Archive for the ‘small business marketing’ Category

Get all your sales quotes out within 48 hours

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Get all your sales quotes out within 48 hours. It is important to get into this vitally important habit. Quite simply it will get you more business. What other incentive could you need?!

I’m frequently amazed that clients do not have standards around this issue. They will often say that their telesales team members aren’t quick enough at following up proposals that they’ve sent out. Now, come on. Surely this should be an imposed standard, a minimum. Enforced if necessary. Really if you can’t get your team to follow these up quickly, you might as well pack up and go home.

Business is competitive

Beat your competitors - get your quotes in fast

Ensuring you have the 48 hour rule ensures you work to a standard. It keeps things moving. Momentum is good, especially in selling.

You will also find that frequently getting the quote or sales proposal out quickly will impress them. It will be fresher in their mind when they’re reading it, and if you get it there quicker than the competition, it might just help you get the order.

There are some other key reasons I find that help too. Writing and sending your sales proposal quickly gets it done while it’s freshest in your mind too. So you will probably be able to do it faster. It also gets it out of the way. You can clear the decks mentally. So if other things come up such as illness, meetings, work crises, you won’t have to go back to it.

And never ever leave it to do until after a holiday. But then you’d never do that anyway would you?

The lesson I’ve learned

Apart from all the above, I’ve never lost an order because the client thought I’d sent it in too quickly. However I have won many for this reason. Even within the last few months, an industrial distributor in Birmingham commissioned me to run a training programme for them as they got tired of waiting for the other 2 competitive quotes. Suits me and it’s simple.

Templates

To help you write and send out sales quotes and proposals quicker, have templates for proposals. Have a master template that you just edit.  This is much more effective than recreating the wheel each time. It will also save you time. Time you can use to go out on more sales calls selling.

 

 

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Posted in business development, business growth, Field sales training, sales development training, Sales tips, Selling advice, small business marketing, telemarketing, Telemarketing management, telesales, telesales team management, Telesales tips | No Comments »

Now is the time for small business to do your own telemarketing calls

Sunday, October 23rd, 2011

Top tips for small business to do your own business development calls. OK, so the business environment is challenging.

You can sit and wonder what to do to stimulate customers to come to you. Trouble is most of this costs : advertising, PR etc. A more cost effective way of doing it is to make your own sales calls. I always suggest starting with lapsed customers. These are the easiest to convert to becoming trading customers again.

Making small business proactive
Now is the time to become proactive

You can also spend time profiling people to call on Google. Why not do what we call twinning? Look at the customers you already have, and look for others like them. For instance if you do good business with pharmaceutical companies, look for more of them. If your business is geo-centric i.e. likely to be used by local businesses, look local.

It certainly isn’t worth putting together (or worse still) buying a list that is indiscriminate.  You’ll find it demoralising to keep talking to people who have no requirement for your product or service.  Certainly spending time analysing and building a good list to begin with will pay dividends.
Andrew is planning on running a range of marketing seminars over the coming months for owners of small businesses. Entitled ‘Selling your way out of recession’ it will focus on the easy approaches to selling that will give you the best opportunities to build your business or ensure it’s future (depending on where you are currently.)
Please drop us a note to info@tomarket.co.uk if you’d like more details about these sessions. They will be run in a series of locations, aimed at small business owners in Birmingham, Coventry, Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Coalville, Thrapston, Oakham, Uppingham and wider parts of the East and West Midlands.

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Posted in business development, business growth, Cold calling, Forthcoming courses, Marketing, owner managers directors, seminar, small business marketing | No Comments »

7 tips on how to make cold calls

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

7 tips on how to make cold calls. Need to make cold calls, but after some tips?

Making cold calls is an integral and therefore important part of growing your business. If you want new customers, you have to approach them for the first time (at some point !) If they come through advertising great, but if not, you’re going to have to pick the phone up and make that call. OK, so here’s some ideas on how to do it …….

