Today, it seems more important than ever that we make the most of our business communication. And when we’re selling, using voice mail is one of our most important tools.

By avoiding these 7-Deadly Sins of Voice Mail, you’re giving yourself a much better chance of having your phone call returned by your customer.

Sin #1:
Your name isn’t clear

This is perhaps the most common mistake made. After all – people are extremely familiar with their own names. But you should never make the assumption that your customer or prospect is. The most common problem is that people say their names too quickly and subsequently their first and last names tend to run together.

The Solution:
Slow down when you say your name. Experts advise you to put an audible pause between your first and last name. At first, this can feel strange and foreign to you – but with a little practice, the pause won’t seem so bad. The key is to make 100% certain that the person on the other end of the phone knows both your first and last name.

Now your customer knows who you are.

Sin #2:
Your company name isn’t descriptive enough

This one has become more of an issue since the age of the Internet. Unless you’re working for a globally branded company, the chances are that most people won’t know who your company is, or what it does. This is especially the case if you use an acronym for your company name.

The Solution:
Like your own name, say your company’s name slowly and clearly. If your company’s name is an acronym, consider saying the whole name. Or, at the very least, let people know what it is you do. For example, “I work for ABC Building Supplies, with the widest selection of building supplies in the northwest”.

Now your customer knows who your company is and what your company does.

Sin #3:
No reason why you are calling

I see a lot of “old school” sales types who have a (wrong) belief that you should always try and keep your customers and prospects hidden in a cloud of mystery. The reality is – “mystery” might have worked 30 or 40 years ago, but today’s savvy customer wants none of that. They are generally incredibly well informed and don’t have the time or patience to play games.

The Solution:
Simply tell the person why you are calling. If you want to add more punch, then create a benefit statement that’s compelling to the customer. Remember, it needs to be put in the form of a benefit to your customer – not you – for it to be compelling.

Now your customer knows why you are calling.

Sin #4:
No reference to another person or event

A lot of times when we’re calling someone for the first time, simply saying your name and company generally won’t mean a thing to them.

The Solution:
Chances are, if you’re not calling someone “cold”, then you have a person or a point of reference to use to jog that person’s memory and further “soften” the call. Remember people are much more receptive when there is a common thread. It creates a personal connection. And creating that personal connection is the first step to building trust.

Now your customer personally connects with you.

Sin #5:
No time to call back

Often times, when we’re making out-bound sales calls, we do them one-after-another. So if a person returns your call right away, they’ll end up getting your voice mail! The worst part about ignoring this sin – is that it inevitably leads to the “game of phone tag”. Which is both time consuming and frustrating for all involved.

The Solution:
Leave your customers with a couple of options when you’ll be available. While it won’t eliminate “phone tag”, it will considerably reduce the odds of it starting in the first place.

Now your customer the best time to call you back.

Sin #6:
Only leaving your name and number once

This sin is very common and very important. As strange as it may seem, when you leave a voice message, the chances of your customer forgetting your name by the end of the message are actually quite high. Most of the time people spend so much time and energy listening to the body of the message, that by the end of it, they’ve already forgotten your name. Making matters worse, people tend to rush through their phone number – again, like their name, because of their familiarity with it – and they generally say it once. This means that your customer often has to rewind and listen to your entire message multiple times to try and decipher what your name and number.

The Solution: Clearly re-state your name in the same way you did at the beginning of the message, thus reminding your customer who you are. Also, state your phone number clearly, two times. Saying your phone number twice will give your customer a chance to correctly write it down without having to rewind the message. If possible say it at the same speed that you would if someone was writing it down in front of you.

Now your customer knows who you are and how to contact you.

Sin #7: There is no warmth in the voice
A rushed voice mail lacking in personal warmth will not be received as well as one that has it. Remember, people want a personal connection – and having warmth in your voice is so much more appealing to your customers.

The Solution: Smile. It really is that simple. Smile as you leave your voice mails. It’s amazing and true – studies have shown that people can hear your smile. A smile conveys warmth and puts people at ease. So even though it may feel a little strange to smile at a phone while you’re leaving a message on a machine – smile anyway. And if it helps, have a picture of a friend or loved one in front of you to help make it easier.

You may not be able to avoid these 7-Deadly Sins of Voice Mail all the time, but with a little practice, you’ll be leaving a far better voice mail message.

Now it’s time to get back to those phones!

