Dynamic Telephone Sales Training and Techniques For The 21st Century

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• Study how to build a telephone sales presentation.
• Learn fail-safe techniques to ask questions and discover answers that you need.
• Identify real-world plans on how to tell stories, sell a company, and create interest.
• Learn the strategies that prepare yourself to handle objections and questions.
• Discover how to sell benefits and features and close sales.
• Realize how to sell credibility and understand why telephone selling can work when done well.

• Build an understanding of the prospect and what they are thinking while on the telephone.

CONTENTS

UNDERSTANDING TELEPHONE SELLING

Thousands of TSRs don’t understand telephone selling, and this lack of understanding limits their potential to make money. It also sets back the industry. I don’t believe that TSRs are entirely at fault in this respect. Certainly, people are accountable for their own choices, and in that respect they are at fault. Yet, little formal time has been spent teaching the industry and the medium to TSRs, and this lack of scholarship means that TSRs haven’t been given the opportunity to learn. My experiences have been that TSRs know they are required to sell, but they don’t know why they succeed when they sell, or how they succeed when they sell, or why some selling techniques work and others don’t. In addition, they don’t understand why one customer reacts a certain way to a telephone sales presentation while another customer reacts a different way. Some TSRs succeed, others fail, but in any event, few of them know why.

I once gathered together six non-TSRs and asked them what they thought of telephone selling. To no surprise of mine, they each came back with the same response, worded differently. Each conveyed a lack of respect for and understanding of the industry. "No" I exclaimed, "Telephone selling involves much more than simply sitting in a chair enjoying a soft drink. It is much more fascinating than that". Unfortunately, this image, and many images like this one, are the predominant views of telephone selling and of TSRs. (i.e. it’s a lazy job, anybody can do it, the folks who do it are quite unspectacular, and most telephone calls are bothersome scams that no honest minded individual would want to become involved with anyhow.). Between TSRs who don't understand their own industry and novices who have preconceived notions of the industry, it is no surprise that many people just don't understand telephone selling.

Here is a more honest assessment. Telephone selling is clearly a professional occupation, and a TSR’s position involves serious dedication as well as a clever mixture of psychology and emotions. If the TSR can use psychology and emotions to his advantage, he will capture the centerpiece of successful selling over the telephone and in turn impact the way society views TSRs. The reason many TSRs don’t excel in their profession, and the reason customers feel telephone selling and TSRs aren’t on the "up and up" when they solicit, is because telephone selling isn’t viewed by TSRs as a psychological and emotional medium. Too many TSRs think they are just performing another job.

This brings me to that well-known and often repeated story about the three men building a temple in the middle of the desert. Generations of men, family after family, began the process of building this temple. Those who began the process of building the temple had long passed away when their children’s children finally completed the project. On the first day of this project, each man had been asked what he was building. The first man said, "I’m building a temple". The second man said, "I’m building a temple". The third man said, "I’m building a great temple which will be the largest in the world, a Mecca for centuries of civilizations to learn from and enjoy."

Clearly, this third man took pride in his sense of accomplishment and his contribution to history. He had the psychological and emotional rush. In addition, he understood that he was far more than just a builder, and he realized that his job was far more important than to just build. His expression of this made other people feel the same way.

EMOTIONS VERSUS DATA

he first thing the TSR must recognize to become successful is that nobody buys over the telephone solely because of the data they hear from the TSR. Customers buy over the telephone based on emotion. Telephone selling is an emotional industry, and customers react positively when they are emotionally motivated to do so. Why do customers buy books over the telephone? Because they are emotionally motivated to make the purchase. Why do customers change phone service, banking, health plans, insurance companies? Because it feels like the right thing to do. Selling emotions means the TSR sells feelings, word pictures, dynamic images, creativity, euphoria. It means the customer sees what the TSR is selling. The TSR takes those emotions that appeal to the customer and applies them to his product.

As an example, just look at the local baseball field. Hitting a homerun requires the swing of the bat. From the fans’ perspective, is that the most exciting thing about the homerun? No. The most exciting thing is seeing the ball go over the fence! The most exciting thing is the rush of the crowds, the music blaring, the scoreboard shouting, the stadium rocking. For the fans, excitement is seeing a homerun clear the fence, because now that fan’s team is a run ahead.

