Telephone Sales

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With the ever increasing reliance on email, there is a feeling that sales people are forgetting the basics of actually getting on the phone and selling. Not too many years ago, sales departments were alive with the general hubbub of chatter and “sales noise”. Nowadays I find myself walking through sales departments and being struck by a wall of silence, only broken by the click of the keyboard. The big problem is that email although hugely convenient, does not sell! The telephone conversation should always make more progress.

What is stopping sales people from using the phone? Firstly, as I mentioned, convenience; it is easier to send an email to a client than phone them and still feel like you are working hard. First tip: if you are about to write an email to a client, ask yourself the question “could I phone instead?” Inevitably the answer will be yes.

Sales people get themselves into to what could be referred to as “avoidance focus” behaviour. This is where they have got themselves into what is effectively a rut. Their expectation is low and so their phone calls lack impact and that leads to failure so they start to talk themselves out of making calls because they don’t like the result. To get out of this rut, the sales person has to start developing “approach focus behaviours”.

To do this, try these ideas:

1) Start making calls early in the day and in doing so get some momentum going. You will feel much more positive about your day generally if you have made twenty five calls by ten o’clock.

2) Set yourself targets. Can you call ten potential clients by the end of the day? Can you find out a new need from your existing client base? Sales people tend to respond better under pressure. When the deadline is not upon you, you need to create your own pressure.

3) If you have a successful call, don’t rest on your laurels and have a celebratory cup of tea, make five more off the back of that success and momentum.

4) Equally if you make a call that does not get the desired result, do not sit and mull it over and become depressed by you lack of progress. Analyse the call, try to identify areas or techniques that you could improve and call someone else.

5) Don’t be put off by an abrupt or rude response. People react in all sorts of ways for all sorts of reasons. It is almost always not personal and should not be taken as such.

6) Turn your email off for a day and concentrate solely on telephone sales. Email by its nature is not an “urgent” tool. If people need to get in contact they can call you. Likewise if people don’t want to respond to you they don’t have to if you send an email. Admittedly they don’t have to take your call but it is harder to turn down.

7) Make sure you have an objective for your call. Think about how you can gain attention quickly. Do not sound like you have made fifty calls that day (even though you might have)

8) Variety can help to maintain momentum. Call different types of clients, present different products (if relevant), mix up your calling pattern to maintain impact.

9) Back yourself! Have belief in your ability to make the call and get the result. Use techniques and objectives to create interest and engagement.

10) Positive, imaginative and creative telephone sales can be extremely effective, certainly more effective than a stream of emails. Think about what sort of impression you are making on your client if you phone them and ask them not if they got your proposal but whether they could see how it would benefit them and if they had any questions. Sales is all about impact, the telephone call does that far more effectively than the email.

You might be also interested in sales training course.

Sales Training Delivery Methods

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Technology and the internet have given many more options with regard to how training is actually delivered. Most of the key methods are shown below.

A quick Google search will show over 15 million entries for elearning. Its a big, and growing, topic with many potential application areas and a great many supporters. However, we believe it has limitations in sales training.

Most elearning being commercially developed and delivered today is not interactive (called asynchronous). Elearning can also be synchronous, where there is interaction between the facilitator and participants, and we have participated in trials of video technology (webinairs and webcasts) for synchronous sales training.

These trials were complex to set up and run, for both the training team and the company's IT department. But we are sure these issues can be remedied in the future, especially if the training is being run on a campus basis.

Currently, we would recommend elearning modules as a way of bringing participants up to a common level of understanding. Somewhat like DVD/CDs, but probably with an interactive web-based assessment at the end of each module that can be captured by L&D.

Both standard modules and tailored elearning training is available, with the normal cost versus effectiveness equation to be considered.

Face to Face Training

Many consider this to be the "old way" of sales training. Getting a small group of 10 to 15 sales people in a room and getting them to learn by role playing, working in teams on case studies or working on their own live accounts.

