We always learn better when we have a bit of fun so I have put the principles of a good telesales/telemarketing call into a song. Please listen to it, tick if you like it and share it with someone else if you can.The more people practice these principles when they call, the less rejection they will get. Go to

Telemarketing Song Or simply search on Telemarketing Song at www.youtube.com

Here are the steps of a successful telesales call once you reach your decision maker.

1. Build rapport by mentioning something you know or have seen about the person or the person’s company.

2. Create an interest grabbing statement – one sentence with one major benefit to the customer.

3. Ask no more than 3 open-ended or direct questions

4. Demonstrate listening skills by repeating back what they said

5. Present your offer with a) benefits,b) a testimonial proving it is good c) create $ value in your proposal, d) create urgency to buy

6. Do a Trial Close before a real close

7. Handle the objections

8. Close

I am often asked to do assessments of telephone sales teams and contact centre telemarketing teams to see where they can improve. The same mistakes often occur everywhere I go so it is easy for me to see why the staff are not making sales.

Last week, I visited one of the worst performing call centres I have ever seen. The telemarketers had received some product training but no sales training. They were getting one appointment per day per telemarketer and making 300 calls each. I believe they should be getting one appointment per hour. I have listed the things they did wrong so you can check you do not do any of these things yourself. (more…)

You might be the greatest salesperson on the phone in your organisation but when your new prospect calls you back to order, the person answering the phone on the frontline of your organisation has not been trained in telephone sales skills and his/her manner loses you the order. First impressions of your company are made by a person’s phone answering manner in the first 15 seconds.

I called a company the other day in response to a big expensive advert in the newspaper. I wanted the special offer they were advertising but the person answering the phone told me she had heard nothing about a special offer and it would be prices as normal. I could not really believe what I heard. This company was spending huge dollars on advertising but the marketing department had not yet had time to alert the people answering the phone about the offer and how to sell it. What a waste! (more…)

A follow-up call I had this morning made me realize the importance of knowing how to make your sales presentations much stronger to get a customer over the line.

The call was following me up after a seminar I attended to see if I would like to take things further with their company to be shown how to take my business to the next level. I was somewhat interested but came up with poor excuses as if I was not sure if I wanted to get any bigger and was not sure I wanted to make the high monthly investment that would be necessary to do this. (Those were just my fears really and not objections and I was secretly hoping I could be given enough reasons to be sold on the idea of taking things further with them). “Oh”, said the salesperson, “okay then, I won’t waste your time any further, goodbye.”

What an opportunity missed that was! He needed to have a compelling sales presentation ready to counteract my fears that would explain why it would be beneficial for me. Actually if the same person I spoke to at the seminar itself had followed me up and not given the job to a telemarketer who knew nothing about me, he would have known what my fears were already and could have worked out a way to counteract them before calling me! (more…)

After finding out your customer or prospect’s needs and wants, every good sales presentation (whether it be by phone or face to face) must include the following ingredients:-

1. Benefits of the product or service to the customer
which are relevant to the customer’s needs

2. Testimonials (what other people have said)

3. What the real value is (from a monetary sense)

4. Some expression of urgency, why they should
buy now.
Testimonials make your sales presentations more credible both on the phone and face to face.
When salespeople call me to tell me they are the best in their field or they are the leading supplier of a particular product, I find that a complete turn off. However, if they quote someone else as saying that about them, it seems to sound okay. (more…)

You have done your prospecting call and been asked to send out some information. You may be like many salespeople – happy to prospect on the telephone but when it comes to following up, you are not so keen. Here is where you might experience fear of rejection or a bit of call reluctance. What can you say?

There is really no point in sending information out unless you plan to follow it up, because it is usually in the follow up that success is achieved and the sale is closed. It is important to ask the customer how long he/she thinks they need to review the information and then schedule a time to call back to discuss it further one day later. That way the customer knows you are going to ring back and that they have committed to have read the material by then. Here are some tips:- (more…)

A telephone call to a happy customer is the ideal way to find referrals and new prospects. This call should be a natural part of the sales process but, sadly, not a lot of salespeople bother once they have made a sale.

So what stops you from asking for a referral?