Mark Winder, the Sales Made Simple Coach, helps entrepreneurs aim higher and achieve more. Winder is the author of the audio seminar, “The 20 Sales Secrets of Top Entrepreneurs”, and “Mark Winder’s Sales & Marketing Bootcamp”. For more info: http://www.BetterSalesResults.com

While certain companies may find a receptionist more than enough to answer the phone, other companies may require significantly extensive call management. Any company that finds its phones ringing off the hook may want to consider hiring external call centers to handle their incoming as well as their outgoing calls.

Hiring a call center can do a lot for your company in the way of saving precious employee time and resources and boosting growth management. Call centers do more than just answering your phone calls during office hours. They offer you a comprehensive package that includes handling after-hours inquiries, total customer service, technical support and collection of orders.

It’s important to remember that the call center is the face of your company. Considering the chosen call center will be the first point of contact the customer has with your company, it is vital that you take a lot of care in choosing the right one for your needs. There are several different types of call centers so even before you start your search you need to decide to determine the volume of calls the call center will be expected to handle as well as the costs and the types of calls.

The best place to begin your call center search is on the Internet. If you browse through a Call Center Guide or the Call Center Directory, you will be able to compare between a whole list of call centers that are located in your area as well those right across the world.

Different call centers charge differently; some charge per dedicated client service rep while others charge per minute. Getting free quotes from different call centers who offer different service packages will help you ascertain a reasonable price for the kind of services you require.

When evaluating the services extended by any call center it is important to first determine that the call center comprehends your industry and can offer the specific services required by your industry. If your business requirements include participating in Web chats with clients or replying to service-oriented e-mails, ascertain that the call center will meet these needs. There are several call center consultants that help companies find out the different call center services that are available for companies of various sizes and in varied industries.

Once you’ve short-listed a few call centers based on their costs and services rendered, it is important to compare the performance of the selected call centers. Performance levels of all centers can be determined by several standard traffic measurements, also called performance metrics. Some of the most important questions to ask when determining performance metrics include:

What is the average amount of time a caller is required to wait while waiting in a queue?

What is the average talk time (ATT) or the typical amount of conversation time?

What is the average handling time (AHT) or the typical amount of time spent dealing with the customer? The AHT is equivalent to the ATT plus time spent wrapping up as well as time spent holding on.

What is the number of calls that an agent answers in one hour? In call center lingo this is referred to as CPH.

What is the Service Level of the call center or the percentage of calls that are attended to within a specific time frame?

What is the amount of time that an agent spends while processing customer requests whilst not actually talking to the customer? This is referred to as NR- Not Ready Time or ACW- After Call Work.

What is the percentage of calls that a customer abandons the call completely due to having to hold on for a long time in a queue? This is called Percentage of calls abandoned or Total calls abandoned and happens in call centers that do not sufficient staff to handle the high volume of calls.

What is the percentage of alls that resolve the customer’s issues entirely? Resolving it completely means that the customer does not find it necessary to call back regarding the same problem at least for a specified minimum period of time. This is called First Call Resolution or FCR.

Get a Call center consultant to help you save time and money: http://www.teamncty.com/about.html

This morning I received one of those calls that I hardly look forward to getting. You probably have had calls just like this:

Hello Mrs. Stanley, this is ABC carpet cleaning company, and we’re currently in your area cleaning carpets for other homeowners, and we’d like to offer you a free cleaning for any room in your house of a 10X10 area. We also clean couches, chairs and throw rugs. We’d like to come in and give you a free estimate for all the carpet areas in your home as well as any couches or chairs that you’d also like to be cleaned. We’re going to be right in your neighborhood this Wednesday. Does two o’clock work with your schedule?

Did you cringe just reading that? When I get a call like that I can’t tell if I’m listening to a recording or a real person. I probably don’t need to mention that I’m not fond of conversations with recordings, which is why I often choose to hang up the phone instead of giving a sales representative like that more time.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a script that I mind so terribly as a script that doesn’t include the one thing that makes a prospect feel important – questions! Hey before you waste your breath talking about carpet cleaning, wouldn’t it make sense to discover if your prospect has any carpet?

Asking your prospect a question or two makes your prospect feel acknowledged. Acknowledgment is something that all humans desire, and many are starved for it. What would happen in your business if you implemented some ways to better acknowledge your prospects and customers?

