Sales are the foundation upon which businesses generate money needed to keep them afloat. Every company has different ways to facilitate this great activity of selling their products or services. Technology sure has a great impact on the way we do business, now with the advent of mobile phones, sales could be done over the phone. When well-trained sales persons are put on the other side of the line, people tend to buy more.
However, in order to be more effective in your ability to make sales over the phone, there are a number of things you should know. When you think about making sales calls, you think it is easy because it is done over the phone. You quickly imagine yourself sitting in a relaxed position ready to talk to the prospect as you would your friend. But there is more to making sales calls than you would readily think.
You would have to take out time to prepare yourself for every session you are going to be having in order to make your sales calls more effective. The aim here is to get the person on the other side of the phone to buy the product you are selling. This is a big deal considering they don’t know you before and they were not expecting your call. So, if you take this task likely, you will definitely meet with more failure than originally anticipated.
Below is a list of 50 tips and tricks that will help you to be more effective in your approach to making these sales, feel free to follow them and implement them in your mobile sales endeavor.
50 Best Smart Phone Sales Tips and Tricks for Tech Shops
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KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SELLING
It will be impossible for you to effectively sell a product you know nothing about. Before you make that call to your prospect, read up on the product you are about to market. Your ability to convince the person on the other side of the phone depends on whether you know enough about what you are selling to be able to appeal to the natural desire of the person you are selling to.
If possible use the product yourself, if the product is something you can test run yourself. When you use the product yourself, you can tell how the average person would react to it, that will give you more information into how to better market the product to your prospect.
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GET SCRIPTED
There’s nothing wrong with writing down exactly what you hope to say to the person you intend to sell to. Write it down word for word, this will help you cover all the important points concerning what you are about to sell. If possible, create sort of like a response to positive reactions from the prospect, responses like “I’m Busy, call back later” or “I don’t need this product”.
These are normal responses you can come to expect from people when you call them to sell an item. Your script will help you stay on course, stay calm and also put you in a place where you are in control of the situation.
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GENERATE RAPPORT
People often buy things based on how it makes them feel, when you generate rapport, you make the prospect feel like you really care and that you really understand their position. When you effectively create rapport with the person, they feel like they are talking to a friend, or at least someone who knows exactly how they are feeling. This builds more acceptability in the mind of the prospect and if the person accepts you as an individual then they will most likely feel better about purchasing what you are selling.
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PRESENT A PLEASANT TONE OF VOICE
Naturally if you were going to sell to someone in person, you would be standing in front of them. They would see how you look, if you are dressed smartly and appear friendly, then there is a higher percentage that they would give you audience. On the other hand, if you look threatening, then they may want to guard against potential dangers.
But this is over the phone, so everything about whether you come across as friendly or threatening would depend on the tone of your voice. It is important for you to position your tone in a very pleasant and attractive way so that the moment the person hears your voice, you do not sound unattractive. First impressions matter.
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PAINT IMAGES WITH YOUR WORDS
Your words are your ammunition in this warfare of making sales, the person on the other end does not see you or may not have an idea of the product you are about to sell. You will need to get into the imagination of the person on the other end, let them see the benefits they will gain from buying the product.
It is not just appealing to their logic, but also to their fantasy; when you paint images with your words, you are doing just that. They begin to see in their heads, the dream of enjoying all the benefits of the product. This strengthens the appeal.
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ELIMINATE DISTRACTIONS
Distractions will make you lose your sequence of thoughts if you keep them around you. Find a place where you would not be distracted and make the calls. Don’t make this call in front of the TV when your favorite show is on. Don’t be distracted by notifications from any of the social media networks you might be subscribed to or nothing else. Your full attention should be on the task at hand, because if you do your job very well you will make a sale or even multiple sales, so it is more important to you than any other thing else.
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REFRAIN FROM DOWNGRADING YOUR COMPETITORS
One may feel as if they are making a case for their own product when they speak badly of other products with a similar client base as them. But in most cases, the prospect on the other side of the phone may receive a more negative vibe than you think.
They may think you are coming across as an offensive person. Your job is to sell your product and not to speak badly about other products. Do not use this tactic of speaking badly about your competition, rather continue to show just how amazing your own product is and how it will make their lives better.
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SET TARGETS FOR CONTACTING FRESH PROSPECTS
Give yourself regular targets, I would suggest that you should have a target every day for how many new prospects you would want to reach out to. You may be your own boss or you may be working for a company, just know that setting a target for yourself will motivate you even more. You will have more of a drive to complete and accomplish the daily targets you set for yourself, especially if you have rewards for every time you meet your target.
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BALANCE YOUR APPROACH
There are basically two ways you can approach your new prospect. The first one is very professional; however, this approach may instantly ignite a much colder response from your prospect, they may simply become just as professional as you, hence making them not to open up well enough for you to connect with them.
