#Telemarketing solutions | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mostlysignssomeportents · 2 years ago

Text

Linkty Dumpty

I was supposed to be on vacation, and while I didn’t do any blogging for a month, that didn’t mean that I stopped looking at my distraction rectangle and making a list of things I wanted to write about. Consequentially, the link backlog is massive, so it’s time to declare bankruptcy with another linkdump:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

[Image ID: John Holbo’s ‘trolley problem’ art, a repeating pattern of trolleys, tracks, people on tracks, and people standing at track switches]++

Let’s kick things off with a little graphic whimsy. You’ve doubtless seen the endless Trolley Problem memes, working from the same crude line drawings? Well, philosopher John Holbo got tired of that artwork, and he whomped up a fantastic alternative, which you can get as a poster, duvet, sticker, tee, etc:

https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/145078097

The trolley problem has been with us since 1967, but it’s enjoying a renaissance thanks to the insistence of “AI” weirdos that it is very relevant to our AI debate. A few years back, you could impress uninformed people by dropping the Trolley Problem into a discussion:

https://memex.craphound.com/2016/10/25/mercedes-weird-trolley-problem-announcement-continues-dumb-debate-about-self-driving-cars/

Amazingly, the “AI” debate has only gotten more tedious since the middle of the past decade. But every now and again, someone gets a stochastic parrot to do something genuinely delightful, like the Jolly Roger Telephone Company, who sell chatbots that will pretend to be tantalyzingly confused marks in order to tie up telemarketers and waste their time:

https://jollyrogertelephone.com/

Jolly Roger sells different personas: “Whitebeard” is a confused senior who keeps asking the caller’s name, drops nonsequiturs into the conversation, and can’t remember how many credit-cards he has. “Salty Sally” is a single mom with a houseful of screaming, demanding children who keep distracting her every time the con artist is on the verge of getting her to give up compromising data. “Whiskey Jack” is drunk:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/people-hire-phone-bots-to-torture-telemarketers-2dbb8457

The bots take a couple minutes to get the sense of the conversation going. During that initial lag, they have a bunch of stock responses like “there’s a bee on my arm, but keep going,” or grunts like “huh,” and “uh-huh.” The bots can keep telemarketers and scammers on the line for quite a long time. Scambaiting is an old and honorable vocation, and it’s good that it has received a massive productivity gain from automation. This is the AI Dividend I dream of.

The less-fun AI debate is the one over artists’ rights and tech. I am foresquare for the artists here, but I think that the preferred solutions (like creating a new copyright over the right to train a model with your work) will not lead to the hoped-for outcome. As with other copyright expansions — 40 years’ worth of them now — this right will be immediately transferred to the highly concentrated media sector, who will simply amend their standard, non-negotiable contracting terms to require that “training rights” be irrevocably assigned to them as a condition of working.

The real solution isn’t to treat artists as atomic individuals — LLCs with an MFA — who bargain, business-to-business, with corporations. Rather, the solutions are in collective power, like unions. You’ve probably heard about the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike, in which creative workers are bargaining as a group to demand fair treatment in an age of generative models. SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher’s speech announcing the strike made me want to stand up and salute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4SAPOX7R5M

The actors’ strike is historic: it marks the first time actors have struck since 2000, and it’s the first time actors and writers have co-struck since 1960. Of course, writers in the Writers Guild of America (West and East) have been picketing since since April, and one of their best spokespeople has been Adam Conover, a WGA board member who serves on the negotiating committee. Conover is best known for his stellar Adam Ruins Everything comedy-explainer TV show, which pioneered a technique for breaking down complex forms of corporate fuckery and making you laugh while he does it. Small wonder that he’s been so effective at conveying the strike issues while he pickets.

Writing for Jacobin, Alex N Press profiles Conover and interviews him about the strike, under the excellent headline, “Adam Pickets Everything.” Conover is characteristically funny, smart, and incisive — do read:

https://jacobin.com/2023/07/adam-conover-wga-strike

Of course, not everyone in Hollywood is striking. In late June, the DGA accepted a studio deal with an anemic 41% vote turnout:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/26/23773926/dga-amptp-new-deal-strike

They probably shouldn’t have. In this interview with The American Prospect’s Peter Hong, the brilliant documentary director Amy Ziering breaks down how Netflix and the other streamers have rugged documentarians in a classic enshittification ploy that lured in filmmakers, extracted everything they had, and then discarded the husks:

https://prospect.org/culture/2023-06-21-drowned-in-the-stream/

Now, the streaming cartel stands poised to all but kill off documentary filmmaking. Pressured by Wall Street to drive high returns, they’ve become ultraconservative in their editorial decisions, making programs and films that are as similar as possible to existing successes, that are unchallenging, and that are cheap. We’ve gone directly from a golden age of docs to a dark age.