 

Cold calling is an integral part of generating new business

Cold calling is an integral part of generating new business

1.  Remove the stigma of thinking of it as a cold call. It is just another business call that’s all. And remember everybody is your customer, it’s just that some of them haven’t bought from you yet.

2. Don’t have a script to use verbatim, but do have a call guide. A list of questions you ideally want to ask, and some words for the key message or messages you want to get across.

3.  Your main focus initially on the call should be to engage with the decision-maker on a human level, forget “trying to sell” for a moment and work to build a rapport, just as you would socially. Your first aim is to get them to warm to you.

 4.   Make sure your call is relevant to the target person, or make it relevant. If you can’t – don’t make the call, you’ll be wasting your time.

 5.   Be aware that as little as 5-20% of the impact of your communication comes from the words you use. The rest comes from the way you say it. So make sure you sound enthusiastic and believe in what you do. Refer to Jamie Oliver, Gok Wan and Mary Portas for details!

6.     Learn from every call you make. You’ll find phrases that people seem to respond well to, and perhaps benefits that don’t light people up. Change your approach as you learn.

 7.   Keep a record of all your call activity. So this includes number of calls, how many you get through to, and who you need to diarise for future contact. This will motivate you more even when you’re not getting the results. “At least I can see I’ve made 100 calls today ……..” Not every call gets you the perfect result, but sure as eggs is eggs, if you don’t make those 100 calls, you won’t get any of the perfect results!

 The best of luck.

To Market carries out telesales training and cold call training for teams across the West Midlands, East Midlands, as wll as Northampton, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Coventry, Birmingham, Wellingborough, Kettering, Corby, St Ives, Cambridge, Newmarket, Oakham, Uppingham, Loughborough, Warwick, Stratford on Avon, Leamington Spa plus Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, Warwickshire and Suffolk.

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Posted in business growth, owner managers directors, sales development training, Selling advice, small business marketing, telemarketing, telephone techniques | No Comments »

Buy some huge experience with a short term telesales manager

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Buy some huge experience with a short term telesales manager. There are other alternatives to simply recruiting and committing to the fixed cost that employing your own telesales or telemarketing manager involves.

The job market has changed a lot in the last 12 months or so, and there are a number of high quality people who have previously run successful telesales and telemarketing teams who are now out of work. And frankly the vast majority are open to suggestion.

There are alternative ways of getting the right manager for your team

There are alternative ways of getting the right manager for your team

You are therefore in a powerful position. You hold the cards. You therefore don’t have to recruit in the same way that you used to, at least not at the moment. A good quality interim telesales or telemarketing manager can help you by drawing on wide industry knowledge. You can benefit from cross industry best practice. Chances are the person currently heading your team the telesales manager, telesales team leader or telemarketing supervisor may have more limited experience.

An external interim manager should be able to offer you many things. They will know some great people to speak to, they can provide training for the team, and knowledge of how to set up systems that work, that are proven across industry.

We specialise in business to business for instance and have worked in many market sectors over the years including small business, insurance, packaging, plastic container manufacturing, automotive leasing, board printing, I.T., health and safety products, with directors of small to medium sized business, fork lift trucks,  software,  capital equipment, car finance, car dealerships, marketing agencies, outsourced telemarketing agencies, office cleaning, vending machines, event organisers, paper print, schoolwear, workwear, payroll training, healthcare insurance, optical services, plus many more !

We therefore have some good cross industry experience and we know of a few quality managers who are looking for the right position across the Midlands. For more information about how this may work for you, call us on 01858 461148  or e-mail us info@tomarket.co.uk. Get another job ticked off your list !

We can help you with phone team management and development across the Midlands including Birmingham, Coventry, Daventry, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Leicester, Loughborough, Cambridge, St Ives

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Posted in benchmarking telesales teams, Independent audit of telemarketing team, interim telesales manager, small business marketing, telemarketing, Telemarketing management, telesales, Telesales team assessment, telesales team management | No Comments »

Unsolicited telephone sales calls can be illegal

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Unsolicited telephone sales calls can be illegal. So this means you can’t simply start calling names and companies at random from a list. And you certainly can’t do what some companies used to do in the 80’s which was to call numbers out of the Yellow Pages to make sales calls. 

