Posts Tagged ‘Telephone skills’
Friday, November 26th, 2010
Telephone selling in commodity markets – ask for the order.
You may well work in some form of commodity market. I always feel selling in these situations is particularly challenging. You don’t get much chance to use your selling skills, and certainly limited opportunities to talk benefits. The customer is simply doing a phone round, and frankly unless you’re the cheapest – the lowest price, you’re unlikely to get the order. This may make you feel a bit downhearted like the lady in the picture below.
- Ask for the order – telephone sales tip
It is important though to remember to ask for the order. Basic advice I know, but how often is it neglected? Especially when you’re already conditioned to think that they won’t want to buy from you, at least not until they’ve completed a phone round.
I was recently sat with a client who is in a commodity selling market. We have carried out a range of training and one of the key things has been to get the team of 7 to ask for the order whenever they quote. The client proudly told me that the team has generated 13% more sales in the 3 months since training than in the 3 months before! Admittedly this is not all down to the team just asking this one question. We’ve done a fair amount of training, and the client has also been proactive in developing more attractive packages and training on product knowledge. However a 13% increase in sales volume is good – however it has been achieved.
Part of my advice was to ensure that the question – asking for the order accompanied requests for quotes. Then back it up with a benefit statement. So it might sound like this “OK, I can supply that for you at £120 per kilo, and we can have it delivered for you by the day after tomorrow. Would you like me to organise that for you?” After all, remember the old maxim if you don’t ask they can’t say yes!
You might be expecting a fob-off, but ask the question anyway, you’ll be surprised how many times it works. And what’s the worst that will happen? They’ll give you the fob-off anyway. Remember customers just want life to be made easy for them. And sometimes, they can’t really be bothered to carry on phoning around especially if what they may save is fairly small beer.
Remember fortune favours the brave! So be brave and you will be rewarded. Enjoy your selling.
To Market runs telephone sales, telemarketing and customer service training courses across the East Midlands, Peterborough, Cambridge, Leicester, Northampton, Derby, Nottingham, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Coventry, Birmingham, Lichfield, Solihull, Peterborough, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, Milton Keynes, Lincoln, East Midlands as well as wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Buckinghamshire, Warwickshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
Tags: advanced telephone selling, closing advice, closing techniques, selling on the telephone, Telephone skills, telephone techniques, telephone techniques training, tips on closing, tips on telephone selling
Posted in Field sales training, sales development training, Selling advice, telephone techniques, telesales, Telesales tips | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
Our final 2 day telesales masterclass will run on 14th & 15th December 2010 in Northamptonshire or Leicestershire.
telesales training - 2 day Masterclass - Leicestershire / Northamptonshire
We’ve chosen these dates as clients tell us things often get a bit quieter just before Christmas and as a result it is a better time for training. This 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, Peterborough, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Oadby, Market Harborough, Hinckley, Oakham, Warwick, Leamington Spa, Stratford on Avon as well as wider parts of Leicestershire, Northamptonshire, West Midlands and East Midlands. BOOK NOW for places on 14th - 15th December 2010 course.
Tags: selling on the telephone, Telephone behaviour, telephone selling, Telephone skills, telephone techniques, telesales courses, telesales masterclass, telesales training
Posted in Cold calling, communication skills, Forthcoming courses, Overcoming objections, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »
Friday, November 27th, 2009
How to sell the delivery charge on small orders. Many clients are looking to protect margins in what are increasingly competitive markets at the moment. We recently completed some training and development work with a chemical supplies company. They supply a range of chemical based products to customers in varied market sectors. One item some members of the team struggled with was the newly introduced minimum order value for free delivery. In the report we wrote ;
telephone techniques - tips on increasing order value
“One small observation I would make is that I would prefer them to offer the alternative price inclusive of delivery rather than saying “and delivery will be an extra £13 if your order is less than £50.” What I am aiming at is to make it easy for the customer to know the total cost rather than making them very aware of what they are being asked to pay as delivery. So instead of it being “well that’s £25 plus a £13 delivery charge”, they could express it as “that will be “£25 or £38 delivered.” In my experience what we all want to know is how much something is going to cost us rather than how it is broken down. Also by saying how much the delivery charge is, you are focusing them on it as a stand alone item.
Another idea I had when sitting with Kate is to look for added value business as a way of ‘helping’ customers get around the delivery charge. Kate admitted that this hasn’t been tried. There must be items that are fairly low cost that everybody would have a use for. While I don’t know about all the items in your catalogue things like plasters, hand cleaning towels, and barrier creams would fit this description. So if someone is placing an order for £35 for instance you could at least ask the question to see if they would add such consumable items to their order to “take advantage of a lower delivery charge.“ In effect of course it means that these additional items are being discounted by £7.50, and you may just generate considerably more business from some of these low cost items.”
There are many ways of delivering lines to customers that will make them more appealing. It just requires a little thought, and some empathy for your customer. After all customers frequently just want life to be made easy for them. And if you appear to have the answers, you will often get the business from them with little drama.
