Here, Pareto Law gives you some tips to get into the world of telesales. By reading these tips, you'll get one step ahead for when you start your new job, or if you're already working then it can help you to refine your technique to make the most of your sales skills.

1. GUIDE
9 before 9:
Top Tips for
Telephone
Selling.

2. 9 BEFORE 9 The art of telephone selling is often regarded across the sales sphere in a
“marmite” fashion. For some, the buzz and adrenaline gained from flying past
the gatekeeper to prospect a potential lead, build rapport and get that date
in the diary creates an appetite for getting on the telephone: and high-flying
telephone sellers that won’t fail to deliver results. For others, the inevitable
rejections that come from prospecting hundreds of leads makes cold-calling a
tiresome, yet necessary evil. It’s the area of selling that holds the most negative
reputation, particularly in the B2C sector. Yet when undertaken correctly, it
can prove invaluable: and deliver tangible, concrete sales results. As such, it
remains one of the most sought-after skills within any industry, and can greatly
impact upon career prospects and desirability to any potential employer.
Leading telephone sellers are perhaps the greatest asset to any market-leading
organisation.
Pareto’s industry-leading sales trainers have compiled a brief guide of top
telephone selling tips, designed to help you make those small changes that
will make a big difference amongst your telephone sellers.
MIND OVER MATTER: THE
MENTAL STATE
The success triangle suggests that successful sales people are made up of
12% knowledge, 18% skills and an astounding 70% attitude. Confidence, self-
belief and a strong self-perception sells: alter your mental state by ensuring
you don’t take rejection personally, are proactive in your approach and enter
into a call with the belief that you will reach the desired outcome, and you have
already significantly improved your chances of success.
PLANNING AND
PREPARATION
The warmer the lead, the better the prospect. Preparation in terms of data
cleansing, qualification calls and basic research into the organisation and
decision maker are invaluable, enabling you to adapt sales scripts to each
individual prospect. In addition, follow a set call structure. This enables
you to control and direct conversation, ensuring all content is covered. The
popular SALES framework is an excellent example and creates ‘checkpoints’
throughout the call.
9 BEFORE 9: TIMING IS
EVERYTHING
Too many sales people restrict cold calling sessions to set hours within
the working day, not only limiting the sheer number of prospects they can
realistically contact, but also the success rate of those calls. Install a culture
where selling begins promptly at 8am and continues past close of play.
Gatekeepers are frequently the last into the office, and the first out: calling
outside their working hours removes one major obstacle between you and the
key decision maker. In addition, others aren’t calling, which gives you a major
advantage over your competitors.
VOCAL IMPACT: IT’S THE
WAY YOU SAY IT
In a telephone selling scenario, we remove the visual aspect, which would
normally make up 55% of the way we communicate. Instead, 70% of the way
we communicate is weighted in the way we speak, and just 30% comes down
to the actual words. To ensure success within these boundaries, we need to
look at the finer details of how we speak. Small changes such as achieving
an optimum speed of around 160-180 words per minute , using impact
statements and repetition to drive key points and adopting positive buzz words
and intonation are all vital to engage and inspire your prospect.
THE GATE KEEPER Perhaps the greatest hurdle many face in the cold calling process is the first
step: the gatekeeper. The true VIP of the process, they are key to success with a
prospect. Always obtain the gatekeepers name and ensure the first impression
made is the right one: it’s the one that lasts. Persistence pays, so build rapport
and conversation. However, don’t do business with the wrong person.

3. The pitch is for the prospect; the gatekeeper is merely the cliff notes version.
Finally, always end sentences with “thank you”: it is assumptive, yet polite,
and therefore stimulates a response.
If the gatekeeper is a true sticking point, consider point 3: ring outside of
business hours, and avoid the hurdle altogether.
QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS,
QUETIONS...
The most successful sales people ask 70% more questions than their
counterparts. When selling on the telephone, use it to your advantage.
People’s favourite topic of conversation is, simply, themselves. Structure your
questioning to stimulate conversation, beginning with ‘open’ questions to get the
prospect used to answering and build a profile of the key ‘W’s: the what, when,
where, who and why. Having asked a series of background questions to establish
the prospects challenges, have them then develop the effect that
can be gained from addressing that cause for concern. Taken
into a place of security and potential, they build their own utopia:
“We’ve been having issues with distribution to
X countries; addressing this issue would see our
profits increase by X% and open up marketing
channels which are currently inaccessible to us”.
The solution has become the prospects idea, providing
motivation to create a change. Follow this with negative
questioning to identify the impact of not taking action,
creating the urgency required to push for a sale:
“If we don’t move into these marketing channels,
our competitors will increase their market share,
leading to a decrease in growth and profit for us”.
Conclude by repeating back the prospects’ positive and negative effects, and
the need they have established. Summarise with a call to action that- all being
well- leads to that sought-after sale. The prospect has done all the hard work:
you have simply guided them along the way.
OBJECTION HANDLING Where there are sales, there will also always be objections: and more often
than not, they are the single factor standing between success and failure
in the lead up to a sale. If objections arise and are either brushed aside,
dismissed, interrupted or simply not addressed fully, all the work put in can
be destroyed in an instant. All objections are valid: take the time to hear them
out. In addition, practice handling objections. Simple acronyms such as EMC
(Empathise, Message, Close) or CLEAR (Clarify, Listen, Empathise, Answer,
Recap) can help structure the process to ensure control of the situation is
maintained. However, perhaps one of the best tips for handling objections is to
keep a clear head. Manage this, and all else will follow.
EVIDENCE Providing evidence to back your claims will establish authenticity and make
your proposal or offering applicable and appropriate to the customer. Research
the industry sector and market of the prospect and subsequently tailor
evidence. If you can reference one of their major competitors and claim that
your organisation has improved their offering, increased their sales or turnover,
even better. Names, figures and percentages are all tangible forms of evidence
that the prospect understands and will stand out in any pitch. Have vital stats
to hand or memorise them ahead of your calls: don’t be caught out when your
prospect enquires after previous success stories or testimonials.

4. HEAD OFFICE ADDRESS
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for more
information on
08436 362 321
or email
info@pareto.co.uk
THE VOICEMAIL When the prospect isn’t available and a voicemail is the only option, there
are ways to make your message stand out, and increase call backs. The
ideal voicemail is short and precise, yet arouses curiosity. There is no reason
to try and tell the prospect everything: this removes the need to return
the call, and weakens the strength of a sales pitch which can be more
effectively developed through two-way interaction. Alluding to what it is your
organisation can offer but remaining vague will spark interest, causing the
prospect to consider who you are and what you may be able to do for their
organisation. Be creative and innovative in your approach, to make your
voicemail stand out from the crowd. Inspire the prospect to believe you are
doing them a favour by contacting them, and not the other way around: don’t
ask to be called back, tell them.
ART OR SCIENCE Telephone selling encompasses a vast range of skills, potential hurdles, tools
and selling mechanisms that go above and beyond traditional client-facing
sales. Industry leaders have engaged in repeated debates over the years as to
whether telephone selling is an art, or a science. Experience in recruiting and
training sales professionals indicates that actually, it’s a carefully balanced
combination between the two. While there are ‘natural sellers’ who boast the
attitude and personal attributes that pave the foundations for great telephone
selling, almost every sales person – whether novice just dipping their toe
in the water, or experienced pro with years of calls already under their belt
- can impact upon their conversion rate and telephone sales success by
investing in skills training, or even simply making a few, minor changes and
adjustments to the way in which they approach telephone selling.