Cold Calling Appointment Setting

The questions you can ask yourself to determine if your business should utilize Cold Calling

1. Is your business struggling to meet sales targets?

2. Is your sales and marketing team spending hours talking with businesses who are not ideal prospects?

3. Is paying Sales Staff and Marketing Teams absorbing the majority of your turnover?

4. Would you like to have more customers, turnover or profit?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then you should be using a cold calling solution.

Some things you really should know!

The ability to identify your best prospects, deliver your message effectively, and manage your time will directly correlate with the number of sales you make. The more people you call, the more sales you will make. The more you prequalify the people you call, the higher your call-to-sale ratio will be.

You should understand what telemarketing actually is, understand how your company can benefit from the power of telemarketing as a sales tool, and be able to determine the various ways you can incorporate telemarketing into your company's overall sales and marketing efforts.
Knowing this information is the first step to telemarketing success, but there's a lot more you need to accomplish before ever picking up the telephone!

Developing the perfect sales message for the product and/or your company offers is critical. Even with the right message, however, you still must perfect your presentation and truly understand not just your products services, but your prospect's wants and needs as well.

Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts when it comes to planning and executing an effective telemarketing campaign.

The right approach could easily allow you to;

1. Obtain new customers and more repeat customers

2. Drastically improve sales

3. Improve your company's customer relations

4. Enhance your company's reputation and image

5. Increase your company's profits

If however, you make mistakes. take the wrong approach, do not understand your objectives, or attempt to take shortcuts, you could easily encounter one hang-up after another when you start making calls, alienate your potential customers, damage your company's reputation, and wind up wasting a lot of time, money, and manpower.

So what is an example of the Cold Calling Sales Process?

1. Pre-Call Planning
2. Introduction
3. Rapport Building
4. The Reason for the Call
5. Trial Close
6. Objections Handling
7. Closing
8. Wrapping up

Telemarketing is not all doom and gloom and deception.

If you learn the art of Rapport Building your success rate will sky rocket. There is no better tool to breakdown the fact that you are imposing yourself on the Gatekeeper and attempted to get to their employer. Gatekeepers receive multiple calls a day sometimes an hour. There would be nothing more frustrating than dealing with Telemarketing calls when you have other duties to perform. The second a Gatekeeper identifies you're calling to Sell or Promote something they become defensive as it is there job on the line.

It is vital to identify something familiar to the Gatekeeper within the first few seconds of the call. You can do this by looking at the general population, what does every person like? You may use the weekend as a rapport building statement however this is not enough. You may start with your introduction following a polite how are you?

For a simple process of Getting Past the Gatekeeper please refer to the lens http://www.squidoo.com/getting-past-the-gatekeeper or go to the section displaying my other Lens's

The number one rule in Pre-Call Planning is to perform what I call 'The Self Check'!

Ensure that you have let the last call go. There is nothing worse then taking the outcome of previous calls and bringing them into the next call. If you have run into a negative prospect that completely runs you down avoid bringing the feelings you may have experienced into the next call. Take a few deep breaths and remind yourself that it is not personal.

Ensure that you are smiling before dialing.

Attitude is everything, make sure yours is in good shape prior to contacting a prospect. The next call may be the big one.

Know your product and your place in the Sales Process.

If you use the same exact sales pitch for every prospect you call, you will fail as a 'Cold Caller'. Although you want to quickly and easily convey all of the benefits of utilizing the product or service you are selling and at the same time gain the trust of the person you are on the phone with, for example, you also must totally customize your sales pitch to the person you are talking to.

1. What are the prospect's needs and desires?

2. How can what you are offering help the prospect?

3. What are the prospect's goals and concerns?

Forget for a moment, what you want as a result of the call and consider what you can offer to benefit each individual prospect. The common approach, where you simply repeat the same script over and over, with no modification, probably is not going to achieve the results you are looking for.

As you prepare your sales message you want to convey through your 'Cold Calling' efforts that you understand one thing - Your prospect is looking for economic benefit!