On the other hand, if you are too laid back and casual, you may come across as unserious. The prospect may not take you seriously, so strike a balance between the two approaches. This way there is a nice blend of seriousness and relaxation that makes your prospect more relaxed to have you on the line.
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AVOID ADVANCED TECHNICAL TERMS
Not everyone is an expert in the product you are attempting to sell, they will not know most of the coded abbreviations and the various terminologies associated with your product. So, avoid those terms at all cost, you are selling to average people who want to use your product, not work for your industry.
Quite frankly, speaking too much in the various terminologies of the industry will definitely put the prospect off. So, keep your speech simple enough for the average person to understand, but informed enough for the person on the other side to know you are a professional at this.
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DON’T PRESENT YOUR SCRIPT WORD FOR WORD
Use your script as a guide or guideline on how to approach your prospect, but don’t sit there with your script and read it line for line as though it was a script from a stage play. You will sound very awkward and the prospect will definitely hang up on you.
Simply make sure you have read the script well enough to know the things you need to say, then hold the script in front of you as you converse with the prospect. If there is any part you feel like you left something out, you can refer back to the script to quickly jog your memory and put you back on track.
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APPEAL TO THEIR BETTER PERSON
Tell them positive things about themselves that will make them feel up to the task of buying the product. It is not crime to flatter a little, just as long as you do not go overboard or become unrealistic. When you go overboard with this, you will be seen as manipulative, and this won’t go down well with your prospect. Don’t lie to them, simply say things that make them feel pleasant about themselves and about their spending time with you on the phone conversing about the amazing product you are about to bring into their lives.
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FIND A WAY TO LISTEN TO YOURSELF
When making sales over the phone, everything is about your tone. There are applications you can use to record your voice over the phone to hear how you sound. You can call a friend, to practice on the person, so you could record your voice for the purpose of paying attention to your tone. Your voice may be okay and the words you are saying may also be very good, but your tone could lose you the prospect or bring him to your corner.
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BE ENTHUSIASTIC
It will be difficult to get the prospect excited about your product if you are not enthusiastic about it yourself. One of the ways to be enthusiastic about the product is to actually believe in what you are about to offer someone. But if you do not really take to the product yourself, as will be the case with a lot of people who just want to do the job, then you have to muster up some type of enthusiasm about what you are about to sell, because it will be a tough sale, if you are not excited about the product.
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DON’T GET DISCOURAGED
Rejection and bad treatment will be a normal thing when you are doing this type of activity, come to expect it and don’t be offended by the way people respond to you on the phone. Some people do not have the patience to sit and listen to a telemarketer, they may be having a bad day, or may simply not be interested.
Many will reject you, many won’t even let you get out even a few words. So, learn to develop a tough skin, stomach the rejections and soldier on through your list, once in while you will connect with someone who will give you the kind of response you need.
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BE NICE
Sometimes when you call your prospect and someone else picks up the phone, still maintain the tone you started with and politely ask for the owner of the phone. They too will in turn nicely call the owner of the phone, to come receive the call. Everything remains the same, your tone, your manner of approach, your communicative presence. As you wait for the original person to come pick the call, you could do a refresher on the speech you had prepared.
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BE PATIENT
You are not the only one who has things to say when you call a prospect, they too have things they would want to share about the product you intend to sell and so forth. So you have to be patient with them and listen to every word they say so as to understand where exactly they are coming from. At this point in time the activity is not scripted as the conversation may take various unexpected turns but one thing remains the same, patience will help you sell in the end.
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STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR OBJECTIVE
In as much as it is advisable to patiently listen to the prospect voice their views about the product, this kind of activity may take you away from the major objective or calling. Usually the prospect may begin to talk about irrelevant issues that may not help your selling to them.
Be very smart in your ability to both listen to the prospect, but still stay on the plan as originally intended. This would mean that you would have to develop your communicative skills to be able to stir the conversation in the right direction every time a prospect takes it off.
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HANDLE REPEAT FAILURES PROPERLY
If you have been making these calls for a long time and have not made any sales, it may not be bad luck. Be intelligent in your approach to failed sales, the reason for not selling could be more personal than you think. Maybe there’s an approach you are not taking advantage of.
Take some time out to really think about why most of the prospects you called have not bought the product you are selling. Then think of a new strategy, keep refining your strategy until you find the approach that actually works.
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BE CONFIDENT
This should be the number one tip for this type of activity. Be confident, this confidence will reflect in your tone and your voice. The moment most people hear a voice that is both confident and welcoming, they would be more obliged to listen to what the person has to say.
A lack of confidence can also be deduced from the voice, so when you listen to yourself, or when you pitch to a friend ask them how confident you sound and then begin to develop your presentation to carry with it the confidence needed to make sales.
