Sales & Marketing Consultant, Bestselling Author & Sales Conference Speaker

In today’s marketing world of high-powered ad campaigns and high-tech internet marketing, its easy to overlook to lowly telephone. However, this simple device is still the lifeline of most business, and its often the best way to communicate with current and future clients.

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

http://www.seanmcpheat.com

As a salesman you want to share the most valuable information about your products and services as possible. As a consumer, your prospect wants to make sure he’s getting the most bang for his buck. The end results is usually a conversation regarding the way you’ve priced your product and, in the mind of your prospect, no matter what you say your price will be too high.

There are, fortunately, a few things you can do to ensure that you don’t find yoruself in the midst of a price war. Today I’ll share three.

First, make sure you dress to impress. The better you look, the more your client or prospect will respect you and what you have to say. The sloppier you look the less they’ll trust you and, sadly, the less they’ll think of your product. You have to look as though you feel as valuable as you want your prospects to believe you are.

Next, you’ll want to avoid using phrases that give your prospect the impression that discounts may be available. Avoid phrases like “retail price” or “rack price.” The average consumer knows that there is a significant markup between manufacturer and retail stores/salesperson. They may not know what that markup is but they do know it leaves room for negotiation and will want to know why you can’t give them your wholesale price. Don’t put the thought into your prospect’s mind.

Finally, you need to carefully consider whether you want to offer a discount at all. If you’re trying to land a large account, for example, and offer a discount the prospect will never forget that you were able to do so. For the duration of your business relationship he will expect you to continue offering discounts (or will believe that by merely pushing you to do so you’ll find a way to get him one). Is that the type of unprofitable relationship you want to build with your clients?

Think carefully before you begin your sales presentation. The actions you take and the words you speak will dictate whether or not your client believes your price is reasonable or whether or not he believes you’re trying to overcharge him. Make sure you lead your prospects down the right path.

Sean

http://www.seanmcpheat.com