So you have started a new business. You have done an in-depth study of the market place. You have a killer product - your office is ready - now the fun begins.
I had a long chat with a telesales professional. She was in charge of a company that marketed advertising for a large blue chip company.
Her team had to make 150 dial ups per day - that's right, you heard me correctly - 150 dial ups per day. Let me clarify what a dial up is. If you call and the person you need to speak to is not in - it still is a dial up. If you call and the person is in but asks you to call back later - it still is a dial up. And lastly if you do manage to speak to the buyer - that is also a dial up.
Their working day was 8 hours. When you subtract 1 hour for lunch and 30 minutes for 2 tea breaks per day - this leaves 6.5 hours on the phone = 390 minutes of cold calling. This equates to 2.5 minutes per call on average.
Now in reality, 70% of calls took less than a minute - due to the person not being in or asking to be called back later. So 105 of these calls are completed in 100 minutes. This leaves 290 minutes to deal with 45 decision makers. This equates to 4.5 minutes per call. In reality it doesn't actually work this way. Some decision makers will reject the caller within a couple of minutes - this is great - now you can add those minutes saved by spending them on real potential customers.
What do I mean by telephone terror? This is a well known phenomenon that strikes at the heart of most people who have ever had to do telesales. The main cause is rejection. When a sales person makes 10 calls and gets 10 rejections - S/he feels miserable. S/he feels like the buyers are rejecting him/her and not the product. This leads to telephone freeze - no more calls!
So how do you handle telephone terror? Simple - keep making calls. Work out your averages, so you will know what you face. You should know the following statistics / averages inside out:
How many decision makers do you manage to speak to per day?
What percentages were interested in your products?
How many interested parties did you manage to convert to buyers?
How many rejections you received - that's right - you should know before you start calling how many rejections you are likely to receive - and each time you get a rejection - realise that you have a achieved a positive result - you don't need to speak to that person again!
Start enjoying making your calls and speaking to other people. Some days will be better than others. Always stay calm and don't get annoyed with a potential customer. You never know - you might get a call a few days later with an order!
Practice what you are going to say before you pick up the phone. Record your self - so you can hear how you sound. Ask your partner to listen to some of your scripts. If certain words don't sound right when you listen to yourself - find a replacement. It must seem natural.
Always start of with the smallest potential customers to warm yourself up first thing in the morning.
A final tip - when you have an interested party on the other end - stand up whilst you are talking - this makes you more confident. Use your arms, wave them around whilst you talk. It makes it easier to make yourself understood.
The numbers of rejections you receive in any one day are totally out of your control. You are in control of how many calls you make that day.
Hearing a no brings you closer to hearing a yes and as long as you have conducted the call properly then you have to accept that call only had one outcome which you received. "Some will, some won't, so what, move on"
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