Perhaps you feel embarrassed having to ask or perhaps you feel you might be putting your customer in a difficult spot, because he may not know anyone to recommend to you. Well, like there is a process in every step of the telesales call, there is also a process for asking for the referral. It is easy when you know how. Then you will have more confidence to do it.

The obvious people to give you referrals are your customers who have recently bought from you. When you call them one or two weeks after they have bought from you, to check they are happy with their purchase, they will not only be impressed that you bothered to call, but they will be only too pleased to assist you. (more…)

You finally get through the gatekeeper to the big decision maker you need to speak to and then it goes to their voicemail. I reckon this happens to 65% of the calls I make nowadays, so I expect it is the same for you. In order to stay positive, we must use this opportunity and make it work for us. Here is where the importance of scripting your voicemail message is so vital . Then you’ll get the right message across.

I am always surprised when people say they never leave a message because the prospect will never ring them back. The opportunity is missed to warm the person’s interest up if you don’t. Also, if you leave the right message, you are creating awareness of your company name and what you do (it’s almost a free advert). Subconsciously the prospect will remember something about you when you call back , your name is already familiar (even if he can’t remember how straight away) and he is more likely to take your call when you do call back

Example of a good voicemail script

Hello (name of prospect)Â This is _______ your name and surname (to give you more authority) from ________ (name of company)

We can now offer you a credit card with an interest rate 5% lower than the one you currently have. ( a major benefit or interest grabber to the customer) I am sure you would like to hear more about that so I will give you a call back tomorrow.

(then you need a call to action just as you have on sales letter)

In the meantime, you could read all the details at www.(website address)Â My name again is _____from _____ and my number is _____orI’ll send you some information in the mail so please look out for it. Then I will give you a call in a couple of days to discuss this further. My name again is ____ and my number is ______More Tips for voicemail

1. Try to keep your voicemail message to 30 seconds – short and sweet

2. Remember to smile when you leave a message so you come across as a friendly, enthusiastic person to deal with.

3. Your objective on this voicemail is not to get them to call you back but to grab their attention

4. Leave your number and name again at the end of the message (for more advertising)

5. If you can, it is good to say when you are going to call them back e.g. tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon. However, only say that if you can be sure you are going to do that. If you don’t call when you say, you blow your credibility straight away.It works in your favour though if you do.

6. You know if you call out of hours, you will definitely get voicemail but you know that the right message might be as good as the live call if all you want is to let them know information is coming by mail. (Again it makes them watch out for it)

7. Sometimes they will call you back. Try not to sound surprised and if you can’t remember their name and what you called them about, simply say “Please remind me again what my message was”. You are only human after all when you forget!

Tips for your own home business voicemail1. You often make your voicemail message when you first get up in the morning. Your voice is not warmed up so you need to do some voice exercises to get the croak out of it. You can hum in the shower, do some yawning, talk to someone first before you record your message.2. Forget the “I’m sorry I am not available at the moment”. Use the message time for an advert about your business.e.g. “Hello, this is the office of Sales and Telesales Solutions. We can show you how to increase your sales by 30% immediately. Please leave your number after the tone and we will call you back as quickly as we can.3. Avoid mixing your family’s details with your business e.g. you can also leave a message for Sam and the kids, Jeremy and Blake (get a separate line for them!)4. To make yourself sound bigger than you are, you could get a person of the opposite gender to record your outgoing message. Make sure they say “we” and not “I”.Â

If you have a topic on sales or telesales with which you struggle, simply send an email to me at info@salesandtelesalestraining.com

Questions to check on your personal value to the customer

What message are you sending your customers about you? (Do you really look after them and sound as if you care?) Be compassionate enough to give clients more of YOU.

What problems do you solve for the customer?

What image do people get of you when you answer the phone?

People do business with those they like and trust. Business is personal, that is why companies like Dell, Commonwealth Bank and Modern Roofing are bringing their telemarketing back from India, it just did not work over there.
The Value of your Product – What are you really selling?
711 stores sell convenience, Federal Express sells speed, Air Road sells guaranteed delivery

It is your job to tell the customers the value you offer, not the thing that you do. They don’t discover it for themselves. For example I offer inspiration, motivation, confidence and skills (at least that is the feedback I get!) What do you offer?
We have to know our points of difference to our competitors. For example, I am a trainer who has acually made 100 calls a day for many years so I do have the practical experience as well as the theory. I use a telesales trainer to record people’s voices on training seminars, I offer ongoing free telesales tips after the training on an ongoing basis. I know enough on the topic I have written a book! So what are your points of difference?

