Archive for the ‘communication skills’ Category

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The magic ingredient that will help you get on in life – ENTHUSIASM

Friday, June 25th, 2010

The magic ingredient that will help you get on in life is ENTHUSIASM and it’s close associate ENERGY.

I often sit there watching TV at night wondering what makes those who offer us advice on all manner of aspects of our life, celebrities. Is it that they’re the most highly qualified in their field? Not usually. Are they the brightest or most experienced? Again not necessarily. But what they all possess in common is enthusiasm for what they do and energy around doing it. This is especially true of the TV chefs. I always think people like Jamie Oliver and Rick Stein really love what they do. The cynic may say, well yes “if I was earning what they were earning, I could be enthusiastic too.” But of course it doesn’t happen that way round does it? You have to put the effort in first and loads of energy, then the rewards will come. Ok, that’s the moralising over!

Enthusiasm and energy are what will get you waht you want from life

Enthusiasm and energy are what will get you what you want from life

If you’re selling your business to others as a business owner or director or you’re employed in a sales position, it is really important – vital in fact that you’re communication  reflects this positive attitude and strong belief.

Those of you who have already been on one of courses and done the work on ‘Expression, Energy and Emphasis’ will know that you can tell 40+ things about a total stranger from the opening 6 words of a telephone conversation! Remember grey, red, pink & fluffy and the brown man ?!

The energy in your voice will say more about you than you will ever realise. Make it part of your power of attraction. Jamie does.

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Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, Selling advice, Telemarketing management, Telesales tips, communication skills, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »

Befriend the gatekeeper – it’s the only way !

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Befriend the gatekeeper – it’s the only way ! Honestly, it is !

Gatekeepers, receptionists, secretaries, PAs can be the bane of your life to any aspiring telemarketing or telesales person, and this is a hot topic when we discuss telesales or telemarketing training with clients. However it is important to remember a few truths.

Befriending gatekeepers - get them onside

Befriending gatekeepers - get them onside

First the gatekeeper has all the power. They decide whether they are going to put you through or not. So why take them on ? No point.

And like anyone else they will respond better to people they warm to. Be friendly and human with them. This doesn’t mean talking about lots of random “I’m trying to be your best friend” type of stuff either.

Use words like help, advise, suggest as this subtley shows that you respect their position. “I know Phil Smith is busy, but can you RECOMMEND the best time to get hold of him ?” You may be surprised how many times these types of approaches work.

Always be polite and respectful, and it will get you more of what you want.

If you speak to the gatekeeper a lot, then it is fine to develop a more social relationship – ask them about their holiday etc, but never do this if it may be considered to be inappropriate.

Getting past the gatekeeper is one of the hot topics at the moment on telesales and telemarketing courses, and so we are looking to include this in a series of short, sharp training sessions we will be running, monthly 2 hour open course training over a 12 month period. These will be offered to businesses across Birmingham, Solihull, Lichfield, Coventry, Derby, Nottingham, Mansfield, Leicester, Coalville, Loughborough, London, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Grantham, Stamford, Peterborough, Cambridge, Newmarket, Bury St Edmunds, Warwick, Leamington Spa, Stratford, Kettering, Wellingborough, Corby, Market Harborough,  as well as wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Warwickshire, the East Midlands and West Midlands.

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Posted in Getting past gatekeepers, Overcoming objections, Selling advice, Telesales tips, communication skills, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales | No Comments »

Telephone techniques training course – 1 day

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Telephone techniques course – 1 day course. We’re just putting the finishing touches to our latest one day course in telephone techniques for all business people who use the phone talking to customers.  This series of one day courses is being offered at venues across the Midlands including Leicester, Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough, Northampton, Loughborough, as well as Birmingham, Milton Keynes, Cambridge, St Ives, Coventry and Daventry. 

Raise your game and build better relationships with your customers

Raise your game and build better relationships with your customers

Whereas our ‘full fat’ 2 day courses are generally aimed at either Telesales OR customer service, this one day compact course is for all staff who deal with customers.

It covers all the basic things you need to be aware of when dealing with customers. In just one day you will cover ;

  • Listening skills
  • Questioning skills
  • Expression (how your voice tells the other person more about you than you will ever know.)
  • Mixed messages (why the message you send is not always the message they receive.)

