Harp Marketing Inc., a Melbourne-based call center that process sales from customers wanting products with names like Smoke Away, Hair Advantage and Fat Inferno, says it needs 100-150 workers.

That’s on top of the 300 people the company now employees locally.

Harp, located in the Sarno Business Complex said workers can start out earning $6.50 an hour, plus commission, but end up earning much more.

An agent can earn as much as $15 to $20 an hour, plus benefits, depending on his or her sales ability.

Lack of qualifications don’t appear to be much of a barrier to start out.

“We really hire anybody, as long as they can read,” said Gary Kirby, Harp’s sales manager. “They don’t necessarily have to have any experience, either. We have a very extensive training program that we put them through.”

One local job official cautiously welcomed Harp’s desire to beef up its work force, though she questioned whether someone really can earn $15 to $20 an hour working at a call center.

And while call-center employment is not the highest paying manufacturing and high tech jobs most communities salivate over; most companies wishing to hire 150 new employees are welcome.

Baltimore-based Incoming Calls Management Institute- which represents call centers and offers training seminars for its members- said the median hourly wage of entry- level full-time agents for call centers is $10.63. The median hourly wage of full time agents is $12.55 to $15 an hour.

Kirby said compensation really depends on the individual.

“It’s a legitimate number,” Kirby said of the upper levels of compensation at Harp. “We’ve got people that come here that make $6.50 an hour because they don’t perform. But I’ve got some people here that make $26 or $28 an hour.”

Unlike pure telemarketers- the source of those pesky calls people tend to get right around dinnertime- sales agents at incoming call centers like Harp have it a bit easier. That’s because potential customers might learn about a product on an infomercial, or another advertisement, and are calling a sales agents for more information.

At that point, many customers have decided to purchase a product, and it’s just a matter of giving them a little nudge.

“I’m not a telemarketer,” said Beverly Kaufman-Chaney of Melbourne, who has been working at Harp for about a year and earns about $20 an hour.

“We’re here to help people, whether they need to quit smoking or lose weight, etc.”

Kaufman-Chaney said she works about 34 hours a week at Harp.

Workers like Kauman-Chaney usually read from a script for any particular product people are calling about. Harp’s client companies provide the scripts.

The Incoming Calls Management Institute estimates there are more than2.5 million agent positions in the United States. That number is expected to grow 14 percent by 2005.

Many call centers, 23 percent are in the Mid-Atlantic region: 22 percent are in the West: 18 percent in the Midwest: 15 percent in the Southwest: and 13 percent in the
South: and 8 percent in the Northeast.

Harp started operations about 18 months ago after four businessmen purchased a local telemarketing company called DMI/Beacon Marketing.

The company quickly won new contracts with different clients that sell “herbal-remedy” products, and the work force jumped from 75 to its current level of about 300.

Kirby said the reasons Harp need to boost its work force now is because more people are buying one of the Smoke Away products. Those account for about 65 percent of the calls made to one of Lovely Harp’s sales agents, he said.