We believe if done properly, face to face training still is very engaging and can actually translate into changes in behaviour back in the field. However, it is often a mismatch of thinking, part product knowledge dump, part case studies that aren't appropriate to the participants and part humiliation of the people chosen to stand at the front and role play in front of their peers.

Our view is simple, we want to create an environment where real learning can take place, and sales people are encouraged to try new things. So small teams of three for the role plays, with each team member taking it in turns to play the sales person, the customer and an observer, who leads the feedback sessions positively.

We also now make a virtue of not using PowerPoint. Each participant has their own workbook containing the exercises (individual, pairs, threes and teams) and space to note down the information from the various exercises and flip chart sessions. Why do we recommend this approach. Its fresh, its fully interactive and very engaging for both the facilitator and participants. Too many facilitators hide behind a snow storm of PowerPoint charts and technology.

Add some DVD sessions into the mix plus some team competitions and we are starting to get a lively session. We would also recommend finishing off with action planning - what are they going to change, what will they do differently following the training. Even better if this is shared with their managers and sales coaches.

Launch Events/Seminars

Some people label this form of training the "sheep dip". It is often carried out at the yearly sales team meeting or the launch of a new product. Most of these events are seen as team bonding sessions that tend to involve lots of liquid being consumed late into the night!

At best, we feel that the effectiveness of such events is limited. But you answer, we have the sales force all in one place at the same time, what better opportunity to train them (and it won't cost much!)?

We see the logic, but we are still concerned about how engaged the audience will be especially as "death by PowerPoint" is often the chosen method of delivery.

If you do want to do this, please make the sessions short, focused, interactive and based on small teams, maybe competing for prizes. We find teams of about 6 works well, and we have developed some interesting ideas for how to get the teams functioning and interacting, even after the night before!

Power Hours

The "Power Hour" concept isn't new, but maybe the way it can be used can improve the effectiveness of your sales training.

We have seen the idea used in the past by companies that want to reduce sales time away from the desk or off the road. The idea is to fire the training at the sales team for just an hour, often at 8.00 am, and hope something sticks.

We would recommend that power hours are used more for re-enforcement than the first line training. In fact, if your own sales managers are trained to do this, it becomes very cost effective and an excellent way of both sales and management working on the same ideas.

DVD/CD Training

What can we say? Probably the least engaging of all the various training options. However, it still has its place and can be used effectively to distribute technical information to a large, disparate sales team.

It also has one advantage over elearning, it that the demands placed on I.T. are not as great. Everyone just needs access to a DVD/CD player on a PC. With elearning there can be minimum configuration issues on desktops/notebooks as well as network access issues for remote members of the sales team.

On The Job Training

We all do on the job training as part of our normal roles within our companies. What we are talking about here, is a more formal approach to on the job training.

Learning by watching experienced people and then doing it yourself in the real world under supervision, with feedback, is the very best way to learn. Unfortunately, much of the so-called on the job training is really no training at all. New sales people are left to struggle along by themselves, without role models, with no real supervision and with no effective feedback.

We recommend that on the job training is built into any training program, but with thought given to how it is achieved and how best practice can be effectively shared throughout the team.

For more information about sales training please visit http://www.sales-training-consultants.co.uk

By: John Fowler -

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John Fowler is a sales and management trainer designing and delivering workshops across the world specifically for the IT industry. John can be contacted on his website at Sales Training Consultants.

10 Simple Ways To Improve Sales Performance

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Are your business goals to sustain growth, increase revenue, and increase market share? While there are numerous ways to go about this, the simple fact is expanding your business is not possible without increasing sales. Often times, we focus so much on improving our products and services that we don't concentrate enough on sales performance. And when we do, we focus mainly on attracting new customers. So much so that we sometimes forget about our most prized possessions; our existing and past customers. This article discusses ways to attract new customers while at the same time enticing past customers to buy again.