In a time of monopolies, it’s tempting to form countermonopolies to keep them in check. Yesterday, I wrote about why the FTC and Lina Khan were right to try to block the Microsoft/Activision merger, and I heard from a lot of people saying this merger was the only way to check Sony’s reign of terror over video games:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

But replacing one monopolist with another isn’t good for anyone (except the monopolists’ shareholders). If we want audiences and workers — and society — to benefit, we have to de-monopolize the sector. Last month, I published a series with EFF about how we should save the news from Big Tech:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

After that came out, the EU Observer asked me to write up version of it with direct reference to the EU, where there are a lot of (in my opinion, ill-conceived but well-intentioned) efforts to pry Big Tech’s boot off the news media’s face. I’m really happy with how it came out, and the header graphic is awesome:

https://euobserver.com/opinion/157187

De-monopolizing tech has become my life’s work, both because tech is foundational (tech is how we organize to fight over labor, gender and race equality, and climate justice), and because tech has all of these technical aspects, which open up new avenues for shrinking Big Tech, without waiting decades for traditional antitrust breakups to run their course (we need these too, though!).

I’ve written a book laying out a shovel-ready plan to give tech back to its users through interoperability, explaining how to make new regulations (and reform old ones), what they should say, how to enforce them, and how to detect and stop cheating. It’s called “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation” and it’s coming from Verso Books this September:

https://www.versobooks.com/products/3035-the-internet-con

[Image ID: The cover of the Verso Books hardcover of ‘The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation]

I just got my first copy in the mail yesterday, and it’s a gorgeous little package. The timing was great, because I spent the whole week in the studio at Skyboat Media recording the audiobook — the first audiobook of mine that I’ve narrated. It was a fantastic experience, and I’ll be launching a Kickstarter to presell the DRM-free audio and ebooks as well as hardcovers, in a couple weeks.

Though I like doing these crowdfunders, I do them because I have to. Amazon’s Audible division, the monopolist that controls >90% of the audiobook market, refuses to carry my work because it is DRM-free. When you buy a DRM-free audiobook, that means that you can play it on anyone’s app, not just Amazon’s. Every audiobook you’ve ever bought from Audible will disappear the moment you decide to break up with Amazon, which means that Amazon can absolutely screw authors and audiobook publishers because they’ve taken our customers hostage.

If you are unwise enough to pursue an MBA, you will learn a term of art for this kind of market structure: it’s a “moat,” that is, an element of the market that makes it hard for new firms to enter the market and compete with you. Warren Buffett pioneered the use of this term, and now it’s all but mandatory for anyone launching a business or new product to explain where their moat will come from.

As Dan Davies writes, these “moats” aren’t really moats in the Buffett sense. With Coke and Disney, he says, a “moat” was “the fact that nobody else could make such a great product that everyone wanted.” In other words, “making a good product,” is a great moat:

https://backofmind.substack.com/p/stuck-in-the-moat

But making a good product is a lot of work and not everyone is capable of it. Instead, “moat” now just means some form of lock in. Davies counsels us to replace “moat” with:

our subscription system and proprietary interface mean that our return on capital is protected by a strong Berlin Wall, preventing our customers from getting out to a freer society and forcing them to consume our inferior products for lack of alternative.

I really like this. It pairs well with my 2020 observation that the fight over whether “IP” is a meaningful term can be settled by recognizing that IP has a precise meaning in business: “Any policy that lets me reach beyond the walls of my firm to control the conduct of my competitors, critics and customers”:

https://locusmag.com/2020/09/cory-doctorow-ip/

To see how that works in the real world, check out “The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy,” a magisterial piece of scholarship from Sarah Lamdan, Jason M. Schultz, Michael Weinberg and Claire Woodcock:

https://www.nyuengelberg.org/outputs/the-anti-ownership-ebook-economy/

Something happened when we shifted to digital formats that created a loss of rights for readers. Pulling back the curtain on the evolution of ebooks offers some clarity to how the shift to digital left ownership behind in the analog world.

The research methodology combines both anonymous and named sources in publishing, bookselling and librarianship, as well as expert legal and economic analysis. This is an eminently readable, extremely smart, and really useful contribution to the scholarship on how “IP” (in the modern sense) has transformed books from something you own to something that you can never own.

The truth is, capitalists hate capitalism. Inevitably, the kind of person who presides over a giant corporation and wields power over millions of lives — workers, suppliers and customers — believes themselves to be uniquely and supremely qualified to be a wise dictator. For this kind of person, competition is “wasteful” and distracts them from the important business of making everyone’s life better by handing down unilateral — but wise and clever — edits. Think of Peter Thiel’s maxim, “competition is for losers.”

That’s why giant companies love to merge with each other, and buy out nascent competitors. By rolling up the power to decide how you and I and everyone else live our lives, these executives ensure that they can help us little people live the best lives possible. The traditional role of antitrust enforcement is to prevent this from happening, countering the delusions of would-be life-tenured autocrats of trade with public accountability and enforcement:

https://marker.medium.com/we-should-not-endure-a-king-dfef34628153

Of course, for 40 years, we’ve had neoliberal, Reaganomics-poisoned antitrust, where monopolies are celebrated as “efficient” and their leaders exalted as geniuses whose commercial empires are evidence of merit, not savagery. That era is, thankfully, coming to an end, and not a moment too soon.