A number of years ago it occurred to me that I gave away all kinds of recognition to the women on my sales team, but I had never given any kind of special recognition to my customers. Just before Mother’s Day, I sent out each customer in my database a lovely but inexpensive bracelet and a really clever letter that expressed how grateful I was to have her as a customer. I remember the bracelets costing less than $3 a piece, but by my customers’ reactions, it was like I bought them the moon. In the end, it wasn’t the gift that mattered. And there was even something greater than the thought – it was the recognition, the acknowledgment that touched them so deeply.

All people desire recognition, even those who tell you they don’t. Keep that concept close at hand as you build your sales business. Then remember that one of the best ways to acknowledge prospects and customers is to ask them questions. In addition to making them feel acknowledged, you afford yourself the opportunity to better respond to their needs.

This reminds me of the little boy who asked his mom where he came from. The mom then went into a detailed explanation about how babies are born. After she was done, her son said, “Oh, ‘cuz my friend Johnny comes from Texas, and I was wondering where I came from.” I hope that made you laugh. Now consider how laughable it is that we assume what our prospects, our customers, and our recruits need or want without even investigating the situation with a few questions.

What are some questions you could ask your prospects that might narrow down whether or not they’re prospects worth spending time with or not? What are some questions you could ask your customers that might improve your sales presentation or customer service?

Tammy Stanley directs The Sales Refinery, a sales training firm that assists sales professionals generate more business through powerful marketing and selling strategies. Get your FREE report, “Simple Secrets to Attracting More Business” at http://www.tammystanley.com/ezine_offer_g.htm

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair…
-Charles Dickens, English novelist (1812 – 1870)

Talking to prospects on the phone is like reading those first few lines of Dickens novel, A Tale of Two Cities. The key is to avoid being the worst, being foolish or incredulous, and to prevent the season of darkness and the winter of despair.

Now imagine the following:

You hear your telephone ringing. You pick it up only to discover a salesperson on the line. She says,

“Hello, this is Angel Smith with ABC House Cleaning Service. We clean your house so you don’t have to. We’ll be in your neighborhood this week giving free estimates for our services. We can come by your house on either Tuesday at 10:00 A.M. or Wednesday at 3:00 P.M. Which works best for you?”

Okay, gut reaction — how do you feel? What do you want to say?

I’ll tell you what I would want to say. I would want to say,

“If you think you can get an appointment with me by cornering me with that tale of two dates, think again. Hey! I’m the customer. I get to choose the date, not you. And by the way, there’s nothing amazing about giving a free estimate.”

That’s what I want to say, but because I’m pathetically polite, I’d chicken out and say, “Neither.” And then I’d just hang up.

I know plenty of sales people still try to close their prospects that way, and plenty more are taught to sell and close like that, but I flat out disagree with that method. When a salesperson uses a script like that, what he is really saying is:

Hello, I’m with ABC Cleaning Service and I’ll go wherever I can to get an appointment. I want to make some sales this week, so do you want to buy from me on Tuesday or on Wednesday?

Wouldn’t you think it foolish for a sales person to use that script? Well believe me, most prospects are savvy enough to hear between the lines of phrases like “We’ll be in your neighborhood,” and “We have an opening on Tuesday at 10:00 or Wednesday at 3:00.” Prospects are quite familiar with the tale of two dates.

When a sales person uses phraseology like that he is obviously trying to push the prospect in a certain direction. But prospects often resist, once a salesperson pushes. The key is to find out what your prospect wants. Once you know if your prospect wants what you’re selling, setting a time to get together shouldn’t be any different than setting a time to get together with a friend.

The other day I got a call from my insurance agent. He wanted to get together with me for a cup of coffee this week. When it came to picking a time to get together, he simply said, “So what morning works for you this week?”

On Monday I called a friend of mine I’d hadn’t seen in a few weeks. When I called I asked her if she could meet me sometime this week, she said, “Sure. When?” I said, “Any chance we could meet in an hour?”

If you look over those conversations, they both included selecting a time to get together with someone, but there was no pressure and no resistance. Indeed, I quickly suggested Thursday morning to my friend Mike, and my friend, Sue, told me she could meet me in 45 minutes.

I suggest that the reason those appointments were easy to set was because the conversations surrounding the appointments were real. When you’re real with your prospects, you’ll find it far easier to generate interest and appointments. You don’t have to put on a “salesman hat” and speak like a salesman. It isn’t necessary.

