Home Features Mastermind Videos About Advertise Blog Network Contact
   

Have A Suggestion?
Toronto Salsa Classes / Toronto Salsa Lessons Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
Have A Suggestion?

Featured Ebook


ebook Famous Entrepreneurs - Modern Empire Builders


Featured Ebook

More Evan Carmichael
Have A Suggestion?

Sales Lessons From Starbucks And Dell

Skill and Knowledge are Telemarketing Partners



Skill and Knowledge are Telemarketing Partners
   

Today, in the electronic age, with air travel, telecommunications, media, Instant Messaging and overnight deliveries, the distance between the east and west coasts have become much smaller.

Telemarketing has segmented much larger geographic regions into manageable sales territories, to reduce cost per sale and capitalize market potential. Telemarketing has also enabled companies to broaden and intensify market coverage while maximizing advertising and marketing investments.

The telemarketing campaign should function like a streamlined locomotive. Why, then, do so many telemarketing efforts become derailed?

Too often, telemarketing fails because the role of the telemarketer is not adequately recognized, defined or supported. Done wrong, telemarketing can be an expensive exercise in futility, or worse, cause alarming damage to a company’s image by alienating customers and prospects.

Research, planning and preparations support a successful telemarketing program. Reinforced by direct mail and direct sales, advertising, public relations, catalogs, brochures and other marketing strategies, it is still the telemarketer who breathes life into the mix.

As an integral link in the marketing chain, the telemarketer performs two vital functions:

• Accepting and responding to the inbound call, in which a customer or prospective customer inquires about products or services; and • Initiating the outbound call to the customer or prospective customer.

In a nutshell, effective telemarketing blends sales skills and product knowledge. The well-trained and well-prepared telemarketer:

• exudes confidence • is thoroughly familiar with the company’s products and can identify their features and benefits.

• demonstrates a well-polished and rehearsed telephone sales presentation using scripts, prompts and varied approaches as appropriate.

• can clearly and concisely explain the benefits of the product to the sales contact.

• matches the product’s benefits to the customer’s needs (it’s not a benefit your customer if it doesn’t fill one of his/her needs).

• routinely upsells (sells more of a product) and cross-sells (sells additional products).

To manage each call, the telemarketer should begin by setting call objectives. Overall objectives may be to create interest in your product, build your customer profile, overcome objections, and if appropriate, close the sale. Depending on the type of call and the product you’re selling, your objectives would be more specific.

Consider, too, that the voice must be trained to convey enthusiasm, conviction, confidence, interest and concern. Impeccable telephone manners are crucial, of course, as is sounding alert, expressive, natural, friendly and distinct.

Choose your words carefully, recognizing that they are powerful tools, which can have a positive or negative impact on your customer. Your choice of words should match your sales contract’s needs.

Competence and confidence are partners. Competence allows you to manage most situations that you are likely to encounter. This derives from an in-depth knowledge of your product or service, and of the ways in which your product or service will benefit your customer. This knowledge that can’t be faked, because your customer will sense it immediately.

Yet, confidence is sometimes elusive to the telemarketer who may be having a “cold streak.” Try to view confidence as a skill to be acquired and honed. And, never let yourself be discouraged by objections; they’re simply part of the sales process.

Perhaps the most important skill for the telemarketer, however, is listening. You should know how to listen: for needs – both spoken and unspoken; for facts; for interest; for objections; for opportunities.

“Prospecting is as important to the telemarketer as it is to the direct sales force.”



Skill and Knowledge are Telemarketing Partners - To learn more about this author, visit John Brennan's Website.

Like this article? Share it with your friends
[Get Copyright Permissions] E-Mail | Print | More  


Related Articles Related Articles
Skill and Knowledge are Telemarketing Partners
  Telemarketing is nothing new. Since early in this century, Wall Street brokers have used the telephone to sell securities, commodities, stocks and bonds to customers scattered across the country. Then, it was prim...
Sports and Raising/Lowering Your Game
  nteresting NBER paper looking at peer effects in the workplace. While fruit pickers, grocery scanners, etc., become more or less productive in correlation with their coworkers skill level, professional golfers play ...
What is the Most Important Selling Technique?©
  Companies spend thousands of dollars on sales skills training and virtually nothing on Prospecting training. Yet what is the only skill that puts a sales person in a position to use all those other selling skils? P...
The Value Of Knowledge To The Organization
  Since knowledge is an intangible asset, it is difficult to assign a value to it. Its amorphous nature exacerbates this difficulty. Lew Platt, former CEO of Hewlett Packard, has acknowledged the dilemma: "If HP know ...
Use Examples to Encourage
  It's well established that good leaders praise their employees, but there are different ways to go about it. As a manager, one thing you can do is to point out to the whole team how well an employee does a certain t...

Related Forum Posts Related Forum Posts
Re: Is getting a formal education worthwhile for entrepreneu Re: Is getting a formal education worthwhile for entrepreneu
The only SEO software I've been excited about is The only SEO software I've been excited about is
Attention grabbing Mailers Attention grabbing Mailers
Are There Any Affiliate Marketers In This Forum? Are There Any Affiliate Marketers In This Forum?
Take Action Take Action
Events at entrepreneurweek.ca 2007 Events at entrepreneurweek.ca 2007
Patricia Handschiegel - Stylehive Patricia Handschiegel - Stylehive
Book: Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Success Book: Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Success

 
About the Author


John Brennan
(Visit John's Website)
John Brennan Ed.D. Dr. Brennan is President of Interpersonal Development, LLC, a training and development firm. Interpersonal Development has provided sales training and coaching to more than 3,000 sales reps from over 100 companies. A native of Australia, Dr. Brennan received his doctorate from the University of Rochester. His dissertation researched the effectiveness of Behavioral Modeling Technology in training people in interpersonal skills. While he has spent most of his career designing or delivering training, he was also a Vice-President of Sales of a training and development franchise with operations in 25 markets. Dr. Brennan has designed and delivered sales training in North America, Asia, Europe, Australia and the Middle East. He has been a guest speaker at numerous national and regional professional conferences. When Microsoft wanted Best Practices articles on sales for their web site, they called Dr. Brennan. The results are at office.microsoft.com/e n-us/FX011387391033.aspx His firm’s clients have included Volvo, The Prudential, Merrill Lynch, Eastman Kodak, Gannett, Equifax Europe, the Economist Group and countless small businesses.
Have A Suggestion?

View Author's Blog
Become An Author

View Author's Video
Become An Author

Free Downloads


John Brennan's

Complete
List Of
Sales
Articles

First Name
Last Name
Email
 
If you enjoyed this article, get John Brennan's Complete List of Sales Articles For FREE!
Become An Author