Attending our course will increase your awareness of yours and your customers communication skills. This will enable you to build better empathy with your customers, thus ensuring better long-term trading relationships.

Better communications skills and telephone techniques leads to more sales and a greater customer experience. If you are interested in this compact telephone skills course in Birmingham, Daventry, Coventry, Leicester, Northampton, Kettering, Cambridge, St Ives, Solihull, Lichfield, Loughborough or anywhere across the East and West Midlands, drop us a line to info@tomarket.co.uk and we’ll send you more information.

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Posted in Forthcoming courses, communication skills, telephone techniques, telesales | No Comments »

Customer Service masterclass training – Leicester / Northampton – 24th – 25th August 2010

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Customer Service masterclass training - Leicestershire / Northamptonshire – 24th - 25th August 2010. 2 day course ideal for anyone who talks to customers on the telephone in a customer service role : customer service, contact centre, call centre, internal sales etc.

Customer Service 2 day training - Autumn 2009

Customer Service 2 day training - February 2010

Customer service course will cover key communications skills for offering exceptional customer service. Includes questioning skills, listening skills, mixed messages (why the message you send is not the message they receive) plus we’ll show you how the first 6 words you say to someone over the phone can tell the other person 40 plus things about you.

If you want more customers, and to develop more loyalty from the people you currently sell to, we’ll show you how. Get more customers, more often, who will stay for longer and spend more. Follow the link to find out about the dates of all forthcoming open courses. http://www.tomarket.co.uk/courses.php

2 day customer service course ideal for anyone in Birmingham, Cambridge, Leicester, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Stamford, Grantham, Wellingborough, Loughborough, Coalville, Oadby, Oakham, Uppingham, Rutland, Derby, Coventry, Nottingham, Hinckley, Lutterworth and all parts of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. 24th – 25th August 2010.

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Posted in Forthcoming courses, communication skills, customer handling, customer services, telephone techniques | No Comments »

Telesales masterclass – Leicester / Northampton 26th – 27th July 2010

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Telesales masterclass – Leicestershire / Northamptonshire 26th – 27th July 2010.  Dates for the next open course for telesales and telemarketing personnel now set.

2 days to help you be better !

2 days to help you be better !

Our course will cover all the key elements of communication skills and how to structure an effective sales call. We’ll be covering top tips and techniques for dealing with objections, listening skills, questioning skills – what the different questions are, when to use them and how to structure a powerful telephone sales call around good questioning. Add into that an introduction to the 2 stage process for directing the conversation, and a couple of hours on how to structure powerful telesales and telemarketing calls and you have the basic tools to make sure you convert more opportunities that come your way on the phone. Contact us for more details on 01858 461148. You can download a copy of a telesales course schedule directly from the site http://www.tomarket.co.uk/course-schedules.php 

This 2 day course is ideal for anyone in Derby, Nottingham, Coventry, Leicester, Birmingham, Cambridge, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Oadby, Market Harborough, Hinckley and Oakham as well as wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, West Midlands and East Midlands. Leicestershire 26th - 27th July 2010.

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Posted in Forthcoming courses, Overcoming objections, Selling advice, communication skills, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques | 1 Comment »

Council customer service training – open course East Midlands

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Council customer service training – open course East Midlands 9th March 2010.

Councils all around the country are under increasing pressure to upskill their customer facing staff, both from government and from customers of course ! There is also a general trend to establishing centralised customer service teams as opposed to the strongly departmental set up previously. Some of you are further down the road with this programme than others.

We have worked with a number of councils in the East Midlands undergoing this transition. So having run a number of bespoke courses to include customer service both on the telephone and also face to face, we are opening up this training as an open course.

 

The fee represents a huge saving of over 50%, compared to what our clients in the private sector would pay.

 

The course will run week commencing 8th March so if you have unallocated budget left, it can come out of this year’s budget.

 

The course will cover aspects of customer service including ;

 

  • Listening skills
  • Questioning skills
  • Building rapport
  • Directing the conversation
  • What makes excellent customer service

If this is something you are interested in, simply e-mail us info@tomarket.co.uk. We will then send out more details about the precise dates, and the venue (not booked yet, but likely to be the East Midlands.) We will also send you a copy of the full course schedule with details of all the modules which will be covered during the day.

