Telesales Training 

Most modern-day sales roles involve an element of phone sales, so it’s important that you are effective in communicating and selling over the telephone.

The things that you say are a direct reflection on the company that you represent. Customers may not remember exactly what you say, but they will remember the overall experience they have with you – so the way you come across on the phone will determine whether a customer will be open to working with you.

To improve your telesales skills, you need to evaluate your verbal communication skills, how effectively you build trust and how well you prepare for each outbound call.

You must plan your telephone sales call as carefully as you would face-to-face presentations. Most sales calls fail because of this lack of planning, as salespeople find that they can’t get through to the right person, they can’t overcome initial objections and build the value of the call or are not prepared for what information they need to gather and questions they may get asked.

Don’t forget – it’s not just about what you do ahead of the call, but what you do after the call is just as important!

Be sure to plan a call-back at a future date to those prospects who indicate an interest, but who can’t commit to an appointment or a sale right now.

If you’re looking for support in evaluating and developing your telesales skills, then our telephone Sales Training course will help. It’s more focused than any generic sales training you might attend.

Selling on the phone can be more challenging than in-person sales because you cannot use things like body language or physical proximity to your advantage. However, you can achieve more calls than in-person meetings in a day, so it is a highly effective way to connect and engage with your clients and customers.

Here are some quick phone selling tips:

• Know your numbers – how many calls are required to make a sale
• Build trust and respect with customers
• Warm up your sales approach to improve success with cold calling
• Identify ways to make a positive impression
• Identify negotiation strategies that will make you a stronger seller
• Create a script to maximise your efficiency on the phone
• Learn what to say and what to ask to create interest
• Have a structured process for handling objections
• Know the right time and way to ask for the business and close the sale

When you are selling over the phone, it is also important that you don’t take the outcome of the call personally. No one has a 100% success rate 100% of the time, so you need to allow yourself time to learn and develop the skills to be effective in your role.

A big part of telesales success comes from effective communication skills, your ability to build important relationships and to connect with people.

Here are some sales skills you need to be effective in telesales:

• Strong verbal communication
• An understanding how to plan and prepare for your calls
• Ability to identify gatekeeper screens
• Ability to build trust quickly
• Influencing skills
• Strong questioning skills
• Active listening skills
• Strong product or service knowledge
• Objection handling skills
• Ability to set and secure appointments over the phone
• Closing skills

Each member of the sales team might have different strengths and weaknesses when it comes to their telesales skills, so it’s important that you have a structured approach to how you conduct your sales calls – which is easy to follow and ensures that your customers have a consistent experience when speaking with your company.

Whether you are responsible for handling inbound or outbound calls, direct selling over the phone or telesales is just one aspect of a wider sales process for your company, being able to effectively set an appointment or follow up meeting over the phone is a vital skill to have. Our course is ideal for improving your telesales techniques and provides you with the fundamentals through telephone sales training.

In most telesales roles, a key objective of the call is to set an appointment for either the salesperson themselves to attend or on behalf of their field-based roles. It’s important to have a structured approach to how you will achieve this key objective as part of your pre-call planning and preparation.

Consider what questions you need to ask to drive the conversation towards securing an appointment.

Think about how you can start building the value of the appointment early in the call, so that it is easier to secure commitment later in the call.

Reflect on what you have learnt about the client from the call so far so that you tailor the benefits of the appointment to their exact needs and requirements.

Our telesales training provides you with specific words and phrases to ask for the appointment, overcome objections around setting the appointment and provides you with a tried and tested methodology to gain commitment for the appointment following the call.