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FOLLOW UP ON PROSPECTS
It’s not every time a prospect picks up the phone when you call, you would have to call them again after a few hours, days or weeks. This will require some type of relentlessness on your part. It’s your job, so don’t see it as tedious to keep tabs on prospects who haven’t received your call yet. Pay attention to them, follow them up until they receive your call and you can make your pitch.
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MANAGE YOUR TIME WELL
You are calling these prospects at times that may not be so convenient for them, so be sure to state how long you want to be on the line with them, usually about three to five minutes is enough to make the initial contact, you may not make a sale on the first call, but you would have to find out a time that would be more appropriate, so you could call and be more elaborate about the products you are attempting to sell.
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TAKE OUT LITTLE TIME TO REST
You will be making these calls for some hours, I would suggest your split your time into various sessions. They could be one or two-hour sessions, after which you can take longer breaks, but within the sessions you can take little five to ten minutes breaks in between. When you rest you revive your strength, there is usually a new freshness that comes, enabling your to do more work with more clarity. Use rests to refresh your mind and get your enthusiasm back.
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A SINCERE SMILE CAN HELP
In as much as the client is not seeing you face to face, with the right kind of body language, real emotions that accompany such gestures may be translated into your voice, making the prospect to feel the positive effects of your body language of which your smile is one of the greatest when making calls like this. The prospect on the other side may literally imagine you smiling as your pitch to him this new amazing product of yours.
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BE COMFORTABLE
There is no way you can effectively communicate confidence in your voice if you are nervous. Get comfortable with the idea and the task at hand, one thing that will help is if you were physically as comfortable as you need to be. If your environment is comfortable, it will help to ensure that such comfort is translated to your voice.
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BE IN A QUIET ENVIRONMENT
It will be difficult for your prospect on the other side to hear what you are saying if the place you are in is noisy. If your environment is noisy, that means you would have to lift your voice to be able to communicate and this will definitely change your tone in the negative. Before making calls like these, find a nice, comfortable and quiet place.
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APPROACH INSTRUCTIONS TACTFULLY
Normally when sales are being made or policies are being explained through this process, you would be required to give instructions to the prospect as to how to effectively enjoy their purchase. If you sound authoritative in your manner of approach, it may come across as offensive to the prospect. So it would be wise to approach instructions in ways that come across as friendly rather than dictated.
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CALL THEM BY NAME
Make sure that often through the conversation you call your prospects by name. This brings a sense of personality to the entire experience. It will work wonders when the prospect hears their name over and over again, they begin to feel a sense of personal identity with the sales person. This is one of the most effective ways to build rapport with the prospect.
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ONCE THE DEAL IS MADE, HANG UP!
It could be easy to get carried away after a successful run with a prospect, both of you have bonded over the few minutes you were talking to them, it seemed like something really amazing has happened seeing as you have made the sale. Now that the sale is made, you may feel the need to get on with your other topics and continue the friendship vibe, but this is a bad idea. The moment you have closed the deal, say good bye politely and hang up the phone.
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YOUR VOICE ALSO MATTERS
We have talked about your tone, now we have to talk about your voice in general. Your voice also can come across as unappealing to the prospect, it may not be perceived as professional enough. Sometimes the voice may not command respect from the prospect, make sure you do not get high on your pitch when making these calls, keep your voice low and full of confidence.
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BE THE SALESMAN
Get with the program, you are a telemarketer, get your head into the mindset of what needs to be done. You ought not to be confused about who you are and what you do, make sure you get into character before you make these calls. I know you may even find telemarketers offensive yourself, but this is what you have to do, so get into the mindset and do what is your job at the moment, and you will find that you will enjoy it.
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EVERY SPECIFIC CALL MUST BE PREPARED FOR
Prepare for every call you want to make; every call is different because every person on the other side is different from the previous one. So, you will have to do a brief preparation for each of the calls, so as not to carry the same attitude from the previous call in to the new one. Assuming the previous call was not so pleasant, taking that negative aura of failure into the new call would greatly affect the outcome of the new call you are going to make.
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COLOUR YOUR TALK WITH EMPHASIS
While marketing your product, you would need to emphasize certain words in order to better paint the picture. When you emphasize the right words, they stand out in the mind of the prospect and communicate the intended purpose.
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VOICEMAIL TIP
Normally you should have already made provisions for if you encounter a voicemail on your attempt to reach your prospect. In the event that you meet a voicemail on your call, make sure what you have written is irresistible, make it so interesting that the prospect calls you back, because of all the appeal they experienced upon listening to your voice mail.
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TALK WELL
You are going to have to carry on a conversation, keep the prospect interested in all that you have to say. Learn how to talk to people so that they talk to you, expressing themselves, saying things they naturally wouldn’t tell someone who is just calling them up for the first time. One way to do this is to watch professional communicators interview and talk with people on television or radio.