Whether you are 'Cold Calling' to an individual or to a company, you must understand that the person on the other end of the phone is always looking to either:

1. Save money

2. Increase profits

3. Lower costs

4. Address some other concern or issue

If you accept this as a universal fact, you can begin to develop a sales message that addresses the primary goals of your prospects.

Before you begin to discuss what your company can offer to the prospects you are calling, or even make intelligent recommendations, you must understand at least the basics of who your potential client is and what business he or she is in if you are 'Cold Calling' to other companies.

When 'Cold Calling' to companies, before picking up the phone you should already know the answers to the following questions:

1. What business is your prospect in?
2. Who are your prospect's competitors?
3. How does your prospect make money?
4. What are the challenges your prospect faces?
5. What is your prospect concerned about day after day?

If you are 'Cold Calling' to individuals, you will want to know similar information about your prospects, including answers to these questions:

What problems or concerns can you help the prospect address and solve?

How can your product and/or services help your prospect earn more money, save money, save time, reduce stress, or alleviate a concern?
Your company's sales message must address these issues and focus on promoting the benefits of your product and/or service to your prospects. In order to do this successfully, it is important that you, as the 'Cold Caller', know what you are selling inside and out. You must also know your own competition and be able to communicate why what you are offering is a better alternative.

As the 'Cold Caller', it is important to believe in what you are selling. Only then will you sound genuine, confident, and credible when you present to prospects. If you do not believe in what you are promoting then this will become very obvious on the phone and you will quickly lose credibility.

When you think of a 'sales person' the image that probably comes to mind is someone who talks fast and is insincere and perhaps even dishonest. This is the stereotypical image you do not want to present.

Once you have a basic understanding of what your company's sales message needs to cover, start to develop some ideas for your overall sales presentation. Once you have created what you think is the perfect telephone sales message, the next obstacle will be to get prospects to stay on the phone long enough for you to present it.

Remember that nobody likes to be sold something, however everyone likes to make an intelligent buy. Think about how you personally feel after you have gotten a great bargain. Most people are so excited they actually brag about their purchase to friends and relatives, thus creating word-of-mouth referrals and additional business for the company.

As you develop a sales presentation for your company, it is important for your prospect to develop a. perceived value for what you are offering. If he or she does not see the value, you have not done a good sales job, and you will either lose the prospect or wind up having to put forth an incredible effort to overcome all of his or her objections and concerns. As the 'Cold Caller', it is always your job to create perceived value for what you are selling.

Always be specific!

When you are on the telephone, your prospect cannot see you, your sales literature, or touch and feel your product and/or service. Thus, as you talk on the phone and describe what you offer, it is important that your sales message utilize highly descriptive language that will make what you are selling more interesting, more alive, and more appealing. Using descriptive language is not the same, however, as using complex terms or too much technical jargon that will ultimately confuse, annoy and/or bore the person you are speaking with.

It will become important for your prospects to know that they are ultimately buying into a relationship with you first and then the product and/or service you are actually selling which makes it your responsibility to begin building strong relationships with your prospects right from the start.

Ultimately, you will discover that the relationship between the customer and the sales representative is crucial for obtaining sales and later repeat sales. Buyers stick with salespeople who give them the best service and the most personalized attention and who address their individual needs. Top salespeople and 'Cold Caller's deliver more than they promise; provide outstanding service before, during, and after the sales; and offer value-added services to their customers.

The ability to identify your best prospects, deliver your message effectively, and manage your time will directly correlate with the number of sales you make. The more people you call, the more sales you will make. The more you prequalify the people you call, the higher your call-to-sale ratio will be.

1. Define your company's telemarketing sales message?

2. Create a message suitable to be communicated over the telephone?

3. Define your company's overall telemarketing objectives

Tips for determining your target audience? Proven strategies for matching your sales message to your prospect's needs and wants? Hints for getting the customer's attention and keeping it? How to predetermine the objections you are bound to encounter?

Developing the perfect sales message for the products or service your company offers is critical. Even with the right message, you still must perfect your presentation and truly understand not just your products services as well as prospect's needs and wants.