 

Lunch and refreshments will be served and each delegate will get a full set of printed notes.

 

Why might you be interested ?

There are a number of reasons why this may be of interest to you. I believe that this is a unique course – I have not found any other courses specifically for customer service in councils. Here are some of the key reasons

 

  • Support in the development of your people (who are the face of your organisation)
  • To add to their skills in their increasingly general role
  • Customer service is a key aspect of your business process
  • You may have some budget left
  • They will also benefit from sharing experiences in a room with people from other councils. (While this isn’t specifically what the course is aimed at, it is a very useful by-product.)

We’d be interested to know your thoughts on this course even if it’s not for you at the moment. You’re welcome to phone or e-mail us.

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Posted in Councils customer service training, communication skills, customer handling, customer services, telephone techniques | No Comments »

Getting past the gatekeeper – 5 top tips

Tuesday, January 19th, 2010

Getting past the gatekeeper – 5 top tips. One of the parts of our interactive training sessions I particularly enjoy is when we brainstorm ideas as a group. This is one of the fun parts of our training work on getting past the gatekeeper, or getting past the receptionist as it often is.

Here are 5 top tips that have come from training groups we’ve run ;

  1. Build in continuity if you’ve spoken to them before “He asked me to call him” or if untrue, instead try “we agreed to speak round about now ……”
  2. Go via another department (accounts or HR for instance) and ask to be transferred. This also often helps get the name.
  3. Ask for them by name : directly, assertively and confidently. You could also simply ask for them by their first name if appropriate.
  4. Use the fear close. Spell out ‘dangers’ of not taking your call. Does depend on the industry you’re in. This can work with compliance industries such as Health & Safety. Not many receptionists will be brave enough to block you in response to lines such as “I just wanted to chat to him about the forthcoming legislation and I’ve got some information for him that will help you stay the right side of the law” will they ?! 
  5. Be prepared to engage the receptionist or PA in conversation. Use their name back to them, and use words like help, advise and suggest. You will be appealing to their ego and sense of power.

There are many m0re of these tips and we are collecting more all the time, but I hope these help you. They certainly help us, and the countless people we work with. The best of luck, and I mean that most sincerely folks !

To Market runs training sessions to include this bane of our lives across the Midlands including Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Northampton, Corby, Kettering, Loughborough, Daventry, St Ives, Cambridge and wider parts of the East and West Midlands

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Posted in Getting past gatekeepers, Overcoming objections, Selling advice, Telesales tips, communication skills, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales | 2 Comments »

What to do if you lose an order

Monday, January 18th, 2010

Sadly sometimes it’s gonna happen. Despite your best efforts and the positive thoughts you had about this job, you find out you did not get it. At this point many salespeople simply give up and move on. After all there’s plenty more fish in the sea. However you’re a professional and so you’re keen to learn as much as you can from this situation. Good !

Professional telesales & lost orders

Professional telesales & lost orders

Often you will hear of this lost order indirectly. It seems customers don’t want to deliver bad news in person. So strangely if you’re going to get additional information about what happened and why, you will need to make it easy for them ! As I said – strange that !!

Contact them by phone, and explain that you’re keen to learn from the experience both personally and from the company’s point of view. Phrases such as “I’m interested in knowing about how we stand in the market place and so I’d like to ask you why on this occasion we weren’t successful in winning your business. Hopefully that way we can learn from it, and improve what we do in future.”

Because their guard is down, you will often find out valuable information. It will also tell you about what is important to them in choosing a supplier. You will be amazed how often it isn’t the price !

Having a dialogue with the customer is important too as it helps you start the dialogue for next time. And as many of your other competitors won’t be doing this, it starts to build your opportunities for next time. Also of course, if your victorious competitor lets them down, they’ll be on the hunt for an alternative supplier. And if you’ve already spoken to them and they know you’re not harbouring a grudge, they’re much more likely to try you aren’t they ?

