You can still sell over the phone, but you won’t sell over the phone if you continue to use outdated/ineffective techniques. Selling is a science and you need to know which formulas to use to get the results you want. In this case, the ‘formulas’ are hacks, and we’ve got 6 phone sales techniques that close!
How Do You Convince Someone Over the Phone?
We've got plenty of phone sales tips for you, but first, we have to come to two understandings: 1) Convincing does not mean closing a deal and 2) telemarketing and convincing are directly correlated.
Convincing is the art of creating a compelling case for someone's need of, the desire of, or consumption of, something. Now, this might take a few calls to convince someone of their need, desire, or consumption of your product, but the goal is winning the trust of your customers with each call. Eventually, this will lead to the ultimate goal of making the sale.
Convincing, like with telemarketing, takes time to state your case, therefore persistence and patience are key ingredients in how to sell on the phone.
How Do You Close Sales Over the Phone?
You’ve heard a million times that you should “Always Be Closing (a.k.a. ABC)”, but what does that even mean and what practical steps can you do to close a sale?
There are a few effective methods that can help you achieve a sale over the phone, however, the salesman's intuition plays a big role in choosing the best method for each scenario to produce a sale.
What Are the 4 Types of Closes?
There are four methods that have been proven again and again to be highly effective. Salesmen only need the discretion to know when and how to use each to make the close. Here we have listed these four methods and we will briefly describe how they work:
- The Assumptive Close - When the telemarketer uses a phrase that assumes the call is closing on a sale. (EX: What address would you like the product shipped to?)
- The Option Close - When the telemarketer uses a phrase that gives the recipient of the call a choice in the closing. (EX: Would you like to purchase through Credit Card or PayPal?)
- The Suggestion Close - When the telemarketer gives advice in favor of what the call recipient has already told them. (EX: Based on what you told me, it sounds like pricing package B would fit your time frame the best. Can I put you down for pricing package B?)
- The Urgency Close - When the telemarketer uses a phrase to indicate a short timeline or the limited amount of a good deal. (EX: Keep in mind that this deal is only valid for today. If you would like, I can sign you up now.)
The four methods are all techniques on how to shorten the sales funnel. When used correctly, they are very effective, however, when a telemarketer uses them in inappropriate scenarios, it can lead to the loss of sales.
How Do You Successfully Close Every Sales Call?
Let’s face it, you won’t be able to close every sales call you make. People are unpredictable and the timing of sales calls isn’t always perfect due to external issues. You can, however, improve upon your technique and skills to significantly increase your sales outcome. It's not rocket science, you only need to use these hacks:
Hack #1: Tailor Your Offer
“What’s in it for them?” That's what you as the telemarketer need to ask yourself when calling cold leads. If you have nothing of value to them, why would they want to purchase whatever it is you're selling?
Here is how you answer this question. Find the most valuable or desirable quality of the product and highlight it. Another way to answer this question is by catering to what you already know about the caller, if you know anything at all.
For instance, if your caller lives in Texas and you are selling generators, point out how necessary they are in the case of extreme weather or in the event of another grid power shortage.
Hack #2: Tailor Your Prospect
Every time you call someone, you need to have a personal approach to each prospect or at least to each industry. You can do this by tailoring the product to where they live, their age, or any other relevant factor for purchasing the product. Every potential buyer is different and therefore, their reasons for wanting to purchase the product are different.
This is a hack that also works well when creating campaigns. Campaigns allow you to put certain people or businesses into smaller groups so you can tailor to the prospect based on one specific thing. Use the best cold calling scripts when connecting with the cold lead, so you will have the best telemarketing closing techniques.
Hack #3: Answer Objections
Selling over the phone can be difficult. Selling over the phone with objections can be even more difficult. Objections can be anything from ‘the price is too high’ to ‘well the competitor has offered me this’. With all the varying objections, how can you possibly answer them all smoothly and still make the sale?
There are a few ways.
It is okay to answer their objection truthfully, however, if it has a negative connotation, remember to quickly redirect the conversation to something positive about the company, products, or something the potential customer has an interest in. You never want to stumble for an answer in an objection, that's why it’s best to answer truthfully and briefly, then redirect to the positive.
Most objections agents encounter are comments about the competitors. For situations like these, it’s best to respond with “I can’t speak for the competitors, but we offer [fill in the blank]”. Don’t waste any time comparing your company to the competitors, it's a waste of time and takes away from the product you are trying to offer.
Potential customers appreciate when the agent is honest in answering objections and when the agent answers quickly because it proves their integrity and their knowledge of the product, while also not wasting their time. Furthermore, answering the objections cancels out their reasons for not purchasing from your company and therefore makes them a more likely candidate to purchase.
Hack #4: Limit Commonalities to 2 Minutes
It is fantastic when you and the cold lead have something in common, but you don’t want to spend more than 2 minutes on the topic. Commonalities are good for gaining trust and building the agent-customer relationship, but it doesn’t usually produce a sale. Keep the social time to a minimum, so the call remains focused on selling the solution to the customer.
One way to change the subject to business is by mentioning that you know their time is valuable, so you don’t want to take too much of it. Another way to do this is by working the product into the non-business discussion. For instance:
Cold Lead: “Yeah we plan to go to the Great Lakes this summer”
Agent: “Oh, that's wonderful, you should stop by the Guardian Building, it's a historic landmark. We host our seminars there every year for our newest products.”
These are just two ways to keep social conversations to a minimum.
Hack #5: Be Confident… but Don’t Use Your ‘Sales Voice’
Want to know how to sell over the phone without sounding well… like a salesman. Let your personality out. At least a little bit, you don’t want to overdo it and make it sound like you're talking to your best friend. You can sound confident simply by including your personality into your sales script or briefly sharing commonalities (as talked about above). This again builds the agent-customer relationship and makes you look confident because you are willing to stray away from the ‘normal’ salesmen type. Remember that you will want to keep cold calling etiquette, even though the conversation might be different from the sales calls you’re used to.
Hack #6: Create Urgency
You’ve seen this technique on tv, in the mall, and in your inbox thousands of times. You know, the ones that say “This deal is only valid today” or “Last chance for 50% off!”. We see them all the time, so you know that the cold leads you are calling see them all the time as well. Creating urgency for your product needs to stand out and really add value to the lead. Otherwise, it will just get lost in all the other deals they hear and see.
How Can I Be a Good Salesman Over the Phone?
Telemarketing is a really effective business tool if used well. Practicing phone sales techniques will only make you more experienced and successful over the phone. If you want another resource for closing techniques over the phone, make sure you know all about the telemarketing magic such as how to turn your B2B telemarketing into an awesome sales tool.
Works Cited
Brandon, L., 2021. 4 Effective Ways to Shorten the Sales Funnel - Blog TelephoneLists. [online] Telephonelists.biz. Available at: https://www.telephonelists.biz/blog/4-effective-ways-shorten-sales-funnel/ [Accessed 4 August 2021].
Brandon, L., 2021. How Telemarketing Services Help Win the Trust of Customers? - Blog TelephoneLists. [online] Telephonelists.biz. Available at: https://www.telephonelists.biz/blog/telemarketing-services-101-winning-trust-customers/ [Accessed 3 August 2021].
Telephonelists.biz. 2021. Best Cold Calling Scripts | Business Residential Telemarketing Phone List | USA | Canada. [online] Available at: https://www.telephonelists.biz/blog/best-cold-calling-scripts/ [Accessed 5 August 2021].