Leading the fight is the aforementioned FTC chair Lina Khan, who is taking huge swings at even bigger mergers. But the EU is no slouch in this department: they’re challenging the Adobe/Figma merger, a $20b transaction that is obviously and solely designed to recapture customers who left Adobe because they didn’t want to struggle under its yoke any longer:

https://gizmodo.com/adobe-figma-acquisition-likely-to-face-eu-investigation-1850555562

For autocrats of trade, this is an intolerable act of disloyalty. We owe them our fealty and subservience, because they are self-evidently better at understanding what we need than we could ever be. This unwarranted self-confidence from the ordinary mediocrities who end up running giant tech companies gets them into a whole lot of hot water.

One keen observer of the mind-palaces that tech leaders trap themselves in is Anil Dash, who describes the conspiratorial, far-right turn of the most powerful men (almost all men!) in Silicon Valley in a piece called “‘VC Qanon’ and the radicalization of the tech tycoons”:

https://www.anildash.com/2023/07/07/vc-qanon/

Dash builds on an editorial he published in Feb, “The tech tycoon martyrdom charade,” which explores the sense of victimhood the most powerful, wealthiest people in the Valley project:

https://www.anildash.com/2023/02/27/tycoon-martyrdom-charade/

These dudes are prisoners of their Great Man myth, and leads them badly astray. And while all of us are prone to lapses in judgment and discernment, Dash makes the case that tech leaders are especially prone to it:

Nobody becomes a billionaire by accident. You have to have wanted that level of power, control and wealth more than you wanted anything else in your life. They all sacrifice family, relationships, stability, community, connection, and belonging in service of keeping score on a scale that actually yields no additional real-world benefits on the path from that first $100 million to the tens of billions.

This makes billionaires “a cohort that is, counterintutively, very easily manipulated.” What’s more, they’re all master manipulators, and they all hang out with each other, which means that when a conspiratorial belief takes root in one billionaire’s brain, it spreads to the rest of them like wildfire.

Then, billionaires “push each other further and further into extreme ideas because their entire careers have been predicated on the idea that they’re genius outliers who can see things others can’t, and that their wealth is a reward for that imagined merit.”

They live in privileged bubbles, which insulates them from disconfirming evidence — ironic, given how many of these bros think they are wise senators in the agora.

There are examples of billionaires’ folly all around us today, of course. Take privacy: the idea that we can — we should — we must — spy on everyone, all the time, in every way, to eke out tiny gains in ad performance is objectively batshit. And yet, wealthy people decreed this should be so, and it was, and made them far richer.

Leaked data from Microsoft’s Xandr ad-targeting database reveals how the commercial surveillance delusion led us to a bizarre and terrible place, as reported on by The Markup:

https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/06/08/from-heavy-purchasers-of-pregnancy-tests-to-the-depression-prone-we-found-650000-ways-advertisers-label-you

The Markup’s report lets you plumb 650,000 targeting categories, searching by keyword or loading random sets, 20 at a time. Do you want to target gambling addicts, people taking depression meds or Jews? Xandr’s got you covered. What could possibly go wrong?

The Xandr files come from German security researcher Wolfie Christl from Cracked Labs. Christi is a European, and he’s working with the German digital rights group Netzpolitik to get the EU to scrutinize all the ways that Xandr is flouting EU privacy laws.

Billionaires’ big ideas lead us astray in more tangible ways, of course. Writing in The Conversation, John Quiggin asks us to take a hard look at the much ballyhooed (and expensively ballyhooed) “nuclear renaissance”:

https://theconversation.com/dutton-wants-australia-to-join-the-nuclear-renaissance-but-this-dream-has-failed-before-209584

Despite the rhetoric, nukes aren’t cheap, and they aren’t coming back. Georgia’s new nuclear power is behind schedule and over budget, but it’s still better off than South Carolina’s nukes, which were so over budget that they were abandoned in 2017. France’s nuke is a decade behind schedule. Finland’s opened this year — 14 years late. The UK’s Hinkley Point C reactor is massively behind schedule and over budget (and when it’s done, it will be owned by the French government!).

China’s nuclear success story also doesn’t hold up to scrutiny — they’ve brought 50GW of nukes online, sure, but they’re building 95–120GW of solar every year.

Solar is the clear winner here, along with other renewables, which are plummeting in cost (while nukes soar) and are accelerating in deployments (while nukes are plagued with ever-worsening delays).

This is the second nuclear renaissance — the last one, 20 years ago, was a bust, and that was before renewables got cheap, reliable and easy to manufacture and deploy. You’ll hear fairy-tales about how the early 2000s bust was caused by political headwinds, but that’s simply untrue: there were almost no anti-nuke marches then, and governments were scrambling to figure out low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels (this was before the latest round of fossil fuel sabotage).

The current renaissance is also doomed. Yes, new reactors are smaller and safer and won’t have the problems intrinsic to all megaprojects, but designs like VOYGR have virtually no signed deals. Even if they do get built, their capacity will be dwarfed by renewables — a Gen III nuke will generate 710MW of power. Globally, we add that much solar every single day.

And solar power is cheap. Even after US subsidies, a Gen III reactor would charge A$132/MWh — current prices are as low as A$64-$114/MWh.