If a prospect wants what you are selling, there’s absolutely no need to corner him into a tight place with your tale of two dates unless you have a strange desire to resemble Dickens’ character, Madame Defarge (not exactly a likable person). That technique is old and truly worn out. Your prospects don’t want to feel manipulated; they want to feel like they can trust you. Trust will generate a sale far faster than manipulation.

Just this week our refrigerator went kaput. Naturally I had just spent a small fortune in groceries, so it became imperative that we go get a new refrigerator right away. We went to one of these huge places and started looking for a brand our repairman had suggested. Why did we want what our repairman suggested? Because he manipulated us? Of course not. We wanted what he suggested because we trust him.

While we were looking, a salesman came up and asked if he could help us in any way. I told him that we had to get a new refrigerator because the compressor in our refrigerator had died. I then told him that our repairman had told us that compressors typically last 15 – 20 years, but ours had only lasted 9.

How the salesman responded stopped me in my tracks. He said, “No, the manufacturers don’t design refrigerators like that anymore. You know, they realized that when they make them last that long, it’s bad for their business. So, these days they only design them to last 7-9 years.” HUH — pure unadulterated honesty coming from a sales person in the appliance division?

What do you think I did? I looked at his name tag. Five minutes later when we were ready to buy (no, he didn’t hover over us while we shopped), I searched the place looking for Cheech. Why? I trusted him.

Could it be that the secret to setting appointments and getting a sale is exchanging manipulation for simple honesty? AH! The epoch of belief, the season of Light, the spring of hope!

Tammy Stanley directs The Sales Refinery, a sales training firm that assists sales professionals generate more business through powerful marketing and selling strategies. Get your FREE report, “7 Keys to Easier Prospecting” at http://www.fear-of-cold-calling.com

Many companies are using telemarketing to increase revenue and reduce cost. Effective and efficient telemarketing saves time, money and effort for both the companies and their customers.

There are a few ways to contact and sell to customers:

1. Get them to visit your office or retail store
2. Sell your products over the Internet
3. Send catalogs or brochures using email, fax or mail
4. Visit the prospect
5. Call the prospect on the telephone

The telephone is one of the easiest and least expensive ways to reach prospects and potential customers. You can call hundreds of prospects a day at a minimal cost in the comfort of your office or even your home.

While the time and cost of sending unsolicited catalogs can be tremendous, the cost of meeting the customer in person is yet higher.

Not only do you save your time using the telephone, but your cost of sale also drops dramatically. Telemarketing also saves time for the customer. It is a lot easier for a busy person to allocate a few minutes for a telephone call as compared to meeting in person.

Thus, if you are selling any type of product that can be sold over the telephone as your primary tool, telemarketing makes a lot of sense.

Then, what about those that need face-to-face meetings for products that need to be demonstrated or experienced firsthand? In such cases, the telephone plays a valuable role in pre-qualifying prospects and scheduling the sales meetings with the prospect.

Telemarketing allows you to enhance sales and should become one component of your overall marketing and sales efforts.

Cold calling is one strategy for telemarketing. This means you take a list of names about whom you currently know very little, and you start calling them, one at a time, and give them your sales pitch over the telephone.

Experienced marketers will do “warm calling”. Before they call the prospects, they make every effort to pre-qualify the people or companies that they plan to call. Thus, when the telemarketer calls the prospect and gets the decision-maker on the line, the prospect is already “warm”.

Now, it is the telemarketer’s job to communicate the relevant information to the prospect and be able to persuade that the product or service fulfills some requirement of the prospect.

Used skillfully, the telephone is a quick way to sound out a prospective customer. There are three criteria to qualify a prospect. They are money, authority to order from you and a need for your company’s product or service.

Once qualified, the extent to which the salespeople can act depends on the nature of the product. There are products that can be closed over the phone with money being collected typically via credit card. Only the fulfillment is handled by the company’s back office. An example would be motor insurance or home content insurance policies.

Not all products can be closed during the single phone call. If you are applying for a credit card for the first time with a company, the prospect information may be recorded and approval given in principal, but the sale is not finalized yet. There typically are back office checks done before providing the card.

Then again, there are those products for which you can only qualify interest over the phone, and then make appointments for your field salespeople to have face-to-face meetings.

No matter which of the above groups that your company’s products may belong to, use of the telephone does save time, money and effort, as at worst it still pre-qualifies customers before the more costly field salespeople go out and meet them.

