Telephone Sales Skills on Disguising Your Cold CallsTelephone sales skills for appointment setting, sales cold calling, and telemarketing, on how to get past first objections by disguising your reason for calling. These telemarketing tips, on disguising the reason you are calling, puts the prospect at ease. On cold calls, follow up calls, referrals, or other telemarketing and sales calls, when you have a genuine reason for calling they help to get the prospect talking. You get past that initial defensive barrier that comes up when people think they are being sold to. Prospects often view sales calls as being for the benefit of the the sales person only. Disguising the sales call replaces that viewpoint and can even make the call appear to be for the buyer's benefit.
They both do exactly the same job it is only your viewpoint that is altered by their titles.
2 years after you visited a car showroom, but didn’t buy from them, you get a telephone call. The call is from a sales man that says he realises you didn’t buy last time, and you are probably thinking of changing your car again in the near future. He then goes on to try and sell to you and arrange an appointment to meet at the showroom.
The second scenario is a call from the same car showroom. This time there is no sales pitch. Instead the sales woman explains that they have the latest model hot off the conveyor, and as you have visited them before they would like to offer you a test drive in this new model that few people have seen yet. They add a few of the new benefits the car offers the driver, and tell you they would value your opinion and feedback. There’s no need to come into the showroom we’ll send one of our automobile technicians to your door to collect you and your family. Now, are you available Saturday morning or is afternoon better?
Even if you had not thought about buying a car you would probably consider agreeing to the second request. From the prospects viewpoint there is no threat of being sold to. From the sales woman’s viewpoint she is getting her automobile technicians coat on and she is coming to your house to sell you a car. The objective of both calls was the same. To get into a position where they could try and sell you a car. The second scenario disguised the call and dressed it up in an acceptable and inviting package.
There is a line between using telephone sales skills such as changing a sales person’s title to make it more customer friendly, and deceiving the prospect in order to make a sale.
If you call your sales people account managers, customer care assistants, or technicians, then to me that is not doing any harm. Don't use these telephone sales skills to make false claims about what the sales person will do at the sales appointment. And don't lie about their qualifications, that is unethical and will not promote long term business from repeat sales and referrals. If you offer to collect a prospect and take them on a test drive, and then turn up and focus on selling to them rather than the experience of driving the new car, you will not make many sales. You, and your company, know if the disguises you use are meant to make you more customer friendly and avoid the usual reaction to a telesales call. You also know if the intent is to lie and deceive the customer. If you are looking for a long term sustainable sales business based on referrals and repeat sales, then don’t cross the ethical sales line.
Try these telemarketing tips and give yourself a new perspective on making sales and cold calls. The objective is to make a sales appointment, but you keep getting rejected and facing sales objections at the start of the call, before they even know what it is they’re not interested in.
If you keep on doing what you’re doing now you will keep on getting the same results. So let’s make some changes. When you phone a prospect and talk about appointments and sales people, and meeting to discuss your products, it all appears to the listener as benefits for you. They hear, ‘Someone is going to try and sell me something’. Now change it around and use these telephone sales skills. What can you offer the customer that they will see as a benefit to them? Think about it, and come up with a way you can reach your same objective, eg sales appointment, sale, attend a presentation. Is there something physical you can give them, like the test drive? Or, how about some information that could benefit them. Work on it and see what you come up with. Think about how you want to be viewed. Do you want to be seen as an advisor, then great you can offer free advice as an appetizer and a way of demonstrating your services. Take a look at these other reasons for calling a prospect and see if you want to add them to your telephone sales skills.
Give to receive These telemarketing tips and techniques on changing the buyer’s viewpoint about you work best when they are developed for your sales role. With a bit of creativity and sales training you can come up with really good reasons why you are calling the customer, that don’t include selling to them. One very ethical way is to be up front and honest, but also have something genuine to give to them: How about: ‘We would like to come and shampoo your carpet so you can see how good our new carpet cleaning machines are. Then you can decide if you want to buy one, now or in the future.’ No catch, no trickery, you’re being honest. You’re saying, here’s a win-win situation. I get to demonstrate my product and in return for your time you get your carpet cleaned. You have achieved your objective of setting a sales appointment and getting through the door.
There are many influencers working in your favour when you use telephone sales skills that include giving something to achieve your objective. The buyer may think, I’ll take the free gift but I’m not buying. This is okay, you haven’t started selling to them yet. You’ve used the free gift to gain their time and attention so you can pitch your products to them. Your prospect could give you their time in reciprocation for your gift. This is why many charities will send you a free pen along with a letter asking for your donation. They hope you will feel you have to give to them as there is no easy way of returning the pen.
Using telephone sales skills to get prospects to agree to a survey as a way of getting the opportunity to sell to them, is a telemarketing tip that works well in some markets. Any direct sales calls connected with home improvements can make use of this selling technique. You are offering a free survey. Again, it will be carried out by a technician, advisor, or someone with a none sales title. A good telemarketing tip is to learn how to get this into your telesales or appointment call and not sound like a sales call. This can be made easier with a good telephone skills training course. You have to believe and think about arranging for a survey, not a sales appointment masquerading as a free survey.
I like this one. More small business sales offices should use this. It can really make a difference to sales results. You are giving your prospect the use of your services or product. They will see how good it is, and get used to it being there. They may even come to depend upon it. Then you turn up after the trial period and want to take it away from them. Many small business sales people offer a much better product and service than the big corporate organisations. The free trial gives you the chance to show how good you are and get your prospect depending upon it. Re-write your introduction and reason for calling and build a new call script. Get help and pick up sales training and this is a really good way to make money or grow a business.
A good technique to add to your telephone sales skills is using a price comparison. You are phoning because you want to see if you can benefit the prospect by:
Once again you are using a good telemarketing tip and disguising the fact that your objective is to sell to the prospect.
Now you have some ideas about how you would like to use these telephone sales skills, let’s look at how to put them into action. I manage both field sales and telesales teams and I know that the most important part of any sales training is putting it into action. The thoughts and ideas you have on the telephone sales skills here need to be woven into your call script. This isn’t always easy to do and often people revert back to what they have always done. Working with my sales teams I have developed a sales appointment training program that has been really successful for us. You can see how to use the training for your calls at Sales Appointments and Cold Calling Techniques or click the image above.
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