Make sure your telesales activity stays the right side of the law

Make sure your telesales activity stays the right side of the law

As long ago as December 2003, the government introduced legislation which made it unlawful to make unsolicited calls to individuals who have indicated that they do not want to receive such calls. Both consumers and businesses can register their unwillingness to receive telephone (TPS) and fax (FPS) communications on a central register.

Over 15 million consumers and businesses have already registered their numbers which means these businesses and consumers must not be contacted unless permission has been explicitly granted to the calling company. There is a potential fine of up to £5,000 for each breach of the legislation. So this means you must ensure your in-house list must be checked periodically, and any lists you buy in should already be TPS checked. Any reputable list supplier will do this as a matter of course.

Incidentally there is a shelf life of 3 months on these checks meaning that any list that has not been checked for 3 months should be checked again. There are many companies that will provide a service to check your numbers for you, such as www.numbercheck.co.uk.

We find that this is a much more serious issue if you operate and sell in consumer markets and phone people at home. Most companies don’t register their office numbers thank goodness as the whole economy would grind to a halt, but many householders do.

This is brought to you as part of  To Market’s public service! If you want further information or advice on this subject, we suggest you have a look at the telephone preference service’s website http://www.tpsonline.org.uk/ctps/what/ for all the official information.

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Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, owner managers directors, small business marketing, telemarketing, Telemarketing management, Telephone preference service, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »

Get flexibility with a short term telesales manager for your team

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Get more flexibility with a short term telesales manager for your team. You may be looking to beef up your team with the appointment of a manager. Perhaps you could promote someone from within the team. Maybe they lack some of the experience in the short -term. Alternatively you could look to hire someone who is the finished article – but naturally they cost more. You do have a third option. You could hire in an outside manager for a short period of time – to help you set up the structures and management processes. That way you get the experience and expertise without the ongoing financial commitment.

You have a limited commitment, and it will keep their focus on results for you. Naturally if they don’t help you and your company produce better results quickly, you won’t be keeping them on, will you ?!

You have options too, in terms of the number of days per month you hire them for. Generally we suggest 4 or 5. You have no social costs (NI, sickness etc), and you’re not paying turning up money. In other words they are there to do a job and produce.

Hiring an interim telesales manager may give you better flexibility in 2010

Hiring an interim telesales manager may give you better flexibility in 2010

There are many things a quality telesales or telemarketing manager can help you with. You can agree with them how to set up systems of telesales management. This way once they’ve set them up, you can then administer them yourself without the large overhead. Have a look at our published article at ezine articles http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Top-Tips-For-Setting-Up-an-Effective-In-House-Telesales-Or-Telemarketing-Team&id=2114456 for some of the detail.

You can also pick their brains about other forms of marketing for your business.  Development of your website, and other ideas on how to build inbound marketing are also important. Additionally a good telesales or telemarketing manager will probably have some great contacts especially if they’ve been in a consultancy type of role before. If you want to discuss how this may work for you, contact us, and we can tell you more about our experiences in this field helping clients.

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Posted in benchmarking telesales teams, interim telesales manager, small business marketing, telemarketing, Telemarketing management, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »

Get advice on why not to hire a new telesales manager

Monday, December 14th, 2009

Get advice on why not to hire a new telesales manager. If you are currently looking to build up the telesales or telemarketing function in your company, you may be looking at recruiting a new telesales manager. Alternatively you may be looking to recruit one who has left. However there is a flexible alternative.

Hiring a short term telesales manager gives your business flexibility

Hiring a short term telesales manager gives your business flexibility

You can hire in a manager for a limited period of time. You can agree some objectives for them, and you can ‘hire’ them for a fixed number of days per month. A package might be between a half a day per month and say 6 days per month. In this time a quality telesales or telemarketing manager will be able to help you set up good managment systems and KPIs (key performance indicators) for your team. They should also be responsible for training and agreeing with you some targets and benchmarks for activity and results.