Telemarketing can be a daunting task if you expect people to respond positively most of the time. Most people, in fact, are wary of receiving calls from telemarketers. To make life less stressful, the telemarketer should first accept this as well as the fact that everyone you call will not buy.

The next important thing to do is to plan and prepare. Like any other sales approach, there must be an objective. The telemarketer must plan the call and be in control. A prerequisite is a thorough understanding of the product you are selling.

The telemarketer must remember that he or she has a product or service that could potentially benefit the person being called.

If you find that you are saying the right things and yet you cannot get the benefits across, you will need to review your sales pitch or take a different approach. Put yourself in the prospect’s shoes and try and analyze where you need to improve or change.

It is also important to track the number of sales that are made versus the number of people called. Knowing which time of the day you get the best results, which day of the week, which part of the month could also make a difference. By doing this kind of analysis, you can fine-tune your approach.

Using telemarketing will allow you to reach more prospects faster, increase your sales and hence generate higher revenue.

Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of Be Successful News, a site that provides information and articles on how to succeed in your own home or small business. http://www.besuccessfulnews.com/

Knowing how important a positive attitude is, the typical sales person thinks positively all the way to work. He affirms that he is excited about all the cold calls he is going to make. Having heard how powerful visualization is, he might even visualize himself making cold call after cold call and having tremendous success. Surely this will be the day he takes over the sales world and attracts new customers and business like crazy.

When we take a peek at this same sales professional in his office just an hour later, we hardly believe our eyes. Instead of calling one prospect after another (as his attitude convinced us he would), we find him taking care of busy work on his desk instead. If we could see the thoughts going through his head, they’re decidedly different than those we heard this morning:

“You can’t make that call now. You don’t feel comfortable. Go get a cup of coffee and get ready for the call. Look at your desk. How do you expect to generate any more customers with your desk in such disarray? You need to get organized before you go collecting any more customers.” etc., etc.

Perhaps you’re familiar with The Third Man, by Graham Greene. The story begins with Holly Martins arriving in Vienna at the end of World War II. He’s been offered a job by an old high school chum named Harry Lime. Right after his arrival, he learns that Harry was killed in an auto accident.

To make a long story short, the rest of the story revolves on Holly trying to understand the truth around Harry’s death, while simultaneously trying to win over Harry’s beautiful, former girlfriend. If you see the movie version, you won’t see the character that plays a critical role until the last few minutes of the story.

Why do I mention this classic story? I mention it because it reminds me of the sales process. Typically, the highlighted characters in any sales training are the salesman and the prospect, but the character that portrays a critical role is almost never mentioned simply because it isn’t visible. Similar to The Third Man, the character may not be seen, but the effects of that character are blatant and destructive.

Plenty of sales trainers will talk about the relationship between the sales professional and the prospect, but they fail to ever mention “the third man” in the sales world. This third man is so rarely spoken of that most sales people don’t have the slightest idea how to deal with it, and because of that, they fail to make most of the sales calls that they actually desire to make.

So who is “the third man,” this critical player, in the sales business? Fascinatingly enough, this critical player isn’t real in the sense that you can see it. But you can definitely see its negative effects. It’s sometimes referred to as an inner committee. I often refer to that voice inside our head as “the trouble thoughts.”

You would be hard pressed to find a sales professional who isn’t familiar with those trouble thoughts that talk him out of making calls now and convince him to wait for a better time to make sales calls or cold calls. The definition of just what is a better time to call varies. It can be when one won’t bother his prospect, when one won’t interrupt his prospect, when one is better rehearsed or better organized, when one has more courage, when one has more confidence, when it’s not so early, or when it’s not so late.

Perhaps the most frightening aspect in this entire call reluctance scenario is that most sales professionals believe they are alone. They wouldn’t dare speak about their fear of cold calling or about all the reasons they postpone making sales calls because they think they are the only ones doing that. Consequently, they believe there is some secret they have yet to learn before they can make all those calls they need to make.

Again, they’re waiting… waiting for that secret to be revealed – the secret that will make all their prospecting fears go away.

From my own sales experience, I’ve learned that the best time to call a prospect is as soon as I think about calling him. Waiting for a better time usually results in one of two things – never finding the right time to call that prospect, or waiting so long that by the time the call is finally placed, the prospect is already doing business with someone else and no longer requires the suggested product.

