People respond much better to a phone call than they do to a lot of other sales devices. Not only is a phone call much more personalised than, say, an email or a Facebook wall post, but it gives you an opportunity to tailor your speech to what the customer wants to hear, and gives you an opportunity to overcome their objections.

However, as powerful a technique as the phone call is, it also provides you with considerably more opportunity to alienate your clients that you get with most other sales techniques. Follow these three techniques to optimise your results when calling clients over the phone.

Bypass the Guards

As they say in sales, timing is everything. This is true in the most literal sense when you’re dealing with telephone marketing. The time of the day that you call can make or break you chances of success.

If you are calling a new client while they’re at work, you run the risk of getting stopped by gatekeepers, particularly if they’re a busy professional or manager. Gatekeepers are the secretaries and administrative personnel who surround your potential client or partner, and insist on taking a message. Bypass them by calling after before 9 am or after 5 pm. They’ll have gone home, leaving your client to take calls for themself.

Avoid Calling Your Clients at Home

Lastly, you run a risky gambit by calling people at home after work. People’s schedules vary widely, and you can never be sure that you’re calling at an appropriate time when you reach someone at home during the week. Calling a client during dinner or while they’re unwinding later is one sure fire to ruin the relationship. Unless it’s an emergency, save it for the daytime or the weekend.

Always Smile

Its sounds silly, but make sure that you’re happy while you’re talking to your clients. You can project confidence and enthusiasm through the telephone, and a lot of this is controlled by whether you’re smiling and thinking enthusiastically about building the relationship or selling your product.

On this same note, make sure to sound professional. Even more so than in face-to-face conversation, you can’t rely on pauses like “um” and “uh” to break up your sentences in a telephone call, and you must remember to be polite, and fill your speech with “thank you” and other words of consideration.

By following these few simple tips, you can improve your existing client relationships, and build new ones, over the telephone.

Happy marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker

If so, then you’re not alone.

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Best

Sean

Sean McPheat
Marketing Consultant – Sales Expert - Motivational Speaker

So what do you need to do in order to a) make your life easier and b) keep your potential prospect on the phone? Try doing the following right at the beginning of each call:

1. Let your prospect know exactly how much time you need – 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes. Whatever it is – be true to your word.
2. Make sure your prospect knows why you’re calling – to set up an appointment review something, provide information, or to make a sale.
3. Tell your prospect why he should stay on the phone. Relate your call to something he is familiar with – a previous phone conversation you’ve had or an informational package you mailed the week before.

Getting your clients to relate to your call is paramount. The sooner you can do so the more likely it is they’ll be willing to stay on the phone and hear what you have to say. Are they too busy to talk? Set up a better time to call back. Keep your phone calls quick and to the point. Doing so will ensure you don’t waste the valuable time of your prospects – or your own!

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

I want you to go to your filing cabinet (or drawer, or crate under your desk – whatever you use) and pull out the files of your biggest and best clients. Place them on your desk in a spot where they’ll be out of your way while still remaining in your line of sight as you make phone calls.

Seeing the files of your best clients as you make calls will actually motivate you subconsciously. Seeing those files will give you the drive to continue dialing that phone until you reach a prospect that has the potential to be your next big client.

Maintain that focus and you won’t lose your momentum after the first few unsuccessful calls.

PS – The only drawback to this technique is that you might think of something you want to do for the client you’ve been looking at throughout your calls. Resist the urge to stop your calling in order to do something. Make a note and put it to the side for later on!

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

What I’d like you to do today, however, is make sure you have a great “cold calling plan.” Cold calling is about more than picking up the phone, hoping you get the right person on the line, and reading from your script. Here are the five things you need to do in order to be successful:

• Identify your target market. Who, out of everyone in the world, is most likely to want what you have to offer? Out of those people, who is most likely to actually make a purchase.
• Create your sales message in advance and practice it. Make sure that you write your message out the way you would speak – not as if you were writing a letter or email. Otherwise you’ll sound as if you’re reading from a script. Remember, the first 10-25 seconds of your message are the most important. You’ll either earn the attention of your prospect or you’ll earn a hang-up!
• Practice what you want to say out loud. Cold calling is very difficult, especially for new salespersons. Practice in the mirror, with friends or family, or with coworkers. Make sure you are comfortable and confident before you try to make your presentation.
• Start dialing. As we’ve already discussed, you won’t get any results unless you keep dialing the phone. Plan your cold calling time just as you would any other meeting or event. Add it to your calendar if you have to.
• Keep track of your results. Make sure you know how many times you’ve dialed, how many messages you left (and how many returned your call), how many people you reached on the first try, how many people rejected you immediately, and how many people were interested in what you have to say. You will, of course, want to track how many of those contacts actually turn into customers!

Prepare for your cold calling experience in advance and you won’t feel so awkward when you pick up the phone!

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

The problem most new sales people seem to have, however, is determing when to move from phone calls to face-to-face meetings.

The answer isn’t exactly cut and dry.

