More skills for internal sales teams

 This is a product aimed at those of you who have a team of people or individuals who deal with incoming calls, but who are nevertheless expected to sell. If you want to raise your skills, or build up your selling skills this product could help http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=31

Every phone call coming in represents an opportunity. OK, it may not always look like it – “Oh, I’m just phoning round looking for prices” or “I want to know where my goods are !” But within whatever the customer is saying there is always the seed of an opportunity.

Increasing the average order value by upselling, or switchselling the customer on to a different product if the one they want is out of stock are all important ways of ensuring you lock their business in, and don’t lose it to your competition.

The training company To Market runs training courses for telesales and telemarketing teams. We have on offer at Associated Learning Systems a range of telesales and telemarketing related training CDs as part of our audio training programme. These include our best selling line the 3 CDs on telephone selling. We also have a CD on benefits titled “sell the sizzle, not the bacon.” There will be other CDs added soon on upselling, cross selling and switch selling plus highly effective account management.  

You may be thinking the CDs are unlikely to be completely free – well here’s the deal. For every one of the Sales training CDs available on our site that you buy, you can have a complete refund of what you’ve spent against any in-house training you commission To Market to run for you before the 30th September 2009.

Our telesales training products and material here contain advice and tips on sales techniques, including how to open the sales call, identifying needs, spotting buying signals, questioning techniques, probing customer needs, and dealing with objections.

So have a browse around the site, press a few buttons and these CDs could be with you tomorrow, or maybe the next day. Payment is easy and secure through PayPal, you can make payment with your credit card.

JH suggested the following ; 

“One of my favourite examples was about 10 years ago, and is not about a product or service we offer that is different to any one else, it is more to do with how I tried to stand out from competitors selling the same thing.

I was quoting a very large contract for a Council authority. I, like everyone else had been walked round to assess the size and nature of the job. At the end of the walk round I asked several questions that I already knew the answer to, and a couple of questions that were slightly irrelevant to the quote (as far as I was concerned), I even inspected their present product, even though I new exactly what type it was and who supplied it. To the Council contact, no one else had done this or asked these questions and it gave an instant boost of confidence in my company that set us apart from the competition. The other big difference to being awarded this particular contract came from the written quote I submitted. The other 3 companies were fairly short “products to be supplied x, total cost £………..”  type of things.

I made my quote stand out completely by making it fill a couple of pages, giving details of the quality of the product. I then listed all the areas individually, pointing out any potential problems they may have in the future. I backed it up with references and some tips about information I’d read that I thought would help them. We were told that we were not the cheapest quote, but the council contact said it was chalk and cheese comparing our quote to that of the other 3 companies. It made him think these guys are professionals who I want to work with. All the companies were using the same method, all I did was present it in a way that made us stand out both on site and in the written follow up.”

Nice advice, just doing that bit more, taking more pride in your work can make all the difference. And remember in selling there is only one winner. You can find out more about the training that To Market offers by following this link   http://www.tomarket.co.uk/training.php There are telesales and telemarketing courses run around the country including open courses in Leicester, Northampton, Kettering, Corby, Cambridge, Birmingham, Solihull, Coventry, Warrington, Leeds, Milton Keynes and Nottingham 

“Apart from the usual communication skills, a key part of selling is to try offer something that sets you apart from the competition, a Unique Selling Point. – this could be either goods or services your company offers that no one else is doing. It could  also be a USP about you as an individual, some thing that sets you apart from the (as always) 2- 3 other people quoting the same thing. It must be something that makes the customer remember you and persuades them to look at you and your company as the preferred option. This could be as simple as something you say on the phone or what was in the written quote, or even how the quote is structured and laid out.”

So it is worth giving it some thought. There are always some unique points to use – sometimes it just needs a little thought and imagination. We cover the idea of using benefit statements with one of the telesales audio CDs in the series on telephone selling and telemarketing http://www.associatedlearningsystems.co.uk/product_detail.asp?ProdID=5 It covers the use of benefit statements, reason statements and open questions. These are the key parts to bear in mind when opening the sales call.