Effectively teaching sales professionals how to overcome the fear of cold calling and to “seize the phone” doesn’t necessarily require a lengthy process. I prefer to compare that process to a baseball player going up to bat, and naturally having the goal to hit the ball, run to each of the bases, and finally cross over the home plate and score.

Getting to first base involves coming face to face with that critical player, the voice that talks one out of making all those calls. By revealing that voice as the liar that it is, sales people discover they can move on to second base.

Moving to second base requires learning how to detach oneself from the persistent voice that nags and distracts but never points one in the right direction. By effectively dismantling the seeming hold that fear has on them, sales professionals can move on to third base.

Getting one’s feet firmly planted on third base occurs when sales people see more to their business than the exchanging of goods and money. By opening their eyes to recognize the potential ongoing value they create and the good that unfolds simply by contacting others on the telephone, they learn the greater aspects and opportunities of their business.

Finally, all sales people need to learn that getting to home plate is only accomplished when they take their foot off of third base. They must come to grips with the fact that the sales process is a continual cycle, that everyday they must walk out of the dugout of fear, pick up a bat of immeasurable value, put themselves in the game and start playing.

Always the biggest obstacle in any sales person’s career is himself. When sales people learn how to get that critical player inside their own head out of their way, the potential is truly unlimited.

Author and Sales Trainer, Tammy Stanley directs The Sales Refinery, a sales training firm that assists sales professionals generate more business through powerful marketing, selling and leadership strategies.
Get her FREE report, “7 Keys to Easier Prospecting” at http://www.fear-of-cold-calling.com

While considering how to go about executing your telemarketing requirements, you have the option of hiring your own staff, or getting the job done through outsourcing. Here are a few pointers to help you along.

The advantage of outsourcing or getting in a third party is that you have trained staff at your disposal to accomplish your task and get your message spread quickly among many. Doing it yourself entails training and practice, while they have the advantage of having personnel ready. The outside firm can make far more calls than you would with your in-house staff. You must consider that the outside help that you hire may not be committed and could lack the inner drive to sell, and could be expensive. They also may not be able to get into the technical details of the product, which tends to curtail the scope of conversation that they can conduct and are therefore better for gathering information and details about prospective customers and for “yes” or “no” type of questions. They also could suffer from the lack of contact numbers unless you can provide them as their own contact list could be below par.

The advantage of using an in-house team means that you can train them in a focussed manner with the requisite skills required for your product, thereby empowering them to have meaningful dialogues with potential clientele. It also enables you to have a more focussed list aimed at potential customers as per your requirements. You also have the advantage of eliminating from the list calls that are not expected to prove fruitful.

The disadvantage here lies with the small businesses that do not have enough staff and therefore cannot spare anyone on a long-term basis. The option is to hire college students, housewives and retirees and train them for the project. Here’s a training tip if you plan to do this; if you are providing them with a script to follow, train them to sound as if it is a spontaneous dialogue and not a read-out script. That’s because when the person on the other end feels that you are reading a script, the response is always equally constrained and can be a turn off, which will definitely reflect in your response rate.

Telemarketing has been controversial since its inception for sales and marketing. The legal troubles and the litigation that it has created has made advertisers a little cautious. It has also caused businesses to look for other avenues to spread their message. Consider this. Is your business in the right category for telemarketing? This will help you make the right decision. Yes, telemarketing has been successful in the past, but the onslaught of legal filings has made people wary of that route. To avoid this legal web, there are some precautions that can be taken.

The law has come to the rescue to a certain extent. The duration of calls has been restricted, as well as preventing calls to people who do not want to be disturbed by the calls. It is imperative that you select a company that has high standards of operating since the image and reputation of your company is on the line every time a call is made. The quality of the staff and the ensuing conversation could mar or make your image. A customer getting irritated could tarnish your name, while good, polite and meaningful dialogue could win your additional customers.

Telemarketing can be an effective tool for your marketing arm. It can produce results. If you do consider using this then please screen the employees and offer them the right training before the first call is made. The outcome can be very positive. With these pointers in mind, you could meet any situation confidently and successfully.

For more information about telemarketing effectiveness visit

http://www.telemarketingcalllist.com

Do you make the best use of IOVC CRM technology? Are you making the best use of your customer related data? IOVC technologies can cut your business costs sharply.
If you are looking for success through the use of the internet and improved customer data, then as a business owner you owe it to yourself to make yourself profitable with the many readily available, IOVC technology tools. Years ago, these tools were only available to large business and in some case were shrunk or made to fit for medium business, but seldom for small business and definitely not for a single person business.

