Selling by phone is tough. Persuading a potential consumer to buy a product over the phone is not a simple task. Your customer doesn’t know you personally and they can’t see your face physically either, so there are really no guarantees for them to know whether what you are telling them is the accurate truth, or just sugar-coated fibs. You must be able to build rapport and acquire your client’s trust in just a short span of time. Which is where telemarketing and cold calling techniques come into play.
To handle this effectively, preparation ahead of time is the key. If you are working as a telesales person, it is crucial for you to be prepared in order to successfully sell your product. Follow the tips below to know why it is important to be prepared in the telesales game of life…
1. Remember that you are there to provide clients information about what you are selling. It is likely that they will ask questions about your product so it is important to be prepared and learn every detail with what your product can do. You have NO RIGHT getting on the phone if you do not know every single little detail about what you are selling. Period.
2. Trust in what you are selling. Know how your product or service will benefit your customers and sell the hell out of these benefits. People have problems. They need solutions. Present the benefits, and help your prospect to ‘feel’ the need to buy from you. Remember, people will genuinely believe their own ideas and concepts before anyone else’s, so work hard on your present of benefits – it will help close the sale or you.
3. Know who your company’s competitors are. This is really important because you will only know if your product or the service you are giving is outstanding by comparing it with your competitor’s product and services. This goes back to being prepared, as with most things on a successful telesales call.
4. Prepare (there’s that word again!!!) an interesting, factual and concise telesales script. If you’re involved in B2B telesales, like most people reading this article, then realize and understand that the majority of the decision makers you’re talking too are busy people. Because of that, cut out the crap and leave nothing but the juicy stuff. Don’t just talk for the sake of talking – no need. Get focused and get concise – people will appreciate it.
5. Last, but not least, knowing what objections you’ll be coming up against and be ready with your rebuttals to counter them. This is something that a lot of newbies to the telesales role don’t do, and they probably lose good quality customers and the sales that go with them, because of this fact. I used to systematically test new pitches on ‘weak’ prospects, before calling the big boys. This way you get the chance to have lots and lots of objections thrown at you. And because of this you can record them and create solid rebuttals to overcome them.
Try this out on your next campaign and see if it works for you. It did, and still does, for me.
So, lets get some feedback from our growing list of readers. What do YOU guys do to prepare properly for your telesales calls?
If you like this post, you might also like these other telesales tips:
Telesales Urban Myth #1 – Ignore No’s, You Can Always Deal With Them at the End!
Softening Your Telemarketing & Telesales Questioning Techniques
3 Great Tips to Partner Gatekeepers on Your Telesales Calls
UK Telesales News – Charity Calls ‘Not the Same’ as Telemarketing
Referrals – The Lifeline of All Good Telemarketing Professionals!
I can’t forget my experience in selling when I was 18 years of age, I used to sell water bed. Then I encountered a prospect who rejected me for 6 times already but back on my mind circling what our manager keeps on telling me that the challenge in selling is when the customer says no, that’s why I didn’t give up that easily. I just simply told her the benefits of the product I’m selling, then vouala she signed up and pay the water bed in cash.
Look Shaun as far as I know, even if the person I’m talking to doesn’t need the products that I’m selling as long as he/she listens to me there’s a big possibility for him/her to buy the product, for as long as I’m persistent, I believe in the products that I’m selling and I could answer all the concerns that he/she has on his/her mind, I can guarantee you that he/she will definitely buy what I’m offering. That’s the MAGIC in selling.
If you want to sell someone, sell them on their own reasons: Reasons to address situations that they are comfortable revealing and that you both agree are pressing for a solution – it’s the pain / pleasure principle and the 80/20 rule at play again. 80%+ of sales occur to escape pain, the rest to gain pleasure.
In times of recession especially people will still spend money to rid themselves of pain, less so for “nice, but not necessary” pleasures.
1. The devil is in the detail: The prospect’s detail. There’s such a thing as knowing too much and talking your way past the sale. The reason good results I experienced happened was that emphasis was placed on their concerns not mine. Know the problems you’re uniquely able to remove first. Worry about the rest later.
3. Yes, to a point. I don’t know everything about every other telemarketing type service out there, and I don’t care to. Bottom line is that you demonstrate that there is a finite range of issues/problems/pains/situations that you do a great job addressing. If prospects have these, great you may be able to help if the conditions are agreeable to both parties.
4. Couldn’t agree more. The juicy stuff has to come from them though, doesn’t it?
5. Bun Fight! This can be avoided. If you’re qualification process and questions hold any weight, there should be no tug of war over objections. Overcoming objections is a verbal contact sport that neither party wins, makes the seller look defensive. In a dispute over whose data is more reliable, whether it’s factual or not, the seller loses, every time.
@Richard – Thanks for the comment, I also read something along those lines about ‘The Donald’. He once even waited over 10 years, preparing constantly, for a negotiation to take place on a building in New York. Now THAT’s preparation!!!
@Karl – Role playing has long been use to help practice new scripts and pitches, so youre definitely not alone, my man! The great thing about role playing is that you can practice ‘live’ so to speak without burning through any leads. So, practice away. Just make sure its with someone patient!
Keep the comments coming, people, it makes this all the more worthwhile, trust me.
For me, one thing that works really well is to do some role-playing. Especially if its a new script or client base that I’m calling.
I will run through the pitch several times myself, and then work with whoever can handle me pitching them over and over until I get use all the right answers to objections and questions properly.
This has worked well for me. It is something I learned from my mentor in Indiana years ago.
i think preparing for anything that you do is important. i remember reading somewhere once that donald trump spends days, sometimes weeks, preparing for the most simple of negotiations. i guess thats why he is so good at it.