In my last article about telesales. I shared my positive experience at the hands of a BT cold caller. My friend John, however, had not fared so well that day.
“Peter” he said. “That’s all well and good you saying that but you teach telesales workshops. What about us small business people who have to take these calls all day from unprofessional, scripted telesales people who are a damn nuisance”
He then recounted his latest experience at the hands of a cold calling salesperson which I will paraphrase here:
As a small business owner John was extremely interested in getting his business listed in online directories. He scoured the net and placed a link to his site on a few. One of the larger ones was offering a free listing but requested his telephone number so that they could verify his details. He knew this was going to be an excuse for a telesales person to ‘up-sell’ advertising but wanted the free listing so went ahead.
The next day he received the call:
“Good afternoon Mr Smith (names changed to protect the innocent and guilty!) this is Jan from B2B Directory. How are You Today?”
Now I just want to say that the question “How are you today?” is a contentious one in our telesales workshops and sales training courses (hyperlinks). When I ask if people are happy using and receiving that question we generally get a 50/50 split of answers between:
a)Well it’s only polite to ask how the person is. I would use it regularly.
b)I hate it!! What right does someone have to ring me up and ask me whether I’m alright? They don’t care anyway. If I told them they just jump right into their ‘sales pitch’ without acknowledging my answer.
I always advise that there is no right or wrong way as it can often boil down to the personality type of the person on the other end of the phone, however, using an opening question like that is risky. Why take the risk?
There are far better ways of bridging into a telephone conversation. One of my personal favorites is
“I was wondering can you help me?”
This has zero risk of offending anyone. There is no way I could be accused of being overly personal or not really caring about the answer. Most of all it is a plain, old fashioned way of arousing a person’s curiosity and getting them to invite me to speak.
John went on to tell me about the rest of Jan’s call which went something like this:
•Jan was overly friendly and extremely insistent on selling advertising.
•John advised that he knew of the merits of the advertising but it did not fit into his plans right now and he was happy with the free listing.
•Jan assumed that it was a budget issue and asked if John could make budget.
•John advised that he was not concerned about spending on this advertising at this time.
•Jan again asked when John could make budget and when would budget be available. Could she call back then?
What would I teach Jan if she was in our telesales workshop?
a)Jan does not sell advertising. She sells a way of increasing business exposure, business leads and possibly a way of greater exposure in the internet search rankings. If she sold the benefit of those she may well get more business.
b)If Jan knew anything about marketing, and especially small business marketing, she would know there is never a budget. A budget means a set amount of money that can be spent. Effective marketing can prove that for every £1 you get back you get back £1+? If you can prove that then there is never a budget issue as who would not want to spend £1 to get £2?
c)Jan was only interested in what was important to her. Her continual questioning around budget availability showed her to be uninterested in John and his needs, only her own self interest. Not a good way to progress in business. The American Sales Author Zig Ziglar said: “You can have everything in life that you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want”. Obviously Jan had never read this.
d) If you are going to expend time doing something then make sure you do it properly. I can see Jan sat at her desk with a smile on her face saying “nice chap, he’ll buy in October when I ring back” as she types the details into her CRM system. She is blindly unaware that she could have made a sale on that call if she had approached things differently.
It was way back at the start of my first post when I said “I can see your point, but I love being cold called”. I think there are two main reasons why this is true?
Firstly, I love it when someone shows professionalism in their work as the BT telesales lady did.
Secondly, I love it when I am on the receiving end of bad telesales calls. If you are thinking of ringing me and you take the approach that Jan did then you better know that 30 seconds after you have put the phone down I will be ringing your MD or Sales Manager, offering our services as telesales trainers!! (hyperlink)
Am I Normal For Enjoying Being Cold Called So often ? -- Part 2 - To learn more about this author, visit Peter O'Donoghue's Website.
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Dr. John Oda
John Oda Ph.D NLP is a business peak performance expert, an author, and speaker frequently called upon to provide corporate training, workshops and seminars for many companies in the United States. He is an expert in coaching sales and business professionals in overcoming the behaviors and obstacles that may impede their sales results and affect their bottom line. Since 1995, John has created a speaking bureau such topics, which include: time management, sales training, human diversity, leadership programs and etc. He provides companies with a strategic plan to increase their bottom line by over 25 percent yearly. - Visit Dr. John Oda's Website |
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Peter O'Donoghue
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