1. Communicate organizational and sales goals throughout your sales department.

Are your organization's goals and objectives clearly stated and documented. Does your entire sale force (including managers, salespersons, and support staff) understand executive management's goals and objectives. Do they understand how their sales goals and objectives support the overall organizational objectives? This is the number one, first thing that must be in place in order to have a successful sales program. It's very easy to find out if this critical step is in place, just ask your team members.

2. Gain executive management Buy-In.

It is critical that executive level managers buy into your sales strategy. Studies have shown that senior level management that places value in leveraging sales performance data into overall strategy increase their organization's chances for success. Compound this with strong sales leadership that is able to translate the sales strategy into action and these organizations are often able to quantify extraordinary results through sales performance management. Executive management can also ensure that your sales program has the necessary funding it needs to implement a successful strategy.

3. Define and communicate competencies for salespeople.

You may already have sales competencies. If so, reevaluate them and make sure that they are specific, unique and drive organizational goals. Make sure that they are not generic job descriptions that don't support objectives. What makes your top salespeople successful. Document these characteristics and the processes that these top performers have in place. Mimic these behaviors throughout your sales force.

4. Strengthen your sales efforts on products and services that generate the most income.

Now I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to increase sales in many different areas. I encourage organizations to explore new avenues for generating sales. But if there is something that your customers really buy into and you see greater sales from that area, you should be maximizing your profits in these areas even if it means reallocating resources from weaker areas.

5. Link sales training and performance-management systems to your business goals and competencies.

Make sure that your sales staff are properly trained to most effectively execute their function. Do they have all the resources they need? Does training address specific challenges that your sales force encounters? A detailed, competency-based selection process will give you a profile of each sales person's strengths and development needs. Identify which areas each salesperson is weak in and provide the necessary training for them to improve in those areas. Identify their strengths and leverage their knowledge and processes to help train other staff. Integrate their development plan into the performance management process.

6. Set up a sales incentive program.

Let's face it. Most people are not the motivated goal reaching machines they are capable of becoming. Give your sales staff a reason to achieve great things. Reward them for their accomplishments. They will continue to return the favor. Be creative. If that dinner for two to the local restaurant isn't stirring up competition find something that will. Remember, the more people you can get to compete for incentives the more successful your sales team as a whole will be.

7. Encourage your sales staff to upsell.

Upselling involves persuading customers to buy additional products or services, which normally relate to, benefit and compliment the original purchase. But just throwing additional products at them won't work. For example, if you own a pet grooming business, you may try to upsell your customers to buy pet grooming supplies to maintain their current look. Not a great example, but you get my point.

8. Tier your customers.

This is an effective technique, however it must be used with care. Customer tiering is assigning different values to customers to ensure that your best customers get the best treatment. While there are customers that you want to ensure top level service, it's important that you value all of your customers. More and more companies are using this technique to decide whether you're a customer worth taking care of and it is very troubling to know that careless, almost discriminatory practices may be taking place. Ways you may want to show customers that they are important is by recognizing them, greeting them by name or going out of the way to contact them, and offering them discounts or referral bonuses.

9. Set up a customer rewards program.

We talked about sales incentive programs. Now we need to focus on customer reward techniques. Customer reward programs can be as simple as providing a discount for every additional product your customers purchase, to offering them referral bonuses and incentives, to providing them VIP status. These simple techniques can build customer loyalty and repeat sales.

10. Offer customers free valuable, products or services.

Giving away something for free to your customers is one of the easiest way to get viral marketing benefits. This means that your customers are more likely to refer a product or service to their friends or business partners if you can provide a free sample. This is why you see so many 'free trial' or 'test drive' offers.

About Victor Holman

By: Victor Holman

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Victor Holman is a performance management expert who provides fast, simple and inexpensive ways to transform organizational performance Check out the FREE Performance Management Kit and learn the secrets of high performing organizations. Learn all about performance management at The Performance Portal.