Selling to Anyone Over the Phone

Renee Walkup, Sandra McKee

• Publisher: AMACOM
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780814414842
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Sales
• Index: Business

This easy-to-follow guide for salespeople trying to generate product excitement over the phone provides quick strategies to help you boost your success rate.

As more and more organizations scale back on their in-the-field sales operations, sales pros have had to focus their energy and skills on closing deals over the phone--and doing it faster than ever before. Authors Renee P. Walkup and Sandra McKee have included new chapters on using advanced technology (e.g., webinars and teleconferencing) and selling to customers from other cultures and countries.

Selling to Anyone Over the Phone teaches you how to:

• ensure callbacks,
• build trust,
• partner with decision makers,
• and use personality-matching techniques to build connections with and relate to people they can't see face-to-face.

Complete with an invaluable appendix on handling customer complaints and new sample call dialogs, Selling to Anyone Over the Phone simplifies an increasingly important facet of the sales role so you can get back to doing what you do best--providing excellent products and services to your customers and exceeding your sales goals.

CHAPTER 1
Setting Up for Success

PHONE SALES CHALLENGE – Linda, who was recently moved inside after calling on medical offices as a drug rep, tells us: “I know I should be calling more, but I just can’t make myself get on the phone.”

Linda probably can’t get going because she’s tired of being a loser. Perhaps that’s harsh but, come on, does anybody hate making money? She has likely fallen into some lame patterns that take her nowhere, such as these openings, which don’t engage the customer:

“How are you?”

“I wanted to tell you about our company’s offerings.”

“I’m glad I caught you because we have some specials that I wanted to share with you.”

You can blame the economy, the competition, or your company’s marketing department. But the reality is this: There are people out there making money selling over the phone and you need to be one of them.

Apply New Tactics for New Times

Whether you have always been in phone sales or have recently been pulled in from the road to cut company expenses, it’s time to retrain. Competition is brutal, the country’s finances have been on a roller-coaster ride, and customers are more stressed in general. Whatever tricks you’ve used that have worked in the past may very well be your worst enemy today. If you’re already a seasoned phone rep, it could be your compelling voice, your energy level, or your sense of humor. If you’ve been in personal contact selling, it might be your killer smile, your uncanny ability to read faces or body language, or your laptop full of data.

Do these statements seem odd? Are you asking yourself, “Who doesn’t like a killer smile? A sense of humor? What’s wrong with these authors?” Read on.

THROW OUT THE OLD

It’s a new phone selling environment, so many of the old ways, even your favorites, probably need to be retired to make way for more effective approaches. Here are a few that you will want to send to the recycle bin.

Seduction. You use charisma, compliments, and maybe even a little on-the-phone flirtation to form a quickly intimate connection. Come on, you know you’ve done this. Don’t be embarrassed. Whole books are written to teach people seduction tactics and you just do it naturally. It doesn’t matter if it’s a business deal, a better rate at the hotel, or a date for the evening, you are a master at getting what you want—given willingly—as long as the client is susceptible to a smooth line.

Databank. Employing this approach, you push long lists of product features through the phone lines in order to cover the customer in information. When enough positive features about your product— followed by some dirt thrown on the competition—have overwhelmed (some would say “battered”) your customer, he or she quickly says “yes.” Unfortunately, luck has to play a big part. Either the client hears something early on that strikes a chord, or all the excess talk results in you talking yourself out of a sale.

Big Dog. Using this psychological tactic, you make it clear that you are a force to be reckoned with, with agreement the customer’s only option. Your resounding voice booms into the customer’s ear, overpowering the weak-willed. This works enough of the time to keep you using it; it just doesn’t work on everyone, though, and it generally only works when the customer has no immediate escape route. Businesspeople hear enough of this from used car ads on the radio. They certainly don’t want to be harangued over their phone as well. Hangups are too easy.

Infusion. Your enthusiasm and passion can go a long way toward infusing a customer with eagerness for your product. If you generate energy at a high enough level, you can almost compel the buyer to vibrate with you on the other end of the phone. Even if you are naturally a hyper personality or are genuinely excited about your company’s products, that high level of fervor is impossible to maintain all day every day. The limitation is that you are generally effective only on “good” days. In addition, you run the risk of quickly exhausting the customer who’s having a bad day, resulting again in (you guessed it) a hang-up.

Glad Hand. Your “never met a stranger I didn’t like” approach ensures that clients will look forward to your phone “visits” (note the use of that particular word). You love engaging new prospects, getting to know them, and learning what they’re into. You’re generally a good listener and probably have made some personal phone friends of your customers along the way. When all things are equal, you get the business because they feel they know you. The kick in the gut comes when the voice on the phone says, “You know I like you, Keith, but the other company had more of what we needed. I’m real sorry. Next time I’ll try to throw some business your way.” People like their friends, but they buy from those who can solve their problems.

BRING IN THE NEW

As you can see from the examples above, most of the “wins” occurred only when the particular customer situation matched your sales style. None of these approaches on their own is effective over time, and rarely do they translate immediately into success on the phone. Strategic phone selling tactics can dramatically increase your close rate and you won’t even have to leave your office.