To Market works with companies to help them sell delivery charges to more people more often across the East and West Midlands including Birmingham, Lichfield, Solihull, Tamworth, Coventry, Daventry, Northampton, Wellingborough, Corby, Kettering, Leicester, Loughborough, Coalville, Melton Mowbray, Oakham, Derby, Nottingham, Oadby, Cambridge, Newmarket and London.
Tags: advice for free on telephone selling, telephone communications skills, Telephone skills, telesales advice, telesales top tips for free, telesales training, telesales tricks, tips on telephone selling
Posted in benchmarking telesales teams, communication skills, Independent audit of telemarketing team, Overcoming objections, Telemarketing management, telephone techniques, telesales, Telesales team assessment, telesales team management, Telesales tips | No Comments »
Friday, November 20th, 2009
How to deal with – “I’m happy with my current supplier.” This is one of the most common objections you face in any form of selling. As a result it is worth building some ‘script’ in your head at least to help you combat it.
After all, if you can make 10% difference to your success in handling this objection, think what difference this would make to your sales results.
Happy with my current supplier - how to deal with that old chestnut
There are many things you can do and say to deal with such objections. Follow this link to the full article we’ve written on ezine http://ezinearticles.com/?Objection-Handling—Im-Happy-With-My-Current-Supplier-Thanks&id=3289726
It is also worth spending a little time with your colleagues brainstorming some ideas. Combining your ideas in this way builds synergy, creates team spirit and helps everyone. One of our clients has recently started doing this every Monday morning and is already seeing more positive results and a better team atmosphere.
Tags: dealing with objections, handling objections, overcoming objections, overcoming objections on the telephone, telephone selling, Telephone skills, telephone techniques, telephone techniques training, telesales advice, telesales training
Posted in Field sales training, Overcoming objections, sales development training, Selling advice, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales, Telesales tips | No Comments »
Friday, October 30th, 2009
Many vending machine companies use telesales teams to develop new business. To Market has been commissioned by many vending machine operators to help improve the appointment rate of the office based sales team. Alternatively some vending machine companies allocate a day a week or so for their field sales representatives to book their own appointments. The way you structure this will largely depend on the size of your company.
Vending machines - Big in Japan
In Japan according to the Japanese Vending Machine Association, there is one vending machine for every 23 people ! So vending machines are clearly big in Japan. So plenty of room for growth in the UK market then ?!
We’ve done telesales training for vending machine companies and helped them improve their telephone sales call structure, and helped implement a more disciplined approach to making these proactive business development calls.
We also carry out team audits on teams like yours. On one visit to a vending industry company we spotted that although their product knowledge was good, they didn’t spend enough care and talk time building rapport on the calls. As a result their appointment rates were poor.
With a programme of training, we were able to address this and in the 3 months after training, appointment rates increased 30%. Not everyone perhaps wants this rate of business growth, but if you’ve read this far I suspect you do !!
Tags: appointment making on the telephone, appointment setting by phone, telephone sales, Telephone skills, telesales training
Posted in benchmarking telesales teams, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales, Telesales team assessment, telesales team management, Telesales tips, vending | No Comments »
Monday, October 26th, 2009
The 11 main telephone sales objections are here if you follow this link….http://ezinearticles.com/?The-11-Main-Objections-You-Face-on-the-Telephone&id=3115852
- What are the major telephone sales objections you face ?
It is easy when working on the phone to think that the objections you face in your telesales or telemarketing role are unique. But of course most other people face the same objections in their role too. OK, the language may be a bit different but in essence it’s the same thing.
All you have to do is develop the script – the words to deal with these.
We are working on an audio product – a CD to help with some generic advice and we’d like you to help us put this list together. The more of you contribute ideas to this process the better our finished product will be, because it will more closely fit what real people find doing real telesales in the real world.
So e-mail us the top 5 objections you face on the phone to
info@tomarket.co.uk and we’ll incorporate it into our work.
Tags: how to be good at telemarketing, objection handling training, Telephone skills, telephone techniques, telesales training, training for telemarketing
Posted in communication skills, Overcoming objections, sales development training, Selling advice, telemarketing, Telemarketing management, telephone techniques, telesales, telesales team management | Comments Off
Wednesday, February 25th, 2009
Telesales masterclass on 9th & 10th September – so straight after the school holidays ! This course is ideal for anyone in Leicester, Northampton, Coventry, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough, Peterborough, Milton Keynes, or wider parts of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire.
This 2 day telesales and telemarketing training course is for anyone who wants to be selling more on the phone, and covers a range of selling techniques, telephone selling, and closing the sale. The telesales course will be a lively, fun 2 days helping you adopt new communication skills techniques.
We will be covering how to open a sales call, telephone techniques plus communication topics such as questioning skills, identifying needs, probing, dealing with objections, selling benefits.
You can e-mail us for more details including course schedule and fees at info@tomarket.co.uk. If required you can reserve a place at no obligation and then let us know if you want to book. This course will be run by Andrew Seaward – Senior Trainer at To Market
Tags: corby, coventry, kettering, leicester, Leicestershire, northampton, Northamptonshire, sales skills, selling on the telephone, selling techniques, telemarketing training, Telephone skills, telephone techniques, telesales training Leicester, training in telesales, Wellingborough
Posted in communication skills, Forthcoming courses, Getting past gatekeepers, Overcoming objections, Selling advice, telephone techniques, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
Now is the time to ramp up your sales and marketing activity.