Nukes are getting a charm offensive because wealthy people are investing in hype as a way of reaping profits — not as a way of generating safe, cheap, reliable energy.

Here in the latest stage of capitalism, value and profit are fully decoupled. Monopolists are shifting more and more value from suppliers and customers to their shareholders every day. And when the customer is the government, the depravity knows no bounds. In Responsible Statecraft, Connor Echols describes how military contractors like Boeing are able to bill the Pentagon $52,000 for a trash can:

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/06/20/the-pentagons-52000-trash-can/

Military Beltway Bandits are nothing new, of course, but they’ve gotten far more virulent since the Obama era, when Obama’s DoD demanded that the primary contractors merge to a bare handful of giant firms, in the name of “efficiency.” As David Dayen writes in his must-read 2020 book Monopolized, this opened the door to a new kind of predator:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

The Obama defense rollups were quickly followed by another wave of rollups, these ones driven by Private Equity firms who cataloged which subcontractors were “sole suppliers” of components used by the big guys. These companies were all acquired by PE funds, who then lowered the price of their products, selling them below cost.

This maximized the use of those parts in weapons and aircraft sold by primary contractors like Boeing, which created a durable, long-lasting demand for fresh parts for DoD maintenance of its materiel. PE-owned suppliers hits Uncle Sucker with multi-thousand-percent markups for these parts, which have now wormed their way into every corner of the US arsenal.

Yes, this is infuriating as hell, but it’s also so grotesquely wrong that it’s impossible to defend, as we see in this hilarious clip of Rep Katie Porter grilling witnesses on US military waste:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJhf6l1nB9A

Porter pulls out the best version yet of her infamous white-board and makes her witnesses play defense ripoff Jepoardy!, providing answers to a series of indefensible practices.

It’s sure nice when our government does something for us, isn’t it? We absolutely can have nice things, and we’re about to get them. The Infrastructure Bill contains $42B in subsidies for fiber rollouts across the country, which will be given to states to spend. Ars Technica’s Jon Brodkin breaks down the state-by-state spending:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/us-allocates-42b-in-broadband-funding-find-out-how-much-your-state-will-get/

Texas will get $3.31B, California will get $1.86B, and 17 other states will get $1B or more. As the White House announcement put it, “High-speed Internet is no longer a luxury.”

To understand how radical this is, you need to know that for decades, the cable and telco sector has grabbed billions in subsidies for rural and underserved communities, and then either stole the money outright, or wasted it building copper networks that run at a fraction of a percent of fiber speeds.

This is how America — the birthplace of the internet — ended up with some of the world’s slowest, most expensive broadband, even after handing out tens of billions of dollars in subsidies. Those subsidies were gobbled up by greedy, awful phone companies — these ones must be spent wisely, on long-lasting, long-overdue fiber infrastructure.

That’s a good note to end on, but I’ve got an even better one: birds in the Netherlands are tearing apart anti-bird strips and using them to build their nests. Wonderful creatures 1, hostile architecture, 0. Nature is healing:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/11/crows-and-magpies-show-their-metal-by-using-anti-bird-spikes-to-build-nests

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/15/in-the-dumps/#what-vacation

Next Tues, Jul 18, I'm hosting the first Clarion Summer Write-In Series, an hour-long, free drop-in group writing and discussion session. It's in support of the Clarion SF/F writing workshop's fundraiser to offer tuition support to students:

https://mailchi.mp/theclarionfoundation/clarion-write-ins

[Image iD: A dump-truck, dumping out a load of gravel. A caricature of Humpty Dumpty clings to its lip, restrained by a group of straining, Lilliputian men.]

113 notes · View notes

jimmy-asija · 7 hours ago

Text

Jimmy Asija Call Centers India’s Trusted BPO & Customer Support Solutions

Looking for scalable, cost-effective call center services in India? Jimmy Asija Call Centers specializes in high-performance BPO solutions, including inbound/outbound calling, telemarketing, lead generation, and 24/7 customer support. With a focus on Indian businesses, they deliver multilingual agents, advanced CRM tools, and customized strategies to boost growth.

✅ Why Partner with Jimmy Asija? ✔ India-Based Expertise – Local understanding, global standards ✔ Multilingual Support – Fluent in English, Hindi, and regional languages ✔ Cost-Effective Pricing – Competitive rates for startups & enterprises ✔ AI & Automation Integration – Smarter workflows, faster resolutions ✔ Dedicated Teams – Trained for e-commerce, healthcare, banking & more

Ideal for outsourcing customer service, sales, or technical support, Jimmy Asija call centers data-driven approach ensures higher conversions and customer satisfaction. Whether you need offshore call centers or domestic agents, they provide reliable, scalable solutions tailored for Indian market needs.

