Telemarketing is still used by many small and large businesses despite the advent of social media.
So it makes sense to take steps to improve your success rates.
You’ve heard all the old advice. Make tons of calls because it’s a numbers game. Or ‘Smile while you dial’ or even’ Stand up while you’re talking ‘and so on.
All well and good, and good advice in many ways, but here are a few quick ways you can improve your calling immediately. Our 7 top tips for telemarketing success. No waiting for the perfect training course to ‘tell’ you how to do it. These are our must do’s that will propel your telemarketing success.
1. Do Your Research and Gather a good list
You’ve heard this one a thousand times. You need a good list. But in b2b marketing, is there such a thing? No list is perfect but the more tightly targeted your calls the greater your success. LinkedIn is an increasingly useful tool for research. It is better to call 100 carefully gathered and focused companies from LinkedIn, Industry associations and even articles within a specific sector than 1000 based on standard criteria that are still subject to error.
2. Wake up!
Telemarketers need to have good energy.
Do you like chatting with boring monotone people? Have you received really uninspiring cold calls? Well, get a shot of positive before you make your morning calls. From a UK perspective, that doesn’t mean go all American on your prospects (apologies to our American cousins) but it also doesn’t mean we should sound like Victor Meldrew or someone that has just got out of bed after a heavy night. People still buy people and people buy from people they like. And like comes before trust. So, inject some energy into your calls and your telemarketing will be energised as a result.
3. Focus on the pain and make it interesting
Yes, I am talking about Pain or Gain here.
If you have a bad impacted tooth, what would you do? And how quickly? The pain drives you to the dentist whatever the cost. However, if I told you I could help you look more attractive to the opposite sex through teeth whitening and straightening but the cost would set you back £5000, you might still be interested but it would be a much more considered buying decision.
People buy on pain. So, find out what your potential clients are struggling with and focus the call around that topic. But don’t forget to make it interesting and compelling by making it clear why they should listen rather than droning on about your products and services.
4.Know your stuff but not too much
Who likes listening to someone reading a script? Or working through a list of product or service features? Prospects aren’t interested in what you know or what you do. They are only interested in themselves, their issues and challenges and what you can do that helps them to:
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- Reduce or remove problems or risks
- Make more sales or profit
- Improve productivity
- Look good to their staff, peers, boss, industry or competitors
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If you make your conversation about the above or similar, your conversation will last longer and be more productive.
Remember, it isn’t what you know that counts. If your goal is to make a face to face appointment, answer a technical question with ‘That’s a really good question Bill. The technical side of the business isn’t really my speciality. Why don’t we get a date in the diary and I’ll ask my colleague John to come along and he can explain how that works’. Bingo. You have your appointment!
5. Don’t sound like a telemarketer
My pet hate is a cold call that starts with ‘Hello Mr Smith. How are you today?’
That start is 100% guaranteed to mark the call out as a cold call and you as a poorly scripted telesales hack. The best way to make a telemarketing call is to sound natural and engaging, deferent and open.
So, instead of that horrible opening, how about something like ‘Hi Bill, It’s Jonathan calling from GSA. I don’t know whether this is relevant to you but we’re doing a huge amount of work helping people like [name drop] with [service/solution]. Have you got a moment to chat about issues around the new legislation?
6. Mirror language, tone, and pace and listen
It isn’t about being a parrot but it is about recognizing that people like them. That means using similar language, tone, and pace. For example, if someone uses a metaphor like ‘I’m absolutely swamped at the moment a good response (as long as it’s genuine) might be ‘I know that swamped feeling’. If prospects speak really slowly you could risk irritating them by your fast pace. So try to slow down a bit.
I remember a conversation where an MD of an American company related a story about the CEO of a large prospect calling him to ask him to visit. The MD told me that he suggested that he bring along his sales director. However, the CEO asked him not to do that since when he last chatted to the sales director it felt like he was being ‘sprayed by a fire hydrant’. Such was the intensity and speed, it failed to match his own and he preferred the laid-back style of the Managing Director.
So, be sensitive and listen to your prospect. Hold fire and don’t talk and talk. Definitely don’t talk over your prospect. Take time to listen actively with us and ahs so that they know you haven’t drifted off.
7. Take good notes and use a decent system
If you’re working with scraps of paper or an excel spreadsheet or even Outlook, it won’t cut it.
I’m not saying it’s impossible or that the latter two methods are poor systems. It’s just that organization is key. You need to quickly be able to find your notes and be able to refer to things that were said when you last spoke to the prospect. That includes noting down specific use of language! Costs for CRM systems have plummeted and can be hosted in the cloud. So invest in an inexpensive system (or a more robust system if you have the funds) and make sure you take excellent notes. After all, garbage in garbage out as they say!
We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading these telemarketing tips. If you’d like more information, take a look at our other blog articles or visit our knowledge bank at www.gsa-marketing.co.uk
GSA is a London-based telemarketing agency with an office in Manchester. We offer telemarketing services and telemarketing training to ensure that you can hone your telemarketing techniques and deliver better results.
If you’d like to know more or book a new business development strategy workshop and find out how GSA Business Development can help Generate Growth for your Business, by contacting us now on 0845 658 8192 or send us an email.