Now, let’s take a look at the batter’s perspective. For the batter, the most exciting thing about a homerun is thrusting his hands in the air, pumping his fists, and circling the bases. The least exciting thing for a batter was swinging the bat. The emotion of winning, the thrill of the crowd, the rush of his teammates all makes a homerun hitter excited, not because he swung the bat, but because he hit the ball. Hitting a homerun is emotional for everybody involved with the game.

Emotion sells everywhere, and telephone selling plays by this rule. Is anybody at the baseball game truly excited because the scoreboard changed? Absolutely not. Scoreboard is data, and scoreboard / data is BORING. It is a mechanical function. The question to ask has nothing to do with the scoreboard. The question to ask is "Why is everybody cheering?"

Because of emotions. And emotions are why customers buy.

Yet, nine out of ten customers would tell you that this isn’t true, that instead, they make their decisions logically. If you were in a store and asked ten customers why they had just made a purchase, they would all claim logic and data before emotions. And they would stand by their stories. An example of this arose out of the Kennedy / Nixon election. Logically we know that John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon by less than one percentage point in the 1960 presidential election. Emotionally, after the election was over, more than 75% of voters said they had chosen Kennedy! If I were selling one hundred Kennedy pins to logical voters, I would sell just fifty -one pins. But if I sold one hundred Kennedy pins to emotional voters, I would sell at least seventy five !

Emotions are what sell. Customers mask their emotions because they want to believe that every decision they make is a logical one. The fact is, however, that deep down inside, customers must "want" before they will buy, and this "want" is an emotional reaction. They must "want" to hit a homerun, or win the game, or to have voted for the winner of the election. Making decisions is completely an emotional science. Emotions always reign, and while there may be elements of data involved in the sale, data must always be used in a secondary role. TSRs must recognize that customers buy based on emotions. TSRs must sell emotions!

DATA SUPPORTS EMOTIONS

There is another reason why emotions are sold successfully over the telephone. It is much easier to sell emotions and then support those emotions with data than it is to sell data and support that data with emotions.

"Mr. Smith, you are going to have so much fun with this program. And, you are getting this program for the lowest price on the market."

"Clearly, the exercise gym you’re joining will do wonders for not only your children’s health, but your parents’ health, too. And, because it is located just five minutes from your house, it will be very accessible."

In the match-up of emotions and data, emotions become the dominating venue of choice, but data is the support mechanism that makes emotions credible. I used the example of the baseball homerun and the scoreboard before, and that perfectly illustrates my point. If a fan looked at the scoreboard at the same moment his team had a run added, there would be very little excitement, because there is no emotion to support the data that a run had been added. Then, if a homerun was hit, the emotion for the fan would be less intense, because the fact that the number was added first on the scoreboard took the excitement away. (Why watch a boxing match when you know the winner, and you know the round in which the loser gets knocked down? Why get excited about a touchdown run if you know that data demonstrates your team is going to lose, anyhow? Where is the excitement?) Customers simply do not get excited when they know data first, and then are encouraged to get emotionally worked up because of the data.

Customers do get excited, however, when emotions exist and data supports those emotions. This is a basic principle of telephone selling. The telephone sales representative has the obligation to bring his customer over to his side by emotionally involving him in the conversation and the sell. (When the boss offers somebody a raise, that person is ecstatic. After he offers him the raise, the boss tells that person the additional duties of his job. When a basketball team performs a slam-dunk, the fan is emotionally enthused. Afterward, the fan analyzes the scoreboard and figures out what else is need to win. When a sales person offers somebody a brand new car, that person is excited about the possibilities. Afterward, he decides whether the data regarding price fits into his price range.)

By selling emotions, the TSR is placing his customer in a mental frame of mind to expect, and expectation sells. Then, when the TSR sells data in order to back up the emotions, the customer understands. By selling data, the TSR delivers. When the data is solid and supportive of emotions, the data will only lend credibility to the project, and help in the telephone sell.

Pricing

Friendly Persuasion- Book and Workbook Set

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Friendly Persuasion- Book

*price includes shipping and handling and sales tax when applicable

Friendly Persuasion- WorkBook

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