In this continuing series on IOVC, examining the “C” of IOVC (internet, office, VOIP and CRM) technologies, Customer Relationship Management has many meanings to many people and understanding the benefits to your business is critical to successfully using this technology.

The problem CRM is designed to resolve are situations where you have multiple data sources and you need to consolidate it in one place. The multiple sources from an IOVC perspective are input from the internet, from your office operation and from your telephone systems. These 3 sources usually have different inputs, email, voice and paper. The inputs come at different times and in most cases one person can use any of these IOVC communication avenues to work with your business. CRM solutions are designed to meet the wide range of integration requirements required for today’s business systems, whether simple or complex, there are many benefits to having a CRM solution that integrates with your existing environment.

You can develop a complete picture of your customer and have all the information at hand regardless of the venue the customer used to work with your team. Regardless of how far away the information was obtained or the time it was obtained, your team can use the CRM system to view all customer contacts.

Additional office benefits are you can streamline your business processes beyond system and office boundaries. You can free employees from the manual activity of re-entering data. This time consuming task just disappears with the entrance of data one time into one place for all to see and use daily.

If you select a non proprietary CRM system, you can integrate your CRM with other information systems. This can save you a tremendous amount of time and money. This also means you can have your employees work offline or online and still be efficient.
Your CRM solution should let your developers integrate its functionality with third-party applications like Web services. If it’s really open in standards then you can customize and integrate with just about any other product and service you currently use today. This makes for a very powerful solution.

Other efficiencies are ability to reschedule an appointment in real time and demonstrate to customers that you have fast and efficient operation. Keep customers coming back with related follow-up services and we all know that repeat customers are the best customers.

Productivity benefits are you can manage your time and activities with help from reminders and use pop-up reminders to help you manage your activities. Create a knowledge base of articles to collect and share your organization valuable information. Make an efficient FAQ system from real time data.

The benefits of the CRM component as part of the end-to-end IOVC business process improvement technology are many and require more explanation then we can provide here. Your business processes are already operating this technology, it is just that you may be doing it on paper and pencil and napkins. To improve and gain these benefits you owe it to yourself to learn how to use and profit from CRM capabilities regardless of business size.

The benefits of IOVC technology are many and business owners should learn to use all the IOVC CRM capabilities to make their business as profitable as possible. CRM fits the end to end IOVC business process improvement paradigm perfectly since it has Internet web based capabilities, Office Process management capabilities and of course C for Customer Relationship Management services. There are many IOVC solutions in addition to CRM and you owe it to your bottom line to investigate the possible benefits for your business.

Gregory L Burrus of http://www.techoss.com a former Director of a Fortune 500 Telecommunications company, consults for major telecom and operational support system vendors. Greg provides small business solutions as an internet, office, voice over internet protocol technology solutions.

This sales prospecting technique isn’t specifically about how to prospect. It’s a technique for dealing with the ill effects of prospecting, how to handle rejection. Being able to overcome the ill effects of rejection is vital to success in sales.

I can’t take credit for this technique. This technique for handling rejection comes from one of my mentors, Tom Hopkins.

If you focus on this sales prospecting technique when you get rejected you’ll turn the bad feelings into good feelings. If you’re constantly risking rejection, finding it, overcoming it and closing sales you may not need to use this technique. If you’re not doing all these things, you need this technique. It will increase your sales your confidence if you do.

The first step to using this sales prospecting technique is to determine the cash value of each rejection you receive.

How do you do that?

Let’s say for instance, every sale you close you are paid $500. Then 1 sale would equal $500.

The next part requires that you’re tracking your contacts-to-closings ratio. The top sales people track this and other information daily. What I mean by tracking is, you should always be keeping track of the number of contacts, appointments, presentations and closes you make. Tracking requires little effort and yields valuable information. For example, when you see negative changes in your tracking information, you become aware of challenges you need to address before they affect your sales.

Now let’s say you contact ten people to make a sale. This means your contact-to-closing ratio is ten to one. The top sales people are always striving to improve their closing ratios; however, the ten to one ratio is a reasonable average. Now, 1 sale equals $500. 10 contacts equals 1 sale, therefore, 1 contact equals $50.

If you look at getting paid for each contact instead of each sale you’ll see rejection in a whole new way. Aren’t you paid by the contact and not the sale? After all, if you don’t make contacts, you don’t make sales.

