During a prospecting call, you have about 30 seconds to get a prospect’s initial interest and a maximum of two minutes for them to decide whether or not to pursue contact with you or your company. How to achieve this is one of the main doubts of the DTS or the beginner in sales and having good telephone sales techniques can be of great help.
What we see is that one of the main points of making a successful prospecting call is to be able to be authoritative from the start. But what does that mean?
Having authority is a combination of dominating the subject matter (knowledge) and gaining the prospect’s trust.
Knowledge: understanding the business, the segment and the current problems associated with the prospect’s business, and knowing what kind of solutions they are looking for or would be interested in;
Trust: this is a characteristic acquired by listening, understanding and asking the right questions until the moment of diagnosis. It is born at the moment when one chooses not to say what one does not know (and to be sincere like that), with a “I will look for this data and come back to you”. Trust is also born out of sincerity, such as when you say “I can’t help you”. But ideally, it won’t be and you can say “I can help you, and for now I’ll show you how we did it with Company X in this case study”.
Do you understand how to approach a customer to make a phone sale? Then find out how to make phone sales with techniques that really work.
TELEPHONE SALES TECHNIQUES TO SHOW AUTHORITY WHEN PROSPECTING
As you can see, mastering a subject and knowing how to talk person-to-person is essential to establishing authority. However, there are some practices that can help you with this task.
STUDY AND KNOW YOUR MARKET, YOUR COMPANY AND YOUR COMPETITORS
Know who the main players and competitors are, the average ticket, how their solutions/products work compared to yours, what their strengths are, etc. All of this will be contained in the sales manual you studied when you joined the company, and it’s something that needs to be updated and reviewed constantly.
Also look for information independently: look for market research from entities that represent your sector, interviews and news in general. It’s important to always be aware of the most current and relevant issues so you can be sure of what you’re saying.
And who knows, one of those pieces of information could be part of your initial pitch!
RESEARCH AND LEARN ABOUT THE PROSPECT’S BUSINESS.
In addition to understanding your business, you need to have a thorough understanding of your prospect’s business. This is one of the most important telephone approach techniques.
You need to have on the tip of your tongue all the information about the segment, the competitors, the way the company operates and an idea of the problem you can solve. This last point will be part of your pitch and is essential to show your value and move the conversation forward.
BE HUMBLE AND ASK PERMISSION
It is very annoying to receive a call in which the person keeps talking and you haven’t even had time to say hello. So start the call by introducing yourself, name and company, and ask if the person has a few minutes to talk about X.
Typically, X is related to their interaction with your content or website, a test of your tool, a contact request, or (in the case of outbound calls) a sentence that summarizes why it’s worth their attention.
If the person says yes, great! Keep talking – you have about two minutes – and that should give you time to ask initial questions and find out if the other person is willing and interested in continuing the conversation.
And that brings us to the next of our phone sales techniques!
ADD VALUE IN THE FIRST FEW MINUTES OF THE CALL
After learning about your business and the customer’s business, and asking questions, it’s time to put it all together and give good advice, adding value to the call.
Building authority will only happen when the prospect can get good advice out of the call and the trusting relationship is established.
Compile content, have practical and effective sales tips in mind that you typically give on other calls, and offer something of value. If the prospect can become a better professional after your call, it was worth it!
AVOID THE “WE’VE BEEN IN BUSINESS FOR X NUMBER OF YEARS”.
Better yet, don’t use it! In addition to being an extremely self-serving argument that says nothing concrete about the quality of the product or service, it can give the impression that you have nothing better to say, which slows down the conversation.
Remember: the prospect doesn’t care how long the company has been in business! The days when “tradition” was synonymous with competence and quality are over.
The international market is full of startups and emerging companies with extremely high quality products and solutions that have only recently entered the market. So if you really want to know how to approach a customer to close a sale over the phone, don’t use this phrase as an argument to convince the prospect.
More information
If you would like to know more about the best customer service providers, please do not hesitate to contact us. You will need to fill out the form provided on our website.
Question?
Need help with your sales?
Make an appointment to get a quick quote
– Agenda –