🔗 Explore services: Jimmy Asija Call Centers

#JimmyAsijaCallCenter #BPOIndia #TrustedBPOServices #CallCenterSolutions #CustomerServiceExcellence #CallCenterIndia

1 note · View note

vertagedialer · 1 year ago

Text

#call dialer service provider in Noida #automated dialing solution #sales automation #telemarketing software #outbound calling #predictive dialer #sales performance improvement #call center solutions

0 notes

leadgenertion · 7 months ago

Text

At BrandDirect, we pride ourselves on being a trusted leader in telemarketing services, helping businesses connect, engage, and grow their customer base across Dubai and the UAE. Our dedicated team of telemarketing experts is committed to delivering personalized and results-driven solutions tailored to meet your unique business needs. With years of experience and a proven track record, we provide comprehensive telemarketing services that boost brand awareness, drive sales, and foster lasting client relationships.

Why Choose BrandDirect for Telemarketing?

Expert Team: Our professional telemarketers are skilled communicators who understand the nuances of effective outreach. With in-depth knowledge of various industries, they engage prospects with confidence and a clear focus on your goals.

Customized Campaigns: At BrandDirect, we don’t believe in one-size-fits-all approaches. We design telemarketing strategies that are customized to suit your industry, target audience, and desired outcomes, ensuring a higher rate of success.

Lead Generation and Appointment Setting: Whether you're looking to generate new leads or schedule quality appointments, our team excels in nurturing potential clients and setting meetings that translate into meaningful business opportunities.

Enhanced Customer Engagement: We understand that telemarketing is more than just making calls; it’s about building connections. Our approach prioritizes active listening, empathy, and tailored solutions that resonate with your prospects and build trust.

Compliance and Professionalism: Adhering to local and international regulations, BrandDirect ensures that all telemarketing activities are conducted ethically and professionally. You can rest assured that your brand is represented with the highest standards of integrity.

How BrandDirect Can Elevate Your Business

When you partner with BrandDirect, you're choosing more than a telemarketing service; you're choosing a partner that cares about your success. We take the time to understand your brand, products, and market, ensuring our approach aligns perfectly with your business goals. Our telemarketing solutions are designed to enhance lead generation, increase conversions, and drive revenue growth.

Choose BrandDirect as your telemarketing partner in Dubai and the UAE, and experience the difference that professional, results-oriented outreach can make. Contact us today to discover how our tailored telemarketing services can help your business reach new heights.

#b2b #b2b lead generation #lead generation #telemarketing #telemarketing services #telemarketing solution

0 notes

anydata · 8 months ago

Text

B2B and B2C Marketing Services in South Africa with Any Data

In today's competitive South African market, businesses require innovative marketing solutions to thrive. Any Data, a leading provider of database marketing solutions, empowers entrepreneurs to reach decision makers, drive sales and boost growth through targeted B2B and B2C marketing.

B2B Marketing Solutions

Database marketing to decision makers in South African companies is key to successful marketing campaigns. Any Data's B2B marketing solutions cater to businesses seeking to connect with key decision makers in South Africa, utilizing:

3.5 million business records with decision makers

Updated company information for accurate targeting

Industry-specific or broad category selections

Decision Makers Lists South Africa

B2B Leads

Business Contacts

Call Centre Leads

Government Workers Database

B2C Marketing Solutions

Business-to-consumer marketing campaigns target individuals, requiring a unique marketing strategy and database. Any Data offers:

50 million updated consumer records across South Africa

Filter capabilities for targeted marketing

Data sources: purchases, swaps, credit bureau updates, campaigns, and public domain research

South Africa Consumer Leads/Lists

Effective Distribution Platforms

Any Data provides reliable distribution platforms for B2B and B2C marketing:

Email Marketing South Africa: Targeted campaigns using keywords (South African Email Lead Generation)

SMS Marketing: Direct access to consumers and business contacts (South African SMS Leads for SMS Lead Generation)

Telemarketing: Personalized communication

Mobile Lead Lists

Cellphone Lead Lists

Africa Mobile Database

Benefits of Any Data's Services:

Expertise in B2B and B2C marketing (Business To Consumer Marketing, Business To Business)

Responsible marketing activities

Reliable distribution platforms

Accurate and updated lead databases (Database Marketing Solutions, Corporate Database)

Business Email Marketing solutions

Get Started with Any Data!

Phone: 036 352 6891

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.anydata.co.za

Boost Your Business Growth With Any Data

Discover how Any Data's B2B and B2C marketing solutions can drive your business forward, leveraging Business Leads and Consumer Lead Generation in South Africa.

#anydata #businesstobusiness #businesstoconsumer #b2bleads #b2clists #consumerdatabase #businessdatabase #southafricanleads #leadgeneration #southafrica #databasemarketing #businessmarketing #smsmarketing #emailmarketing #businessemailmarketing

3 notes · View notes

mattnben-bennmatt · 11 months ago

Text

"For Wema, water was life" | The Worth of Water excerpt

[Note: This is an excerpt from Gary White and Matt Damon's book The Worth of Water: Our Story of Chasing Solutions to the World's Greatest Challenge (March 2022), published by Penguin. This excerpt was retrieved from the sample provided for the Kindle Edition (Loc. 22 - 90).]