There are no shortcuts when it comes to planning and executing an effective telemarketing campaign however the right approach could easily allow you to:

Obtain new customers and more repeat customers Drastically improve sales, Improve your company's customer relations Enhance your company's reputation and image Increase your company's profits

If you make mistakes, take the wrong approach, do not understand your objectives, or attempt shortcuts, you could easily experience one hang-up after another during your campaign, alienate your potential customers, damage your company's reputation, or wind up wasting a lot of time and cashflow.

From a telemarketer's standpoint, this is a trick question. If you use the same exact sales pitch for every prospect you call, you will fail as a telemarketer. Although you want to quickly and easily convey all of the benefits of utilizing the product or service you are selling and at the same time gain the trust of the person you are on the phone with, for example, you also must totally customize your sales pitch to the person you are talking to.

What are the prospect's needs and desires?

How can what you are offering help him or tier?

What are his or her goals and concerns?

Put aside what you want as a result of the call and consider what you can offer to benefit each individual prospect. The sales approach, where you simply repeat the same script over and over, with no modification, probably is not going to achieve the results you are looking for.

Your company's sales message must address these issues and focus on promoting the benefits of your product or service to your prospects. In order to do this successfully, it is important that you, as the telemarketer, know what you are selling inside and out. You must also know your own competition and be able to communicate why what you are offering is a better alternative. As the telemarketer, it is important to truly believe in what you are selling. Only then will you sound genuine, confident, and believable as you talk to prospects.

If you do not believe what you are saying, this will become very obvious on the phone and you will quickly lose credibility. When you think of a "salesperson" the image that probably comes to mind is someone who talks fast and is insincere and perhaps even dishonest. This is the stereotypical image you absolutely do not want to convey.

Buyers stick with salespeople who give them the best service and the most personalized attention and who address their individual needs. Top salespeople and telemarketers deliver more than they promise; provide outstanding service before, during, and after the sales; and offer value-added services to their customers.

Get through your Presentation

It is amazing how many prospects say that they are not interested before you even finish introducing yourself. You do not know what you do not know!

Once you've created what you think is the perfect telephone sales message, the next obstacle will be to get prospects to stay on the phone long enough for you to present it.

Remember that nobody likes to be sold something. Everyone likes to make an informed purchase. How do feel after you have gotten a great bargain. Most people actually brag about their purchase to friends and relatives, which creates word-of-mouth referrals and additional business for the company.

Whilst developing your company's Sales Message it is important for your prospect to develop a perceived value for what you are offering. If he or she does not see the value, you have not done a good sales job, and you will either lose the prospect or wind up having to put forth an incredible effort to overcome all of his or her objections and concerns.

The best way to start this section of your script is 'the reason for my call' and then following the above your script will write itself.

Prospects Do Not Want Telemarketing Calls - It is very rare that they actually mean no. It is generally a request for more information or a better link to a prospects needs.

They require an approach that is disarming and understanding. Knowing how many company's that hire anyone for telemarketing positions it is likely that most previous approaches that they have had have been ill disciplined, sales orientated or lacking truth. They lack truth because they had neither the right product or the right approach. Any No can be a Yes, if you can quickly change the state of your prospect.

Depending on your perspective, the word 'telemarketing or telemarketer' can create many different images. When referring to B2B (Business-to-Business) telemarketing, there are two types of businesses - the ones who are making the phone calls and the ones who are taking the phone calls. Due to the effectiveness of Direct Marketing there are more and more businesses doing it, which not only increases the volume of calls for the business making them but also for the industry and the receiving business.

For half of the business community telemarketing is a solution for vastly improving efficiency, sales-volume, and profits, for the other half of the business community who are on the receiving end, it can be perceived as annoying, time wasting, and a nuisance.

Whilst a Business Owner is continually entertaining telephone calls from 'Telemarketers' and 'Sales People', they are not able to focus on their daily role or own marketing activities. This eventually reduces their efficiency and potential to generate profit.

You could easily think; that it is only a few minutes on the phone, however, when you consider the sheer size and rapid growth of the Call Centre Industry you may come to understand that these Business Prospects are receiving dozens of phone calls every day for this purpose, quite often selling the same products as each other. In general, people are busy and do not want to be continually disturbed by telemarketers trying to sell products and services that they do not believe they need.

