Techniques To Improve Your Tele-Sales

If it's done properly, tel-sales is an effective way to help your business grow. This series of articles sets out some of the basics that can make the difference between being one of the best or one of the rest.

Techniques

Smile when you are speaking on the phone. This might sound unusual when your prospect can not see your face or your wonderful smile, but smiling has a psychological effect on your brain which in turn affects the way that you speak, which of course can be heard in your voice.

Be confident and self-assured, do not come across as being apologetic for calling, you have something important to communicate, believe that and it will show in your voice.

Try standing up when you make calls, you will find that your voice is much stronger when you stand.

Address your prospect by name (but not too often), make your approach in a conversational style, so use their name where it is appropriate. However, if you use it too much, you will come across as false and insincere.

Your objective should be to build rapport and empathize with your prospect; you need to understand what their drivers are. What are their needs and wants?

Active Listening

One of the biggest mistakes that tel-sales people make is to get too caught up in getting across their message to the prospect. The inept or inexperienced launch into their sales pitch at the earliest opportunity and carry on (seemingly without drawing breath) trying to impose their will on their potential customer. The conversation becomes a test of strength and endurance to see who will give in first.

The rule should be that you have two ears and one mouth and they should be used in that proportion - listen twice as much as you speak. Nod your head in acknowledgment, even though your prospect can not see it, it will come across in your tone.

Make noises of affirmation; let your prospect know that you understand where they are coming from and that you empathize with their issues.

Listen with patience and affection, remember that you are building a relationship with the person on the other end of the phone; they need to feel that you are interested in what they have to say and if you listen carefully while they are saying it, they will tell you what their needs and wants are. It is your job to interpret that information and convert it into benefit and value statements that your products or services can satisfy. Use the answers to your questions to make the hooks that later in the conversation you will hang your solutions on.

This article has only been able to cover part of the telesales process, if you have found it useful, please check out the other articles in this series, they are:-

How to excel at Tel-sales

-Make Effective Prospecting the Key to Tele-sales Success -Be Brilliant at Cold Calling and Watch Your Tele-sales Soar -Make the Initial Approach Count in Tele-sales

Bernard Richards is a successful Business Adviser and Sales Trainer who is keen to share his knowledge and expertise with others. He enjoys writing about business in general and particularly about Sales, Customer Service, and Business Improvement topics.