1. WHAT THE HELL IS THE “WATER ISSUE”?

POV: Matt Damon

I’ve spent most of my life telling stories on-screen, not on the page—so as I was thinking about how to begin this book, I thought about how I’d start the movie. We’d fade in on a hut I visited in rural Zambia in 2006. I can still see it clearly in my mind: earthen brick walls, dirt floor, thatched roof. The landscape around it was usually dry, but because this was April, the end of the rainy season, the ground was covered, in parts, with a thin blanket of green. I was sitting outside the hut, waiting for a teenager to get home from school.

I was in Zambia because Bono—the rock star who spends his spare time fighting to end extreme poverty—had been pestering me to go. “Pest” is Bono’s word. He wears it like a badge of honor. He takes pride in getting people—politicians especially, but others, too—to do things they wouldn’t otherwise do, if he wasn’t pestering them. The guy is really good at it. Bono believes that seeing poverty up close can change a person’s priorities, can compel them to go out and do something about it. So he and his colleagues at the organization he started, DATA—which would eventually become the ONE Campaign—had been pressuring me to join them on a trip to Africa. He’d been pressuring me with the zeal of a telemarketer. He was not going to take no for an answer.

My answer wasn’t no, exactly. I just had a lot going on in my life. My wife would be seven months pregnant at the time of the trip, and I had only a small window of time before my next movie. So I told Bono it just wasn’t a good time. He looked at me and said, “It’s never going to be a good time.” Which, of course, was totally right.

I had no grand illusions about the point of going on this trip. It’s not like I’d be changing anybody’s life. Bono likes to say that there’s nothing worse than a rock star with a cause, but an actor with a cause is a close second. I winced at the mental image of me walking through the bush or an urban slum somewhere, looking concerned, and then flying home to my comfortable life. But then I thought: that’s an even dumber excuse for not going than “I’m busy.” The more I thought about the trip, the more I realized that I wanted to go and meet some of the people who live in these extremely poor places, to see firsthand the challenges they face, and to figure out whether there was something something I could be doing to help. So I told Bono I’d go, and my older brother, Kyle, agreed to come along, too.

The trip was about two weeks long. It took us to slums and rural villages across South Africa and Zambia. DATA had set it up like a college mini course. Each day, we learned about a different challenge that kept people from breaking the cycle of poverty: underfunded health systems, the challenges of life in a slum, the HIV/AIDS crisis. We read briefing books about each issue, visited organizations that were trying to tackle them, and, most important, talked with the people.

On one of our last days in Zambia, we were going to learn about water. It wasn’t clear to me why. I understood why we had been focusing on HIV/AIDS and education—these were issues that you read about in the news, issues that people talked about or signed petitions about or donated in support of. But when I heard we’d be spending the day on the “water issue,” I wasn’t sure what issue that was, exactly. I guessed the water was contaminated.

Then I read my issue brief. It said, yes, the water was contaminated—so much so that waterborne diseases were killing a child about every twenty seconds. But the water was also hard to access. There were no water pipes in these villages, no water taps in people’s homes. Somebody had to go get the water and bring it back, and that somebody was almost always a woman or a girl. This was their responsibility: to walk as far as necessary to whatever water source they could find and fill their plastic jerrican, a five-gallon water jug that weighs more than forty pounds when full. Then they turn around and carry it home. And the next day they wake up and do it again.

To see what that was like, we drove four hours from Zambia’s capital, Lusaka, to a village with a well that a partner of DATA’s helped build. The staff knew of a family who lived close to the road. Their daughter Wema was fourteen, and every day after school she walked to the well to get water for her family. She’d agreed to let us walk with her, but when we arrived at her home, it was empty. Not just the home, but the whole area. There was no village center that I could see; all the huts were spread out. It was very still, very quiet, and we just sat there for a while, waiting.

Eventually we saw Wema coming toward us down the path. She was carrying books and wearing a simple blue dress that looked like a school uniform. She greeted us shyly, then put down her books and went to fetch her family’s jerrican.

At first, as we started walking to the well, the conversation was awkward. Which wasn’t really a surprise. Wema, who walked alone to this well every day, suddenly had an entourage of trip coordinators and village officials, plus an overeager movie actor. She and I didn’t speak the same language, so we had to rely on an interpreter. Still, as we walked, everybody else hung back a bit, giving us some space. Her responses to my questions were pretty short, but after a while we both relaxed a little, and even the silences felt natural enough. It was a peaceful walk down a country road.

After half an hour or so, we arrived at the well. Somebody suggested I try my hand at it. I had just finished filming one of the Jason Bourne movies, so I thought I was in pretty good shape. But pumping water from this well was harder than it looked. Wema and I laughed as I struggled with it. She had this incredibly practiced way of working the pump and then hefting this big, heavy yellow can up onto her head, where she kept it balanced with the help of one hand. This was easy to admire until you remembered (if you’d let yourself forget) that this was work for her: an inescapable, essential chore.

On our way back, it started to rain. Nobody said anything about it; we just kept walking. There’s something about succumbing to the rain and accepting you’re going to get soaked that loosens people up. The conversation got easier. I asked the girl if she wanted to live in the same village when she grew up. She smiled at me, a little shy again—as if she was debating whether or not to answer. After a moment, she did. “I want to go to Lusaka,” she said, “and become a nurse.”