Top sales people look at the value of the activity as well as the result.

Using this sales prospecting technique, making contacts and handling rejection becomes fun. Every time a contact results in a rejection of your product or service you can view the rejection as making money. In the above example you would make $50 for every rejection and be one contact closer to making a sale.

It changes the way you look at things, doesn’t it?

If you place a dollar value on prospecting and rejection as an activity, you will look forward to these activities. You will view the activity as making money and be inclined to do it more often.

Jim Klein provides salepeople with effective strategies that attract new clients, build customer relationships, and increase sales, GUARANTEED. Get free sales training by subscribing to our free newsletter “The Sales Advisor” at: http://www.fromtheheartsalestraining.com/sales-advisor.html

Cold call prospecting may not be one of the best ways to generate leads or to make appointments with prospects, however, it beats sitting around the office waiting for the phone to ring and it can help you learn some valuable sales skills.

When I started in sales as a real estate agent in 1982, I spent the first six months part time cold call prospecting every night for two hours. I also used others methods of generating leads such as open houses, taking incoming calls, working my sphere of influence and numerous other methods.

The cold call prospecting I did every night generated some immediate and future business, however, the biggest benefits I received were how to build rapport, make appointments, handle objections and handle rejection.

Build Rapport

I learned very early what every good salesperson knows. Before someone will buy from you they have to like and trust you. The easiest way to get someone to like you and trust you is to understand how to build rapport quickly. So how do you establish rapport?

I let the prospect know quickly, the reason for my call. I left out the phrase “How are you today”? It can be interpreted as being insincere. I only stated my name, my company name and how I could help the prospect.

I listened for information I could use to get them talking about themselves and build some common ground. I showed a genuine concern for the prospect, and soon they began to open up and reveal personal information such as hobbies, children, vacation spots and lots of other tidbits I could build on.

When the prospect answered the phone, I made sure I was upbeat and didn’t sound like I had just lost my best friend. I tried to use humor during the conversation. People love to laugh. I talked at the same rate, pitch and volume as the prospect. If they talk fast, then I talked fast. If they talk softly, then I would do the same.

Make Appointments

When I was cold call prospecting, I always worked from a script, a simple script a nine year old could understand. I memorized it so I could recite it on a moments notice. However, I kept it in front of me at all times during the call. If I got thrown off the track, the script was there to bring me back. As I made more calls, my script evolved, and so it changed as I learned better ways to get my point across.

The script was direct and to the point. I stated my name, company name and my unique selling proposition. It contained most of the questions I wanted to ask a prospect to determine their need for what I was selling. The script was a road map I followed for every call.

I knew my desired outcome when cold call prospecting was to make the appointment. I learned to ask questions that would qualify or disqualify them as a potential appointment. If I had a qualified prospect, I directed all my energies towards making that appointment. I never tried to sell them over the phone. If I found the prospect didn’t have a need for my services, I quickly got off the phone, and on to the next call.

Handle Objections

While making the thousands of calls I made those first six months, you can imagine I got lots of objections. An objection is really the prospect stating their need for more information. If the prospect didn’t want or need what I was selling, they would have told me, hung up on me or thrown me out. As long as they were coming up with objections, I still had a chance to get the appointment. I would give them the information they were looking for and close for the appointment.

If I came across an objection I couldn’t overcome, after the call I would seek a more experienced agent and ask them how to handle it. I added that to my script and went on to the next call. This process continued until I was a master at handling objections, and my closing ratio for appointments increased dramatically.

Handle Rejection

The first few weeks of cold call prospecting, I felt alot of rejection. People were mean, they hung up on me, slammed doors in my face or just didn’t have any interest. Then I learned a very important lesson. They weren’t actually rejecting me, they were rejecting my offer.

So I worked on strengthening my unique selling proposition, practiced the delivery of my script and how to handle the objections I was getting. In time fewer people rejected my offer and I realized the ones who did weren’t good prospects any way. I stopped taking it personally and moved on to the next call, knowing with each call, I was closer to making my next appointment.

Cold call prospecting may not be the most effective way to make appointments, however, I realized it could be a valuable tool for increasing my skills, and it sure beat doing nothing at all.

Discover “23 Ways to Generate a Steady Supply of Quality Leads For Any Product or Service” with From The Heart Sales Training’s Lead Generation System. Go to http://www.sales-lead-generation-system.com and discover better alternatives to cold call prospecting.