While it may seem the time to cut back and reduce cost, this is true in most areas – but with sales and marketing it is even more important to maintain and step up contact with customers.
Customers are in the stronger bargaining position at the moment and how will they decide who to spend their hard earned with ? The company who is nice to them and makes it easy to buy from.
And this needn’t cost lots either. There is a good chance that you have sales people in your organisation, and they are ideally placed to make some of this effort. Now is the time to spend more time in the office, park up the car and get on the phone, or send out some letters, or brainstorm some ideas between you on ways of repackaging and offering your products and services.
Our colleagues over at the Ideal Marketing Company in Leicestershire and Northamptonshire specialise in helping small to medium sized businesses develop great marketing ideas that work and either cost little or nothing at all. Follow this link www.idealmarketingcompany.co.uk to find out more about their PR and low cost marketing seminars that cover Leicester, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Wellingborough and beyond !
We encourage some creative thinking too. We will be running a range of small scale marketing workshops and seminars soon covering telephone selling, how to develop better relationships over the phone, and customer service over the phone. Drop us a brief e-mail to info@tomarket.co.uk if you’d like us to make you aware of these events when the dates and venues are announced. They will cover Oxford, Banbury, Cambridge, Birmingham, Solihull, Leicester, Northampton, Nottingham, Milton Keynes, Peterborough and St. Ives
Tags: marketing seminars, selling in a recession, telemarketing seminars, Telephone skills, telesales advice, telesales techniques, telesales workshop
Posted in communication skills, customer services, Selling advice, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009
Apparently there’s a bit of a recession on at the moment ! Only last week (mid January) the figures came out to confirm it ! Well that’s come as a bit of a bolt out of the blue hasn’t it ?!
It has been said by many wise people that “you can’t change what has happened to you, but you can decide how you will deal with it.”
So let’s get a positive attitude and get over it shall we ?!
Apparently this has been one of the longest bear markets for a while – 16 years. There is normally a market correction or recession every 10 years or so. Our job then is to come up with strategies and ways of dealing with it.
Now is the time to review the products and services you offer your customers. You have got time to try new ideas, now is the time to review your communication strategy with all of your customers - both those who are still with you, and those who used to buy your products and have stopped for whatever reason.
Now is the time to look at getting some ideas from your front line troops on ways your organisation could improve, and now is the time to look for some additional training and development ideas for them. They may well need help and motivation to help you win the business that is out there at the moment.
Even if you haven’t got any more than £100 to spend, you can still have access to the training CDs available through www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk They’re currently only £16.99 delivered and ordering is easy through PayPal. They cover customer service training, telesales tips, telemarketing techniques and ideas on self-development.
Remember one of Churchill’s lesser known quotes “I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.” How true.
Tags: customer service training, personal self-development, positive mental attitude, telemarketing training, Telephone skills, telephone techniques training, telesales training, training CDs
Posted in communication skills, customer services, Selling advice, telemarketing, telesales | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009
You have an opportunity to join us for a one day telesales course in Corby on 22nd January.
We have been commissioned to run a course by a Northamptonshire training company on that day. Some of the delegates will be theirs, but we have 2 places available at the moment.
This course is highly suitable for any telesales or telemarketing people, especially if you’re based in Northampton, Corby, Kettering, Wellingborough, Peterborough, Leicestershire or Northamptonshire. You can e-mail us at info@tomarket.co.uk for more course details, but the course will cover ;
· Discussion on the key things that work and don’t work in verbal communication (and how all these things are mostly based around just 2 key principles !)
· The true impact of Expression, Energy and Emphasis. How just the opening 6 words of a call can tell you 40 + things about a stranger (you can’t even see !)
· Questioning skills. To understand what different types of questions there are, how to know when to use them, and how to structure a good sales call around good questioning techniques. We also demonstrate how it makes people like you more too !
· Understanding the sales process so as to be able to navigate your way through an effective call. How to know what to do, when. This will cover ;
o How to open a telesales call (and how it’s different to face to face sales.)
o Identifying customer needs
o Use of quality questions to unearth the right information and build rapport
o Dealing with different types of customer
o How to wrap up a sales call
· How to organise your telephone sales activity (to get the most out of your time)
· Who to prioritise to get the best chance of success
· Getting past gatekeepers. Understanding that it is all part of the game
· Opening lines to use to create interest
· Ways of dealing with the dreaded ‘price objection’
· How to sell on things other than price
The fee for this course is just £199 + VAT per delegate. In return we will feed you, give you warm drinks, a set of notes and a host of useful and motivational ideas and new techniques to try !
Tags: corby, getting past gatekeepers, northampton, Northamptonshire, overcoming objections on the telephone, selling on the telephone, Telephone skills, telephone techniques training, telesales masterclass, telesales training, teleselling
Posted in communication skills, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales | No Comments »