I had this feeling that she mostly kept this ambition to herself. I wondered if her parents even knew, and if she’d hesitated to tell me because I might tell them. It was no small thing for her to have this dream—to think about leaving the place she’d always known, to head out on her own and show what she could do. It really resonated with me. And look, I know it’s a cliché to meet someone halfway across the world whose life is dramatically different from your own, and suddenly see yourself in them—but I did. She brought to mind that feeling of restlessness, that eagerness to get out and do something new, somewhere new. I knew exactly what it felt like to be a teenager with a dream. I spent my teenage years pooling the money from my summer jobs in a joint bank account with Ben Affleck so we could move to New York and become actors. Not the same thing, obviously. But not so different that we couldn’t connect. As I talked with her, it seemed clear to me that she was going to do it. She had a spark, a kind of self-possession that made it easy for me to imagine that one day, she’d work up the courage to tell her parents she was going to chase her dream to Lusaka. Maybe they’d be angry about that, or sad about losing her, or proud that she was thinking big. Maybe all three. But she’d study, and she’d work, and she’d meet her goal. More than fifteen years later I’m still convinced she’s made it. That she’s not still walking that path and carrying that jerrican. I hope I’m right.

The main reason I’m optimistic—actually, the only reason I can be optimistic—is that Wema was able to go to school. It took half an hour to walk to the well we visited, but an hour of walking every day left her enough time to attend school and do her homework before the sun set—the village had no electricity, so after dark it was impossible to read a book. DATA introduced me to her because she was, in relative terms, a success story—a girl lucky enough to have a well close by so she could spend a good part of her days learning. Millions of girls aren’t so lucky. For them, getting water doesn’t take one hour; it takes three or four or six. It’s what they do: they walk for water. That necessity keeps them from going to school, or working in the fields to earn money for their families, or creating something they can sell at a market. In fact, in some regions of India, water is so scarce that men take “water wives”—second and even third wives who spend all day, every day, gathering water for the family.

I kept coming back to that old adage: “Water is life.” How many hours of that fourteen-year-old’s life had already been saved because someone thought to dig a well a mile away from her house instead of four or five? That decision was the reason she could spend her days doing more than walking to and from the well. It was the reason she was able to pursue a dream that felt so big and audacious she hesitated even to say it out loud. For Wema, water was life; it was also a shot at a better life.

#matt damon #water.org #bono #kyle damon #ben affleck #on activism #on appearance #teenage years #2006 #2022 #the worth of water #book #originals

2 notes · View notes

johnsaleswolfs · 2 years ago

Text

Mastering Success: Appointment Setting through Telemarketing and B2B Lead Generation

In the fast-paced world of business-to-business (B2B) interactions, securing appointments is often the crucial first step towards building meaningful relationships. Telemarketing, when coupled with effective B2B lead generation strategies, emerges as a powerful tool for businesses looking to not only connect with potential clients but also to set the stage for successful collaborations. In this blog, we will explore the art and science of appointment setting through telemarketing in the context of B2B lead generation.

The Role of Appointment Setting in B2B:

1. Building Relationships, Not Just Transactions:

In the B2B landscape, success is often rooted in the ability to build strong, enduring relationships. Appointment setting goes beyond mere transactions; it opens the door to meaningful conversations where needs, solutions, and potential collaborations are explored.

2. Trust and Credibility:

Securing an appointment demonstrates a level of interest and commitment from both parties. It serves as an opportunity to establish trust and credibility, laying the groundwork for a partnership based on mutual understanding and shared goals.

Telemarketing as a Strategic Tool:

3. Direct and Personalized Communication:

Telemarketing provides a direct and personalized channel of communication. Unlike email or other digital methods, a phone call allows for real-time interaction, enabling businesses to address concerns, answer questions, and tailor their pitch based on immediate feedback.

4. Navigating the Decision-Making Process:

B2B transactions often involve multiple decision-makers within an organization. Telemarketing allows for strategic navigation of this complex decision-making process by identifying key stakeholders, understanding their needs, and influencing the decision-making chain.

5. Customizing Pitches for Maximum Impact:

Telemarketers can tailor their pitches based on the specific needs and pain points of the prospect. This level of customization ensures that the value proposition is aligned with the prospect's requirements, increasing the likelihood of a positive response.

Effective B2B Lead Generation Strategies:

6. Comprehensive Data Analysis:

B2B lead generation starts with comprehensive data analysis. Identify your target audience, understand their industry challenges, and analyze their behavior to create a targeted approach. This data-driven strategy ensures that your telemarketing efforts are directed towards businesses that are more likely to benefit from your offerings.

7. Content Marketing for Thought Leadership:

Establishing your business as a thought leader in your industry through content marketing enhances your credibility. Valuable content positions your company as an expert, making prospects more receptive to appointment requests during telemarketing calls.

8. Utilizing CRM Systems:

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems play a crucial role in B2B lead generation. These systems help in organizing and managing lead data, tracking interactions, and ensuring that telemarketers have the necessary information to engage in meaningful conversations during calls.