We can come and have a chat over a coffee about how this may work for you.  We can give advice on what to look for, and what an interim or short term contract telesales manager may be able to offer you. So if you’re in Leicester, Northampton, Market Harborough, Corby, Wellingborough, Kettering, Lutterworth, Cambridge, Newmarket, Daventry, Coventry, Rugby, Birmingham, Lichfield, Solihull, Melton Mowbray, Uppingham, Oakham give us a call on 01858 461148  and we’ll have a chat.

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Posted in benchmarking telesales teams, Independent audit of telemarketing team, interim telesales manager, Marketing, owner managers directors, small business marketing, telemarketing, Telemarketing management, telesales team management | No Comments »

Don’t apologise for your sales call

Friday, December 11th, 2009

Don’t apologise for your sales call. What you or your team does is an important job. It was Robert Louis Stevenson who said “everyone lives by selling something.” You should never feel guilty about doing a sales role. I notice from team audits sometimes http://www.tomarket.co.uk/teamaudits.php that telesales or telemarketing staff routinely apologise to the decision maker, but this gets the call off on a submissive foot.

When working with an I.T. software provider recently and carrying out some work to benchmark their team, Nicole said on one call “this is just a brief call.” 

Tips and advice on making telesales calls

Tips and advice on making telesales calls

I don’t particularly like this phrase as it undermines what you are doing. It makes it sound a bit apologetic, and therefore indicates you’re ready for them to say they haven’t got time to talk to you. On one call in particular, when the decision maker wasn’t ready to move forward, she used the phrase ‘no problem at all’ three or four times in quick succession.  To show that we are mentally engaged it is important that we don’t overuse phrases too much.

So be loud, be proud ! If someone doesn’t want to speak to you, that’s fine, but always find out as much as you can about why not. Perhaps another time would be more convenient. In any case the more you can find out the better placed you’ll be. If they don’t want to talk, there is always a reason why. It may be that they don’t have a use for your services or product, but then you want to know that don’t you ?

And whatever you do, don’t ever say “this is a courtesy call !” Or at least not in my earshot anyway. I strongly dislike this phrase ! After all, what IS a courtesy call. An apologetic sales call ? Don’t get me started ………..

We regularly carry out telesales and telemarketing team audits in Leicester, Northampton, Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough, Loughborough, Coventry, Daventry, Birmingham, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, and Rugby and we now have a bank of team audit reports from industries such as vending machine suppliers, beverage systems, fork lift trucks, car leasing, car dealerships, plastics manufacturers, I.T. software developers, local councils, outsourced business services, telemarketing agencies, fire detection systems, industrial manufacturers and many more.

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

Small business owner in need of help developing telesales ?

Monday, December 7th, 2009

You run a small to medium sized business and you feel telesales has a place in your business. It is after all a proven and highly measurable way of developing new sales opportunities.  You’d either like to develop the team you already have, or alternatively you might be keen to set up a team.

Get personalised one to one mentoring help for your business

Get personalised one to one mentoring help for your business

The thing is you’re an expert in something else – not in setting up and running a telesales or telemarketing team. Furthermore you probably don’t want to be !  

We may be able to help. We can offer bespoke tailored mentoring work with you personally, to help you develop your telesales or telemarketing team. And if we are working with you personally, there is also the possibility that some or all of it could be funded through Train to Gain.

If this is something of interest to you, and you’re based in Leicester, Northampton, Market Harborough, Corby, Wellingborough, Kettering, Lutterworth, Cambridge, Daventry, Coventry, Rugby, Melton Mowbray, Uppingham, Oakham we can help. First we’d like to have a chat over a coffee at your place – and we can take it from there. Give us a call on 01858 461148. We’d be keen to offer you any help, advice or tips we can.

You get some specific tailored help directly applicable to the needs of your business. We can provide you with anything from half a day per month to 5 days per month.

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Posted in business development, business growth, Free training, Funded training, Marketing, owner managers directors, partially funded training, Personal development, sales development training, small business marketing, telesales team management, Train to Gain funding | No Comments »