The best way to make a good impression on someone is to let them give you a best impression of them. How do you do that? You practice great questioning techniques so you can listen more. Remember the best salespeople are good listeners, we have 2 ears and one mouth and we need to use them in that proportion. While the customer is talking and you are listening, the customer is talking themselves into what they want if you have asked the right questions.

If you have a topic on sales or telesales with which you struggle, simply send an email to me at info@salesandtelesalestraining.com

At this time of year it is even more important to find the time to call your customers rather than send emails which may be missed. The magic of the personal touch is all important to a) keep your customers b) to build on the relationships you have and c) to get more business not for right now but for the next year.

Oh yes, we make excuses -”what’s the point, no-one is ever in, they are all out at Christmas parties”. What if you did call them and they were in? You might even make another sale or build on your relationship with them. We are all getting lazy, we send emails to market our products and services and rarely find time to follow these up with phone calls. Trouble is, everyone is now doing that and no-one gets time to open your email unless it is very enticing to read. (I am very happy that you have opened this one!)

I don’t know about you but I get very annoyed when I send an email asking for a reply and it does not get answered. People are just too busy. If you need an answer, you have to ring them anyway and when you do, you save time because you get an immediate answer to what you want to know. I was looking for a distributor for my new book “Don’t Get Hung Up!” and so I sent an email to 4 distributors requesting their interest. Guess what! One replied the same day and he is the one who is getting my business. One rang back 3 weeks later – he was just catching up on his emails. My deal was already signed and sealed with the other distributor! I did not even get a reply from the other two people.

Here is another example about the power of the telephone over email. I am the President of an international networking group called Business Swap. Its purpose is to foster the personal and professional development of its members through education, motivation and experience. As well as our monthly big breakfasts with international speakers on sales, marketing and personal development, we have business development workshops each week. (See more details on this at the end)
Well, yesterday, despite 3 emails sent to the members, I had four people booked for the business building workshop today. I knew it was going to be a great meeting and felt sad that the members were going to miss out. Despite thinking I did not have the time to ring everyone, I decided to spend one hour doing just that. The good thing was that you could tell from everyone’s tone that they were in a rush and could not talk for long and so I was very quick to get an answer as to whether they would like to come or not. Within an hour my numbers went up to fourteen attendees from four. Was it worth ringing? Of course it was. Here’s why:-

1. 70% of the people had neither seen the emails nor read them.

2. They were grateful I called as they did not know the workshop was on.

3. They knew I cared about the fact that they should not miss that workshop and were eternally grateful after the event because they got so much out of it.

4. For me it was quick and easy to do and I got an answer straight away.

So I encourage you to finish off this year with phone calls rather than emails. If customers are out, leave an interesting message on their voicemail about what you can do for them next year, thank them for their business for this year and wish them a very merry Christmas. It’s the personal touch that counts.

1. Call your “A” Customers first

These are the twenty per cent of your client base that gave you eighty per cent of your business last year. Don’t try to sell too much just before Christmas. Make it a research call to find out how you can help them reach their goals next year. Find out what their goals are, their challenges, their personnel changes. The more you know about them, the more you are likely to add value to them next year.

2. Call your “B Customers” second

These are the customers who may only have bought once from you this year. Thank them for their past business and find out what needs you can help them with next year to help them achieve their goals.

3. Call your “C” customers third

These are the people that you did quotes for and never ended up closing business with them. Call them again to show you care. Try to offer them something of value like an article you have seen in the paper that might be of interest to them. Reconnect by calling them with the personal touch and renew a spark with them for next year.

I might not reach you by phone myself before Christmas but my Australian subscribers will certainly be hearing from me by phone in the New Year. I want to know what topics you want to hear about in the newsletter next year and make sure you have telephone selling training organised for next year in your company.

If you have a topic on sales or telesales with which you struggle, simply send an email to me at info@salesandtelesalestraining.com