Posts Tagged ‘Telesales tips’

Telemarketing scripting – why it’s a good idea

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Telemarketing scripting – the case in favour. Scripts have a bad press. Many people recoil in horror at the very mention of the word – but wait – hear me out! The reason I suspect that many people don’t like scripts is because we associate them with half-witted telesales and telemarketing people calling us (often at home), not knowing what they’re talking about, with poor knowledge of their products or services. Furthermore if you DARE to ask them a question, they’re thrown, because you are taking them off script.

Telesales and telemarketing training

Telemarketing scripts maybe not such a bad idea

However, it is important to have a structure for your call.  So perhaps it’s semantics – we need a call guide rather than a script.   What is important though is that you sound like it’s your words. Learn to ‘act’ and ‘feel’ the script, not just ‘read’ it.  Remember all movies are scripted. Those presented with Academy awards and Oscars are not ad libbing. They are won by people who make the script sound real, they ‘act’ the script. This takes thought and practice, but it can be done.

Have a strong idea of what you want to say and where you want to the call to go.  This includes the ability to respond to any specific comment or qusestion your prospect asks. Deal with it, and then you can return to your script (sorry call guide.) Following this will ensure you make more consistent calls and surprise, surprise you’ll achieve more consistent results.

To Market runs telephone sales and telemarketing 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

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Posted in Cold calling, sales development training, sales lead generation, Sales tips, Selling advice, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales, Telesales tips | 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 »

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

Quality questions – telesales use

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Having a range of quality questions to use when talking to prospects on the phone can be massively helpful and can get you further than perhaps your competitors will on the phone. You may have done work on open and closed questions before. You may even have done them with us.

Questioning techniques for telesales and telemarketing

Questioning techniques for telesales and telemarketing

 

The next stage is to develop some great questions that will help you get that bit further. We were carrying out some work with a client in Kettering, Northampton recently and we were talking about how to deal with the objection “I’m happy with my current supplier thank you.” A quality question could be “ok that’s interesting, what is it about dealing with ABC that you particularly like ?” Whatever they answer is going to help you understand what is important to them.

If someone is considering a number of different options or suppliers, certainly a question which works well for us is “and how will you decide who to go with ?” or another way of asking the same question is “and what are the most important factors in helping you decide who to choose ?”  As soon as they’ve told you that you know what you need to sell against. Forget everything else – just focus on what is important to them – which they’ve just told you !

Any tips you have for us, let us know at info@tomarket.co.uk. We’re always keen on new ideas.

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Posted in communication skills, contract cleaners, Field sales training, Getting past gatekeepers, Overcoming objections, telemarketing, Telemarketing management, telephone techniques, telesales, telesales team management, Telesales tips | No Comments »