Here’s the first of a two-part guest post from regular Telesales Magic contributor Paul Archer of Archer Training. This time round Paul discusses how important it is to listen to your prospects and clients when selling them on the phone (or face to face, even).

Your Own Volume Control – Listening on the telephone in fact listening in general, has to be one of he hardest things to do continuously.  Yes we can all listen for five minute bursts but to do it all day every day, just has to be hard graft.

So next time you feel your listening ability has taken an early bath imagine your very own personal volume control. Now your volume control has 3 levels – 1, 2 and 3.

Most of the time it’s on level 1 which is selfish listening and there’s nothing wrong with this. Only the other day I was on a business trip to a strange airport and I was operating on level 1 listening.  I was looking out for signs and noises that would help me on my journey.  I wasn’t interested in anyone else just myself and my next steps. But in selling or dealing with people on the phone, we mustn’t focus on just ourselves.  We need to get into their shoes and that’s level 2 on your volume control.

Read the full story

This is a Guest Post from Julian Blee, of Fat Cat Ideas.

Way back in 1993 I was given my first opportunity to run a telesales floor. I was working for a firm of stockbrokers in London and I was super bullish and proud to be a broker. I marched across London Bridge each morning with the Financial Times under the arm of my chalk stripe suit. The wind would sometimes blow my jacket open to reveal the salmon pink silk lining and the bright red braces that held my trousers up.  (I can’t even look at the pictures of me then without my face turning redder than the braces I wore.)  I was 25 years old and full of myself.

In my new position I was intent on only taking on the loudest and most aggressive salespeople in the City. I had every intention of breaking all of the sales targets that I was given in record time. Admittedly, I did do very well there. However, I also made a complete hash of things for the first 3 to 6 months. I was lucky that my boss at the time believed in me and perpetually guided me and stopped me from crashing my sales floor into a proverbial tree every month.

Read the full story