To Market runs training for companies across the Midlands including Birmingham, Lichfield, Solihull, Coventry, Leicester, Northampton, Wellingborough, Cambridge, St Ives, Corby, Kettering, Daventry and wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire and the West Midlands

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Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, Telemarketing management, Telesales team assessment, Telesales tips, communication skills, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales | No Comments »

Keep telesales language and suggestions positive

Friday, January 8th, 2010

What you say on the phone is extremely important. And people you talk to will pick up on things without you or them even realising it ! Also remember that what you say reflects what is going on in your head, (the internal dialogue as NLP practitioners call it) so staying  positive is key.

When carrying out team audits with telesales, telemarketing and internal sales teams we often notice agents being apologetic or negative about the suggestions they are making. This is a great shame as it undermines what you are offering.

Positive language and suggestion will help you sell more

Positive language and suggestion will help you sell more

On one team audit we carried out for a Midlands based vending machine company we advised the client to brush up on some of the sales language. “Is there any way I can send some info out ?” suggests that you are asking them a big favour. It also implies you are expecting a ‘No’ too.  In training, we often talk about how asking a question framed as a suggestion sounds so much more assertive. An alternative therefore might be “OK, what I’d like to do is send you some information about our latest range of vending machines. I’ll then give you a call early next week when you’ve had the chance to have a look at it. Is that ok ?”  

I’m not pretending that making such changes to your ’script’ is easy to do instinctively, being a good salesperson requires practice, and so does being an effective phoner. And remember your voice is the only tool you have to use.

On another team audit http://www.tomarket.co.uk/teamaudits.php with a company in the board packaging industry we noted the need to minimise negative language. One one call Tim said “I’ll find out what went wrong” in answer to a question from a customer who’d had problems with a previous product. There are other ways of wording this so that it doesn’t sound so serious. “Ok, I’ll have a look into that for you, and I’ll ask Sharon our product devlopment manager to give you a call to discuss it with you. Would that be ok ?” 

Finally when talking business with clients and prospects avoid provocative phrases “to avoid harassing you on a weekly basis.” Make it sound warm and human by all means but don’t ’suggest’ things which have negative imagery. Unless you’re marketing Marmite – in which case “you’ll either love it or you’ll hate it” is probably ok !

This is a topic that comes up frequently in our courses in Leicester, Northampton, Birmingham, Coventry, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Daventry, Solihull, Lichfield, Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough, Nottingham, Derby, Loughborough, Melton Mowbray as well as wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, the East and West Midlands

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Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, Selling advice, Telesales team assessment, benchmarking telesales teams, communication skills, telephone techniques, telesales, vending | No Comments »

Questions really are the answer

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Questions really are the answer. It is true that good and effective questioning skills are key to building good relationships with your customers and prospects. And remember that everyone is a customer, it’s just that some of them haven’t bought from you yet !

Questioning skills are key to build good relationships with customers

Questioning skills are key to building good relationships with customers

I was with a customer yesterday who was talking about the fact that his sales team who deal with customers on the phone and on the trade counter don’t readily offer alternatives when a customer asks for a product which is out of stock. This is so important for a number of reasons.

First it is important to remember that a customer who calls you on the phone or in person really wants to go away with their problem solved. They don’t really want to have to try somewhere else or phone around. So in fact, by offering alternatives you are potentially solving a problem for them. Be proactive – it is good selling and good customer service.

Secondly a customer or client can often go away with a solution that they’re happy with, or in some instances happier with than what they thought they needed ! Use your experience and expertise to offer them other things they may not be aware of.

And the best way of offering advice and alternatives is by questioning. Only by using quality questioning skills will you be able to find out all you need to know about the customer’s application and their requirements. That is important as the advice you come back with, is likely to be more useful to them. They will also respect the fact that you’ve listened and shown some interest in them.

Questions then really are the answer, as they help you find out the things you need to know and at the same time it helps you build rapport because you show interest. It works for professionals such as lawyers, accountants, detectives and doctors. Let it work for you too.

To Market runs training sessions that include beefint up your questioning techniques across the West and East Midlands including Birmingham, Coventry, Derby, Nottingham, Daventry, Solihull, Lichfield, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough, Leicester, Northampton and London 

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Posted in Customer Service tips, Field sales training, Selling advice, Telesales tips, communication skills, customer handling, telephone techniques, telesales | No Comments »

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