First of all, there is nothing wrong with conducting your entire sale over the phone. It is often more convenient to conduct business over the phone, especially if your prospect is understanding, doesn’t have time for a sales meeting, and knows what he wants. It’s also more cost effective if you would have to travel a significant distance (such as by plane) in order to meet with him.

On the other hand, not all prospects are imaginative and visual. They may be interested in what you have to say but seem as though they don’t know what questions to ask or how to go about doing business with you. In these cases, setting up a face-to-face meeting is imperative. You’ll need this opportunity in order to make the prospect comfortable with you, your company, and your product. Simply ask if you can set up a time to visit.

Of course, if the prospect you are speaking to is in the same town or general vicinity than there is really no excuse for not making an appointment to, at the very least, stop by and introduce yourself.

The key here is to remember that cold-calling is not the end all be all when it comes to making a sale. Use your best judgement and, if worst comes to worst, just ask if your prospect if he’d mind a visit. The worst he can say is no.

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

We’ve discussed the best time of day to call prospects in the past. Usually if you call early in the day you have a better chance of getting the person you really want to speak to on the phone.

But what if you can’t call first thing in the morning?

No matter what time of day you’re making your calls, remember this – call them at the bottom of the hour.

What?! Why?!

Because almost everyone schedules their meetings and appointments on the hour, every hour. It’s human nature. With this in mind, it’s pretty safe to say that the average person will be in his or her office during the bottom half of the hour, either catching up on missed work or preparing for the next meeting.

Busy businesspersons don’t always have 1-2 hour long meetings. They often have brief meetings throughout the day, so the odds of you catching him or her are greater during these times. There will, of course, be times when you call and they’re still in another meeting, and that’s OK. Just try again later on.

Of course, this can work the other way around as well. If you have bad news, call when you think your prospect or client is going to be in a meeting and you will buy yourself some time before you have to deliver that news!

Take alook at your marketing list? Is there anyone you really want/need to reach? Try this theory out for yourself and see how it goes!

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

Send an Informational Packet

Make a list of strong potential clients and mail out some informational packets before you start your cold calling. Include a small promotional item or gift that will make you stand out from the crowd. When you make your call you’ll be able to mention your package and, hopefully, the person you’re speaking to will already know who you are. You’ve essentially broken the ice before even picking up the phone!

Make Your Calls Early in the Day

Make your cold calls as early in the day as possible. The later you wait, the more likely your intended target will be busy, frustrated, or simply unwilling to take your call. He or she will feel more energized and less stressed first thing in the morning. Make your morning hours for phone calls and save your paperwork for the afternoon when both you and your prospects will be too burnt out to keep taking or making phone calls.

Be Persistent

Did you know that most salespersons cross a name off their list after making only two phone calls? Did you know that the majorit of sales are made after making not two, not three, but FIVE phone calls? That’s a huge and significant difference – and should be enough to keep you dialing.

Prepare a Script

I hesitate to tell you to prepare a script for your call. While you don’t want to sound like you’re reading from a piece of paper you also don’t want to leave out any important points. At the very least, make a list of all of the key features and benefits of your products. Just try to avoid sounding like you’re reading from a book.

Cold calling is, again, not fun for most people – especially those who are just starting out in sales. With a little practice, though, I think you’ll get the hang of it in no time flat.

Sean

Sales Expert - Marketing Consultant – Motivational Speaker

So much so, in fact, I often hoped I wouldn’t get a real person on the phone. I used to live for hearing the beep of a voicemail box. I truly believed that karma was helping me out. After all, if the guy on the other end was really interested in hearing what I had to say he’d call me back, right? Wrong.

This type of system isn’t very productive. It certainly feels productive having made hundreds of calls in a day, but you’re really only playing with numbers and in the end you’re simply lying to yourself.

You’ve got to find a way to make the voicemail experience work for you. For starters, you need to take action when you hear this famous phrase at the end of the message: “If you need immediate assistance, please dial 0 for the operator.”

What are you waiting for? Dial 0.

When you dial 0 you’ll likely get a receptionist and you should take advantage of this opportunity to gather additional information. Ask the receptionist if she knows where the person you are trying to reach is, when he’ll be back in his office, or if he’s out for the day. If she simply doesn’t know, ask if someone near him knows where he might be. If that doesn’t work, ask if the company has a paging system or if there is a cell phone number you can have.

You’d be surprised at how often receptionists are willing to readily hand out information you might yourself guard with your life. There are really only two outcomes to this situation:

1. You’ll either get in touch with the person you’re trying to reach, or
2. You’ll ask to be transferred back to voicemail and leave the message you planned to leave the first time.

Hopefully, however, you’ll hang up the phone with information that will leave you better armed for a second call. Perhaps you know when your prospect will return from vacation, or when he’ll be out of the meeting. You might’ve even asked what time of day he begins work so that you can make an early morning call before he gets too busy.

The point is that you need to take advantage of every opportunity your cold calling experience hands you. Just because you can’t get a prospect on the phone the first time doesn’t mean it will never happen. You need to remain focused and determined. Eventually, you’ll make contact!

Happy Calling,

Sean

Sean McPheat

Telephone 0800 849 6732