Hi Ian,
Sorry for the delay in answering your question. I wanted to respond in some depth to your question and its taken some time to edit it. Hope its not to long.
The short answer to your question is no, I have not used Tele sales marketing as yet. I had always thought this form of marketing was more aimed at the commercial contracts market. However, I may be wrong now with the advances in modern technology such as freely available public databases held on the internet.
These can help a small business owner to more effectively target specific customer's; both private and commercial, through the use of demographic profiling and other free public information and online resources. Many of these databases are available free to use. And are held on government websites such as the Office for National Statistics:
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/index.html.
As well as other government and local government websites. All are well worth a look in my opinion.
There is a mine of helpful information held on the site about family income, household make up, area demographics, jobs people do in that area and much more. It also has information on average incomes by Postcode as well. I have used this site in the past as part of my studies as a nursing student and found it extremely useful when researching local communities for health care research and academic presentations.
The information the ONS website can be useful for all cleaners researching local residential areas and it does have information on businesses in the local area.
Cold calling any customer is a skill that that needs to be learned and you need to have confidence in your presentation skills and in the standard of your workmanship, to be able to sell your services professionally.
As I am sure you understand Ian, from the businesses you yourself run.
Regards Phil