Generally, any concerns the customer has will be expressed when you close the sale. It is at this point that a buying decision has to be made by the customer and for this reason, if the customer has any doubts, they will tend to be voiced here.

Sales people often see objection, skepticism and indifference as being a personal knock-back. This is not necessarily the case, and a customer who expresses a concern is often indicating to you that he or she has not perceived the benefits of the idea the same way as you see them..

When a customer expresses one of the above concerns, it prevents you from achieving a satisfactory close. It requires you to retrace some of your steps in the sales process to isolate and deal with the attitude.

You can best deal with the above customer attitudes by following three key steps:

1. Clarify and confirm your understanding of the customer's concern

2. Provide information to deal with the customer's concern

3. Gain the customer's acceptance of your answer to the concern

Types of Objections

Clarify and confirm Your Understanding of the Concern

Without a clear understanding of the reason for the customer's concern, you will not be in a position to deal with the problem effectively. By confirming your understanding you are letting the customer know that you are listening and that you care about his or her concerns. This will build trust and confidence with the customer. Questions also help encourage the customer to more thoroughly explain the concern, thus giving you the opportunity to examine the specifics of the issue before responding.

It is important that you gain a correct understanding of the customer's concern because the way you deal an objection, skepticism or indifference differs in each case. Provide Information to Deal with the Customer's Concern

Objection Due To Genuine Drawback

When customers raise an objection due to a genuine drawback in your products or services, you should not try to sell over this drawback by attempting to reduce the value of their needs or by falsely claiming to be able to meet the need. You cannot deceive customers and hope to retain them.

Objection Due To Misunderstanding

When customers raise an objection due to a misunderstanding, the first step in dealing with this concern is to confirm the customer's concern, and then clarify the misunderstanding of your features and benefits OR provide additional ones to support your presentation.

Objection Due To Lack of Information

When customers express objection because of a lack of information about the products or services you should clarify the concern and then provide the information needed.

Skepticism

if customers express skepticism, they are generally indicating that they doubt whether the features presented will provide the benefits you claim, or whether the feature or facts you have offered are true. This skepticism may be due to lack of information. After you have confirmed the nature of the doubt, you have to supply proof of your claims by providing testimonials or authority for the information in doubt.

Indifference Due To Satisfaction with an Existing Product or Service

When customers express indifference to your product or service because of satisfaction with an existing product you need to clarify the concern and then provide product comparisons to show clear benefits for what you are proposing. The key to dealing with this indifference is your knowledge of the competition and the relative advantages of your products and services.

Indifference Due To No Perceived Benefits

When customers express indifference it can mean that they cannot see any benefit in adopting your proposal or see no advantage to them in doing one thing or another. In this case you will need to re-develop the customer's perception of needs and how your products or services can satisfy them.

Gain the Customer's Acceptance of Your Answer to the Concern.

This final step is designed to ensure that the customer's concern has, in fact, been dealt with in a satisfactory manner. If some concern still remains, you need to re-trace your steps to deal with it through re-analyzing and re-developing the customer's perception of needs and the application of your benefits.

Example Objection Handlers

I'm Not Interested

I appreciate you receive so many calls from telemarketers and I apologise to add to them. I am hoping you can look past the previous phone calls and allow me less than one minute of your time and if you are adamant that you are still not interested in what I have said I will ensure you are removed from our list.

May ask you a couple of very quick questions?

I don't want to save money

So if you are driving down the street and one petrol station is 10c a liter more than another you would you go to the cheaper petrol station?

Can you email or fax us information?

To be perfectly honest with you unless we know more about your business we would have to send you a Novel. We treat our customers like each is unique and tailor packages based on your business. I see your in the _____ industry but what exactly do you do there?

Selling without closing is just conversation - structure your conversation and prospects will close themselves

Closing is the most important part of the telephone call. Without a close you do not have a sale. Closing is all about seizing the moment. It's about jumping in and grabbing the sale.

