3 Ways to Become More Successful at Telesales – Naturally!
Posted in Telesales Skills by Greg
September 9th, 2009
We all have an idea of the “typical telesales” person.
Usually it’s someone who:
- catches you at the worse time
- talks at you rather than to you
- inundates you with thousands of fast, and irrelevant words
- asks few questions
- tries to convince you to do something you don’t want to do
- hopes that they get their “spiel” out before you hang up
With this type of reputation, it is little wonder that we might be reluctant to pick up the phone and call a prospective customer! Who wants to be put into the same category as annoying telesales people!
So how do we avoid this telesales trap?
One secret
There’s only one secret that will ensure you sell to prospects with success.
It is your well developed and practised ability to engage them in a meaningful conversation.
How do you do this?
First, by thinking of all the valuable conversations you have with your friends, family and colleagues.
The normal daily conversations you have with these people are likely to be:
• 2-way in nature – both people sharing the conversation
• more caring – you actually want to hear about your friends issues
• easy flowing – you never have to think very hard about what to say
• valuable – you find yourself getting and giving advice and help
Recreate this scenario
What you need to do is recreate this scenario, these qualities on the phone when we are talking to prospective clients.
You might be thinking that this is flawed given you don’t know the people you are calling.
You’re right, you don’t.
But the same principles apply, and we must get as naturally close to a valuable conversation as possible.
3 ways to be more effective on the phone
1. Do not deviate from your natural style.
Lose the phone voice!
You know those times when you were fighting with your brother or sister and your mum was yelling at you?
Right in the middle of it the phone would ring, and mum would put on her phone voice, as if by magic. That’s the voice I’m talking about.
The sweet and false voice that you think will charm people (but doesn’t – they can tell!).
The would-be radio announcers might think they are captivating their caller with the dulcet tones of their voice, but if the message isn’t right, forget it pal.
2. Don’t worry too much about “small talk”.
When picking up the phone people need to know exactly why you’re calling. Have a strong message (purpose) sorted out before hand.
I get sales calls all the time. Some people start off with the weekend and holiday bit. Frankly, I don’t know them, and I don’t care to exchange information about my life with a stranger.
Furthermore, I’m in the middle of something when they call. I want to know, straight away, the purpose of their call.
3. Use the call wisely
Finally, if they can’t help or buy from you, ask them whether you know someone who can.
Sometimes they might point you in the right direction.
Try it – you’ll be surprised how many people will actually give you a potential lead.
It’s difficult, so you might as well be natural!
Selling over the phone is difficult. You are automatically “lumped” into the same category as every other telesales person, which is not good for your credibility.
But if you try and be yourself and get to the point, you are automatically distinguishing yourself from 95% of the unprofessional call-centre types out there.
Be natural. It will maximise your chances of success.
August 9th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Excellent article. Although I work for a telesales company, I get a lot of sales calls myself, and there are some times of sales approaches that always annoy me:
Excessive friendliness – I don’t know you. You don’t care how I am, or what I’m doing this weekend. So don’t ask
Not checking first – ‘I know we can save you 40% on your current costs’. Oh do you. If they ask first they may find out 40% is totally unrealistic, but a 10% saving would get my attention
Calling back too early – if I tell you the contract wont be looked at until December, don’t call back in August. A decent CRM system should prevent this happening.
The comment about using every call – asking for referrals – is great, and especially important if your prospects are larger organisations.
August 13th, 2009 at 6:36 am
I so much agree with this blog. I still don’t believe that so many telephone based sales people keep to such a false approach, just swallowing rejection as part of the job which conversely they actually encourage as they try to keep to a fixed presentation style as they pitch their prospects.
Telephone calls interrupt someone’s day and they don’t want to have it just to listen to an advert, you both want to understand quickly if it is worthwhile for everyone’s time so they either want to listen and talk back to you, or happy to establish a good time to call back if needed. The worst that could happen is that they may be slightly interested but decline as they feel pressured as part of a pitch; they don’t have a chance to elaborate or say what their main concern is so it can be dealt with more effectively.
I myself will take point 3 on board and push for referrals in my own sales calls, to establish names of peers for more leads.
Apart from making sales calls more efficiently (i.e. less wasted time) I think a good benefit is also for the telephone sales rep – as they have more natural conversations, they will encounter less rudeness (people usually respond in kind) so the rep will find it easier to hold a positive attitude better in further calls. This means they will also be more open to potential buying signals so are less likely to miss potential leads rather than just charging through more calls for maybe less leads.