Posts Tagged ‘telesales top tips for free’
Friday, May 7th, 2010
Make sure your telesales team is targeted on what you are targeted on. Obvious advice in theory, but not every organisation with a telesales or telemarketing team follows this. It can be easy to dismiss the need to do this on the basis that the management looks after the commercial elements for instance. We have worked with companies in the past who only target their team on sales and then have to manage a large volume of unprofitable orders.
Make sure your telesales targets reflect corporate goals
We’re just starting a programme with a client just outside Birmingham who has a large team selling items business to business over the phone. We carried out a team audit with them recently (more details of team audits at www.tomarket.co.uk/teamaudits.php.)
The team actively promotes the fact that the goods are free on approval and “if you don’t want them, we’ll simply pick them up from you free of charge.” Also phrases such as “no obligation” appear frequently. Clearly this strategy is intended to get as many products out as possible which is great – but there is no sense of them being selective at all with who they mail out to. The result is that the company feels that too much of it’s sales activity is unprofitable.
The team is targeted on products sent out. It doesn’t take into account how many products come back.
It is really important that you understand what your business needs and ensure at least some of this is fed through to the telesales or telemarketing team on the front line. It pays to make sure everyone shoulders the responsibility for the overall success of the company. And the danger of keeping any part of your team in the dark is that first they don’t understand what is important to the organisation they are working for, and worst they may not realise that what they are doing is counterproductive. Furthermore, how can you ever discipline someone for poor performance if they have every reason to believe they’re doing a good job?
Tags: assessing telesales teams, incentivising telesales, sales targeting, targeting telesales, telemarketing target setting, telesales team management, telesales top tips for free
Posted in Commission schemes, Independent audit of telemarketing team, Telemarketing management, Telesales team assessment, Telesales tips, benchmarking telesales teams, sales development training, telemarketing, telesales team management | No Comments »
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 ;
- 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 ……”
- Go via another department (accounts or HR for instance) and ask to be transferred. This also often helps get the name.
- Ask for them by name : directly, assertively and confidently. You could also simply ask for them by their first name if appropriate.
- 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 ?!
- 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
Tags: advice for free on telephone selling, advice on telemarketing, free advice on telephone selling, telemarketing tips, telesales advice, telesales techniques, Telesales tips, telesales top tips for free, tips on selling, tips on telephone selling
Posted in Getting past gatekeepers, Overcoming objections, Selling advice, Telesales tips, communication skills, sales development training, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales | 2 Comments »
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
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
Tags: advice for free on telephone selling, free advice on telephone selling, free sales tips, free tips on telesales, telesales advice, telesales techniques, telesales top tips for free
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 »
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
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
Tags: advice for free on telephone selling, free advice on telephone selling, free tips on telesales, increasing telephone sales results, telephone sales skills, telesales techniques, telesales top tips for free
Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, Selling advice, Telesales team assessment, benchmarking telesales teams, communication skills, telephone techniques, telesales, vending | No Comments »
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
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.
Tags: advice for free on telephone selling, advice on telemarketing, free tips on telesales, telemarketing tips, telesales top tips for free, tips on telephone selling
Posted in Independent audit of telemarketing team, Selling advice, Telemarketing management, Telesales team assessment, Telesales tips, communication skills, sales development training, small business marketing, 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 Independent audit of telemarketing team, Overcoming objections, Telemarketing management, Telesales team assessment, Telesales tips, benchmarking telesales teams, communication skills, telephone techniques, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »
Monday, November 16th, 2009
As we’re all aware at the moment, times are challenging. There are fewer customers about, and many of those that are have cut their spending. A number of people we’ve spoken to are keen to find ways to sharpen their selling, and improve their sales effectiveness on the phone, but have limited budgets to invest in full scale training.
So we’re planning on running a free seminar in late January 2010 for directors, senior managers and small company owners where we will offer some key tips and suggestions for making more effective use of the phone in developing sales relationships with customers. The initial seminar or free telesales workshop will be held in the East Midlands – likely to be in Leicestershire or Northamptonshire (possibly Leicester, Kettering, Northampton, or Corby).
At this stage we’re interested in knowing who would like to attend this event. Numbers are likely to be limited to 20 or so. So if you’d be interested in registering your interest for this event – just send us an e-mail to info@tomarket.co.uk and we’ll then send you the full details once we get nearer to the event.
Also, depending on how the initial event goes, we may look to run them at other venues in Birmingham, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Warrington, Lincoln, Solihull, Lichfield and South Yorkshire. So if these venues would suit you better, please let us know via e-mail.
Tags: advice for free on telephone selling, corby, coventry, daventry, free, free advice on telephone selling, free telephone selling workshop, Free telesales seminar, kettering, leicester, northampton, telesales top tips for free, Wellingborough
Posted in Forthcoming courses, Free training, Telemarketing management, Telesales team assessment, Telesales tips, benchmarking telesales teams, communication skills, owner managers directors, sales development training, seminar, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »
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
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.
Tags: dealing with objections, free tips on telesales, telesales advice, telesales ideas, Telesales tips, telesales top tips for free
Posted in Field sales training, Getting past gatekeepers, Overcoming objections, Telemarketing management, Telesales tips, communication skills, contract cleaners, telemarketing, telephone techniques, telesales, telesales team management | No Comments »
Monday, November 9th, 2009
Andrew Seaward head of training company To Market is now using Twitter. There will be links in future from the Twitter account back to some of the articles published on the blog. This way it makes more of our information more accessible. http://twitter.com/AndrewSeaward
What is all this social networking about though ? Are you on Facebook, Twitter etc ? And if so do you find it improves your business prospects ? We’d be interested to hear.
Tags: Customer Service free tips, free tips on customer service, free tips on telesales, how to be good at telemarketing, telephone skills tips, telesales top tips for free
Posted in Customer Service tips, Selling advice, Telesales tips, communication skills, customer services, telephone techniques | No Comments »