How to Train for Telesales?

There really is no substitute for truly understanding your product when you are trying to sell.

All the sales skills in the world will not make up for a lack of understanding of your products and services. Skills-based training can give your telesales people confidence and enthusiasm for what they are trying to sell. And nothing comes across better than a dollop of confidence and enthusiasm!

Picking up the telephone to make an initial call can be a terrifying experience for even the most experienced telesales person.  Many fear rejection or ridicule. To help overcome this, it's important that you are confident about what you're going to say. With good training, you'll learn to guide the call, which questions to ask to excite and interest a prospective customer and how to present your sales pitch in the best way.

More importantly, telesales training encourages you to listen to the signals you get; not just what the customer is saying but the non-verbal signals. Skills-based training allows you to learn effective influencing skills and sales approaches, to help you maximise income generation.

How do you choose the right training course?

• Always choose one that allows telesales people to design and develop their own personal script that sounds natural and feels right to them.
• It should encourage your telesales person to be ethical in their approach to your clients.
• Those that encourage 'closing a client' by backing them into a corner should be avoided.
• Choose one with a maximum of 8-10 delegates, to ensure your own telesales person gets the time and attention they need.

Selling in Stages

Stage 3 - Making the Call

Stage three of the sales process is about making the call and introducing yourself. Here's how to get over the fear of picking up the phone and do a great job.

• Cold calling is most effective if you run it alongside a marketing campaign, such as advertising (that you can make reference to in your introduction) or an e-mail newsletter (which you can send in advance so that people recognise your name when you call.)
• Don't expect to make a sale or set an appointment in the first call. This initial conversation is about getting your name onto your contact's 'radar' and letting them know you exist.
• Always make sure it's convenient for your contact to talk. If not, ask for a good time for you to call back.
• Keep the initial call simple and make sure you've planned what it is you want to say. Waffling creates a bad impression!
• Focus on what you're trying to achieve - getting your contact interested in your product or service and eventually getting them to do business with you. Remember that the speed at which this happens varies from customer to customer. Don't get disheartened if it doesn't happen immediately.
• Remember to thank your contact for taking your call and confirm what steps you will take next. When will you call again? What information will you send?
• After the introductory telephone call, send an e-mail or letter referring to the fact that you've spoken. It can take up to six contacts before someone will buy from you, so don't rely on just one phone call.

Converting a prospect into a customer doesn't happen over night, but prepare what you're going to say, keep it simple and keep in touch and you'll find the whole process much more effective.

Don't Just Take Our Word For It ...

If you want to learn even more about telesales and how you can make effective use of it in your business, there are some really good books on the market you might like to read.

Perfecting the Art of Telesales Spiced with the Magic of Neuro-Linguistic Programming is by Brenda Spiller and Jenny Thomas. It's priced at about £28.00 and is available from Amazon.

Guerrilla Teleselling: New Unconventional Weapons and Tactics to Sell When You Can't Be There in Person is by Conrad Levinson, Mark Smith and Orvel Ray Wilson. The book is packed with insider secrets and explains how teleselling differs from selling in person. You can get a second hand copy for as little as £4.50 from Amazon.

One Day Workshop

Our first workshop on Winning Telesales Techniques was a sell out success, so we're holding another one on 27 October.

Do you need to use the phone regularly? Do you want to develop your existing skills? Would you like to learn some new techniques? If so, then this workshop is for you.

The course will show you how to make your calls ten times more effective and you'll learn how to close a sale through basic negotiating techniques. It will be very interactive, allowing you to practice the skills you learn. The number of delegates will be kept low, to make sure that you get the personal help you need, helping you identify your own strengths and weaknesses.

The cost of this one-day course is £195 + VAT per delegate and will be held in Marlow in Buckinghamshire.

How to Sucessfully Manage your Telesales Team is a two-day course being held on 7 and 8 November. It will include Motivation, Targets & Incentives and Coaching Skills and is for people who manage small telesales teams, who need to improve their skills