Whatever you consider your strength, it could be turning you into a “one-trick pony.” Not the cute little ones that everyone loves, but the kind of salesperson who can only get customers through a natural rapport. In these challenging times, you need to get all the customers, not just the ones that you click with naturally.

To do this, you are going to have to use that extra-sharp brain that made you successful in the first place, but you will be using it to apply new tactics that will close sales with any customers. There’s only so far you can go trying to dazzle busy, stressed-out customers with your wit or charm. Did you know that in the movie Hidalgo, six different horses were used to perform the different actions the scenes required? Each horse did only one trick well.

You’re not a horse! It’s time for you to move from one-trick pony to morph master, able to size up a customer situation and whip out a tactic perfectly matched to that customer. If you can’t make the customers believe that you and your product are credible solutions to their problems, then you become just another stressor in their already stressful day. But when you hit that sweet spot, that balance between listening to and engaging the customer, you can almost smell the money.

Move to Phone Selling Success

Outside salespeople may be reluctant to move away from the security of their surefire, face-to-face winning ways. But the reality is that the cost of travel is increasing—even just across town—and there is a pressing need to generate more dollars out of every minute of sales time. More and more salespeople will be moved inside to the phone, and you will probably be among them (if you’re not there already).

A Greener Way to Do Business

According to goldcalltraining.com, an outbound sales call costs only between $13 and $19, depending on the salesperson’s compensation. Data from the McGraw-Hill Company confirms that the cost of each face-to-face call is at least $347 for a medium-size business, and this number continues to escalate. If we looked at the carbon footprint of all the driving, the price tag for the planet further increases the cost. Phone selling is green-green: good for the environment and good for the company’s bottom line.

Does phone selling scare you?

Very few people who are in sales for a living have not had to address the fear of what might happen if he or she “chokes” during a performance (sales call). Even the most experienced longtime professionals have days where calling, especially prospecting, is stressful. But when you have a plan that is likely to result in success, you look forward to the call experience, and your stress is reduced.

Think of it this way. If you have good skills in basketball, don’t you welcome the chance to demonstrate them in a game? When you raise your skill level and learn to manage all types of calls, a call then becomes another opportunity to be successful. This chapter is about developing a solid phone strategy.

Imagine that your goals are in place and you are confident, motivated, and prepared for success. Now read on to learn how you can start each of your sales days with success, instead of just coffee!

Begin Your Prep Work

It’s wise to do all your preparatory work the day or evening before your call day. If you wait to plan after you have begun your workday, you’ve already fallen behind! Preparation saves time and maximizes your opportunities for a successful day of contacts and closes. To plan ahead, you need to:

Organize your work space.

Set your call goals.

Prioritize your call times.

ORGANIZE YOUR WORK SPACE

An important piece of prep work that many salespeople forget is the preparation of the work space. In addition to paper pileups, computer tools are constantly notifying us of messages and work that must be done. Turn off your email message beeper and other audible tools that create distractions. Remember: Your customer is the most important person on the planet during your call. That person is where your focus must be.

SET YOUR CALL GOALS

Start with a plan for contacting three times more customers than you think is humanly possible. If your expectations are that you should make thirty contacts a day, then plan on ninety calls. At least 75 percent of those calls are going to result in your leaving a voice mail message, which generally takes no more than thirty seconds. These will be strategic communications left for decision makers on their phone message systems—important but not time-consuming. Know in advance exactly what message you are going to leave. Some may find it helpful to write it out and rehearse it until it sounds relaxed and natural. In one hour, with good planning, you should easily get in thirty outbound call messages.

Of course, if you spend five hours of your day actually talking to customers and closing business, no one will ever be concerned that you never reached ninety calls. The key is to ensure that you are making the most productive use of your time as possible. Have enough phone numbers and strategy notes in front of you for an entire call day.

Have strategy notes before you punch in those numbers. Strategy notes allow you to hold all the cards in a phone conversation. When you plan ahead with a specific approach customized for the client you are calling, you are the one in control. If you are making ninety calls a day, you can’t possibly remember every strategic detail of every call in your plan. Strategy notes keep you on target and calm—in other words, you never call anyone without being ready to do business. This keeps you from wasting time and costing you and your company money.

TALK TIP

For those customers who regularly don’t call back, put them in your plan on different days or different times of the day to increase the likelihood of reaching them.

PRIORITIZE YOUR CALLS

To get your day off to a good start, begin with an easy call—a friendly, low-stress, posit...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Selling “Double Green”
• Chapter 1: Setting Up for Success
• Chapter 2: Managing Time and Information for Profitability
• Chapter 3: Identifying Personality Types Over the Phone
• Chapter 4: Getting Gatekeepers to Work for You
• Chapter 5: Asking High-Value Questions
• Chapter 6: Listening and Presenting
• Chapter 7: Selling Through Objections
• Chapter 8: Negotiating the Close
• Chapter 9: Using New Technology in Phone Sales
• Chapter 10: Selling to Customers from Other Cultures
• Appendix A: PEAK Personality Type Assessment
• Appendix B: Handling Customer Complaints Effectively
• Appendix C: How to Present Powerful Proposals That Sell
• Index