Some signs are:

%u2022 Questions about your product

%u2022 Admiration of your product

%u2022 Consistent agreement with almost everything you say

%u2022 Animated, sometimes even excited behavior eg. Faster speech

Examples of buying signals

"When could you deliver it?"
"Does that price include delivery?"
'Do you home deliver?"
"Do you have a payment plan?"
'Do you offer a warranty?"

Closing questions

Once you have a buying signal, reinforce it and then ask a closing question. Example: "I like the fact that your facial cream is hypo-allergenic."

"It's certainly one of our better selling brands. (Pause) Fortunately, we still have a few tubes in stock at the moment would you like me to place an order for you today?"

Before attempting to close a sale know the answers to these two questions!

1. What problems or concerns can you help the prospect address and solve?

2. How can your product and/or service help your prospect earn money, save money, save time, reduce stress, or alleviate a concern?

Gain Agreement to Benefits

Because you have involved the customer in the discovery of the needs and you both see the needs the same way, the customer is more likely to agree that the features of your product/service/solution do satisfy the need and will result in direct benefits to him or her.

It is important that before you move into the closing phase of the sales discussion, you gain the customer's agreement on the benefits to be derived from your product or service and that these will in fact satisfy the agreed needs.

Closing doesn't mean a pressure sell, or a trap sell, nor is it techniques to get the customer to buy something he or she does not want. Closing means gaining and making an agreed commitment to further action.

If the previous phases of the sales process have been conducted effectively and you have opened, explored well, analysed effectively and presented thoroughly there will be little effort required in closing.

While an effective analysis and a good presentation of benefits will often result in the customer closing, you also have to be ready to close the sale. Closing is vital to any sale. Remember, nothing will happen unless you explain what you want and gain a commitment to further action.

Examples of closing techniques

Assumptive close
Assuming the sale has been made by asking such things as 'where would you like us to put it', before the customer agreed to buy.

Alternative close
Use this close when the customer is not making a decision e.g. would you prefer delivery on Tuesday or on Wednesday?

Last chance close
Where you indicate to the customer that the offer is only valid for a limited time e.g. 'the price goes up tomorrow so unless you buy now

Order blank close
Fill in the customer's details on the order form even though the customer has not indicated a willingness to make a buying decision e.g. customer, all I need is your billing address, telephone number, and the date you want this installed'

Objection turn-around close
As the customer has an objection - e.g. the customer has indicated a need for a twenty day trial period. You would say 'if I can give you a twenty day trial period, will you buy my system?'

Demonstrate of Proof close
Use this before you demonstrate or validate a product or service e.g. if I can show you how our system will save you $$$ or if I can demonstrate to you how our product meets all the needs you have explained, will you sign the order?

Role reversal close
Put yourself in my shoes. What if you had a fantastic product that was priced right? You also knew it would benefit your customer but the customer wouldn't buy and wouldn't give you a reason, what would you do? Then be quiet and listen. The real objection will come out and you deal with it and go in for the close.

Closing in a consultative, non-threatening manner usually involves a brief review of the main needs that were agreed upon, particularly if a number of issues were discussed. It will then include a reinforcement of the key benefits outlined in the presentation. It will then ask for a commitment to further action of some kind, whether that action be an agreed 'sale' or some other commitment to further action towards the sale.

Summarize the discussion

Reinforce the key benefits

Gain agreement to action

Present up-sell or cross-sell benefits

Summarize our commitment

Confirm customer's commitment

It is vital to wrap up your call whether you are making an actual sale or setting up an appointment for a sales representative.

When selling wrapping up the call reaffirms everything that you have discussed and ensures the prospect - now customer completely understands what they have purchased and the steps moving forward regarding the delivery or next steps that they can expect. This reduces the amount of cancellations and buyers remorse that can occur after a legitimate sale has taken place. The customer is given further confidence in the process that has taken place and will often speak very highly about the sale even before receiving their product or service. This leads to referrals.

When lead generating, this is the point where you should further promote the consultant attending the appointment. For the same reasons as selling, the prospect is less likely to back out of the appointment or worse, deny the call has ever taken place. Prospects do forget however if you leave a lasting impression then it is more likely that they will diaries or at least recall how professional you were on the telephone and have open arms for when the consultant attends the appointment.