The Art of Appointment Setting:

9. Effective Scripting and Training:

Crafting an effective telemarketing script is an art. It should be concise, engaging, and tailored to the specific needs of the B2B audience. Training telemarketing representatives on effective communication, objection handling, and relationship building is equally important.

10. Follow-Up Strategies:

Not every call will result in an immediate appointment. Implementing robust follow-up strategies is crucial. This may include sending additional resources, scheduling follow-up calls, or providing further information to address any concerns raised during the initial conversation.

Conclusion:

Appointment setting through telemarketing is a dynamic process that requires a strategic blend of personalized communication, data analysis, and effective lead generation. By understanding the nuances of B2B interactions and adopting a comprehensive approach that integrates telemarketing with targeted lead generation strategies, businesses can unlock the potential for meaningful collaborations and long-term partnerships. In the ever-evolving world of B2B, mastering the art of appointment setting is not just a transactional endeavor but a journey towards building lasting relationships and fostering mutual success.

posted by johnsaleswolfs this site help to growth your business with the services of digital marketing , B2B lead generation and telemarketing .

#business #telemarketing #digital marketing #web development #b2b lead generation

2 notes · View notes

ajmalfaris · 2 hours ago

Text

INBOUND MARKETING AND OUTBOUND MARKETING

Understanding Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing

In the modern business world, marketing strategies have evolved significantly to help companies reach their target audience effectively. Two of the most commonly discussed approaches are Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing. Though both aim to attract customers, they follow different paths and techniques to achieve results. Understanding the differences, benefits, and limitations of each can help businesses craft more effective marketing strategies.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing focuses on attracting customers organically by providing valuable content and experiences tailored to their needs. Instead of directly pushing products or services, this approach encourages potential customers to find the business on their own through informative resources, engaging content, and helpful solutions.

Common inbound marketing techniques include:

Content Marketing: Creating blogs, articles, videos, and infographics that answer customer questions

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Optimizing websites to rank higher in search engine results

Social Media Marketing: Sharing content and building a community on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn

Email Marketing: Sending personalized emails with useful information or offers to nurture leads

Webinars and Online Events: Providing educational sessions to engage potential customers

The goal of inbound marketing is to build trust, credibility, and long-term relationships with the audience. By offering relevant content, businesses can position themselves as experts and guide potential customers through the buying process.

Benefits of Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is highly effective for building brand authority and attracting qualified leads. Some key benefits include:

✔ Cost-effective compared to traditional advertising ✔ Generates long-term, sustainable traffic and leads ✔ Builds stronger relationships with potential customers ✔ Encourages higher engagement through valuable content ✔ Helps establish the brand as a trusted source of information

However, inbound marketing often requires patience, as results can take time to develop. Creating quality content, building SEO rankings, and nurturing leads is a gradual process but delivers long-term benefits.

What is Outbound Marketing?

Outbound Marketing refers to traditional advertising methods where businesses proactively reach out to potential customers to promote products or services. This approach is often referred to as "push marketing" because the message is pushed out to a wide audience, regardless of their immediate interest.

Examples of outbound marketing include:

Television and Radio Ads

Print Advertising (Newspapers, Magazines, Flyers)

Cold Calling and Telemarketing

Billboards and Outdoor Advertising

Email Campaigns to Purchased Lists

Direct Mail Marketing

The goal is to generate immediate awareness and attract attention through broad messaging. Outbound marketing is useful for reaching a large audience quickly, launching new products, or creating instant brand visibility.

Benefits of Outbound Marketing

Despite the rise of digital channels, outbound marketing still plays a significant role for many businesses. Its advantages include:

✔ Fast way to reach a large audience ✔ Helps build brand recognition quickly ✔ Effective for product launches and time-sensitive campaigns ✔ Supports sales teams by generating leads through cold outreach ✔ Familiar to audiences accustomed to traditional advertising

However, outbound marketing can be expensive and less targeted compared to inbound methods. Since messages are delivered to a broad audience, some recipients may not be interested, leading to lower engagement rates.

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing: Key Differences

While both strategies aim to generate leads and grow a business, they differ in their approach: AspectInbound MarketingOutbound MarketingApproachAttracts customers organicallyPushes message to broad audienceTechniquesSEO, Content Marketing, Social MediaAds, Cold Calls, Direct MailAudience TargetingHighly targeted and relevantBroad, general audienceCostCost-effective over timeOften expensive, especially for adsEngagementBuilds trust and long-term relationshipsGenerates quick brand awarenessTimeframeLong-term resultsImmediate but short-term impact

Choosing the Right Strategy

The most successful businesses often combine both inbound and outbound marketing to maximize results. For example, inbound marketing builds credibility and attracts organic leads, while outbound marketing can generate quick visibility for new products or services.

Small businesses or startups may lean more towards inbound marketing due to its cost-effectiveness, while larger organizations with substantial budgets often use outbound marketing for mass campaigns.

Ultimately, the ideal strategy depends on your business goals, target audience, and available resources. A balanced approach can ensure steady growth, improved brand presence, and increased sales.

#digital marketing #writers on tumblr #freelance digital marketer #online #traditional marketing #education

0 notes