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DOCUMENT YOUR CALLS
As you go along your calls you are going to want to take note of the way each call went. You would also need to know how each person responded to your call so as to inform your follow up calls. Knowing where the conversation ended the previous time you called will give you more insight on how to approach the person again when you follow them up.
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USE QUESTIONS TO BUILD DIALOGUE
When marketing in this way, questions can be used to open up the prospect and build the atmosphere for which dialogue can be developed. Not all questions achieve this as some questions simply offer room for a closed ended answer. You need to ask questions that cause for the prospect to talk even more, the more they talk with you the more open minded they would be about buying the item you are selling.
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DON’T HANG UP ON THE PROSPECT
Whatever you do, do not be the first to hang up, make sure the prospect hangs up first and then you hang up. Always wait for this, as sometimes the conversation may go in way that makes it seem as if the other person is no longer on the line, when they keep quiet for longer than they are supposed to. So keep your attention focused and be the last to hang up.
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RESEARCH YOUR PROSPECT
Everybody’s information is out there these days, it would be easy for you to do a little research on the person you are about to call before you actually place that call. You can spend some time looking through some of the public information that may be out there on the person or company before you actually place the call. This will give you an idea of who you are speaking to, hence inform your entire approach.
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VISUALIZE EACH CALL
Visualize the call, visualize the conversation, picture the responses, the disagreements, the discussion and everything you may want to expect from the calls you are about to make. This will give you a mental preparation on what to expect when you make your call. It will help your confidence and your general presentation style.
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ACHIEVE VOCAL CLARITY
When speaking to your prospect, they must hear every word you say, you must make sure that your words are audible and precise. It would be very frustrating to listen to someone you can’t hear very well, this may put off your prospect, so when you do practice your calls make sure you emphasize clarity as well as other important vocal techniques.
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YOU ARE A PRESENTER
Watch television programs and see how these on-air personalities present the various programs they host. You are a presenter in a particular sense of the word, you are presenting a product to a potential buyer. You have to be as appealing, attractive and as presentable as the presenters on television, the only difference is that all of that attractiveness would be in your voice, tone and general presence over the phone.
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MAKE IMPORTANT POINTS CLEAR
While presenting your product to the prospect, there are very important information about the item or service that the prospect would need to have in mind. Such important points need to be emphasized and explained so that the prospect knows exactly what they are.
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FULLY PERSUADE YOUR PROSPECT
That’s the end point of your call, to fully convince the prospect about your product so as to get them to buy what you are selling. In this very point you are the sales person, you are the one about to make a sale, so it is important to know how to sell the items you are offering by convincing the person on the other end to part with their money for the benefits of your product.
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AVOID TALK INTERRUPTIONS
Don’t use terms that make you come across as if you are thinking about what you want to say. Don’t use words like “Urm…”, “Errm” and so on. These words will kill whatever confidence the person on the other side has for you, they would think you simply don’t know what you are talking about if you keep using these interruptions as you speak or explain points to our prospect.
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PROMPT PROCESSING OF ORDERS
When you process orders immediately it will eliminate the event of order pile up, which will begin to cause mix up in order statements, evaluation and processing procedures. This type of disorganization can be avoided when a person makes sure that every order that comes in is processed immediately.
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LISTEN BETWEEN THE LINES
The only way you can truly know what is going on in the minds of the prospect is to pay attention to what they are saying as well as what they are not saying. You can tell a lot from the vocal tone of a person’s voice. Inside of their voices, they express body language, feelings and emotions about the topic, you can pick from that and inform your approach throughout the conversation.
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DO NOT ASSUME
When in doubt ask, do not simply assume that certain information are so, and so jump to conclusion about the person on the other side of the phone. Don’t assume you know the kind of person you are speaking to, when in doubt ask questions or do your own personal research on the person before you call.
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BE YOURSELF
Prospects can tell if you are not being your true self when you call. Don’t try to be another person, although you can improve on yourself, but at the end of the day let it be a better you, not a photocopy of another person. This way it will inspire your prospect to be just as natural as you are.
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PREPARE FOR RESISTANCE
As you make your calls, there would be resistance along the way, folks would initially present a wall. In fact, almost all the people will resist at first, so it will be your ability to turn the closed door into an open one that will make you a better sales person over the phone, prepare for these resistant responses and prepare yourself to overcome them.
CONCLUSION
When you have imbibed mind blowing tips such as the ones written above, you would find yourself making better sales over the phone. One thing you should expect is that most times a lot of the people you are going to call will be very resistive at first. Everyone is afraid of what they don’t understand, having a stranger call them up on the phone simply to sell something to them may come across as intrusive.
But know that if you are well prepared for the task, you would be able to bring down those walls most of the time. So as one of the points stated above, don’t get tired, don’t get discouraged, innovate around resistive people and soon enough you would find that you are making more sales than you ever anticipated.