or her list. As well, the cost of printing and postage can be subsidized by selling advertising to other telecom vendors you don't directly compete with (e.g. pagers, cell phones, etc.)

This newsletter form of contact must be combined with a phone call once a quarter. (Hi, this is Dan Baldwin with ABC Telemanagement. We're the folks who send you your monthly telecom newsletter. The reason I'm calling is we're offering our subscribers like you a free audit of their phone bills to confirm you're getting the best deal possible. We'll be in you area tomorrow and on Wednesday. Could we drop by at 10 either day to help you with a quick 10 minute review?")

The third point to the winning plan is to build and maintain credibility. To decide what a credible agent is, look at our peers. What makes a real estate agent or stockbroker credible? First, they don't try to be what they're not and they're extremely responsive to their clients. Second, they've been trained and continue to stay trained. Third, a credible association backs them up.

When communicating with your list, lead with your competence. This is how you'll edge out the poorly trained reps from the big three. Let them know where your training comes from. If you used to be a straight inside sales rep for a regular telecom company, let them know that. If you've just fallen off the turnip truck with nothing to show for yourself but a shoe shine and a training certificate from your industry association, then lead with that (it's working for the Big Three Reps.) If you have the we're with all to knock out an objective newsletter month after month, your list will know you have "staying power" which will provide you with the ultimate credibility.

To assist you in your credibility drive, OPAA will shortly roll out an end-user newsletter you can use to send to your list. As well, we will also unveil our agent training and certification program soon.

The plan's final step is to sell, sell, sell, sell, and sell. With a list, the ability to communicate with the list and credibility you can't help but sell something, if all you do is answer your phone. If, on the other hand, you do just what new Big Three Reps do (work hard making cold calls 8 hours a day, 5 days a week) you'll easily do what they do which is $3,000 a month in new sales.

We of course believe your dream should be even bigger. You should "own" your city or state. Use your town's biggest real estate office as a model. You're the "broker", the in-house expert and lead sales person. Then surround yourself with 8 to 10 productive "wannabe's" who you train (and take a cut from.) With your own sales your agency could easily bang down $30,000 a month in new sales. With that goal eyed and accomplished you'll easily have every long distance vendor around lining up at your doorstep to cut a "sweet deal" with you. (Can you say "Equity"?)