Christmas and new year is a great time to take stock and review your business, your product lines, your customer mix etc. Most of the country goes quiet, so you can take time out to think, without being worried that the rest of the economy and your competitors in particular are stealing a march on you.
Some tips on managing and motivating a telephone based team. Appreciate that done well telephone communication with customers and prospects can pay great dividends. Spend time and effort constructing your working processes around keeping your team happy, motivated and on-message. It’ll make your life easier!
There are no prizes for second they say. However in selling there often are. Keep in touch and be helpful and friendly and one day your chance will come. Their favoured supplier will let them down at some point. Or even more key their sales contact leaves. The relationship starts again and you have your opportunity. Make the most of it.
It’s important to get the size of your call pot right. Too small and your pot will go stale. Too large and you miss opportunities. Look after your prospect pot.
Telemarketing appointment setting in tough times. Listen carefully to what the other person is saying and think through the implications of their situation and how you could help them. More tips on appointment making for telemarketing and lead generation teams as well as field based sales teams here.
Telemarketing appointment setting could be a low cost route to market for you. Setting it up correctly is key to making this work. Tips on appointment making for telemarketing and lead generation teams as well as field based sales teams here.
Good selling in B2B is often about informing and offering knowledge, and advice to your customer, then allowing them to make their decision. Building your own credibility with industrial or commercial customers will pay great dividends long-term once they know they can trust you.
Switch selling and how to. This is about finding another way of offering a different solution for the same requirement. Selling adhesives for instance to someone who thought they wanted nails or screws. This needs some good questioning skills to find out more about the need and also good listening to fully understand the customer’s standpoint. But done well, it helps you build great credibility with your customer.
It’s amazing how often quotes aren’t followed up in B2B. They are your best chance of business, so if you are only going to call 10 people today, make sure it’s those you’ve sent quotes to. Also you want a reasonable return on the amount of time you’ve invested in preparing the proposal. That’s reasonable. Remember to use a number of methods of contact.
Telesales tip – use 8 day call back cycles to control your repeated calls to unavailable decision-makers. This is a valuable tip to prevent you calling the same old, same old contacts too often.