Listen to Your Prospects in Your Phone Pitch by Kamau Austin -- Post 6
By Kamau Austin © Copyright 2006, AdPro Media Sales -- All Rights Reserved
As we have been claiming in the last 6 posts in this series acquiring good listening skills (LISTEN in -- Guys) is the strongest attribute of truly great professional telemarketers. Simply stated you have to listen to the needs, wants, and desires of your prospects to make the sale.
You have to listen to the objections of your prospects. On a more profound level you have to do marketing research (or the company you work for) in order to be prepared to respond to the questions - suggestions - reflections - or objections of your targeted phone prospect.
After giving them a good pitch and piquing their interest it is a good idea to start asking them questions about their business. This changes the conversation from your focus to sell them something, to a reflection of their needs and desires -- which of course you will fill with your product or service.
The formal question part of a phone sales call is called different things by different people. Some call it "the Interview".
I have found the legendary sales guru Tom Hopkins very illuminating on techniques to Interview your prospect. He calls his technique in his classic 1982 book "How to Master the Art of Selling": Stimulus - Pause - Response (S-P-R) on Page 18.
He claims S-P-R is the difference between "Have and Have Not". In short his technique is an insightful way to lead a prospect to a close by controlling the interview with a series of well thought out questions, and even as important listening to responses of the prospect.
The he uses a good number of closes to end the Interview or S-P-R. This technique has given me countless sales over the course of my sales and business career. However it is important to have good stimulus.
In other words if you don't have a good initial sales pitch to engage the prospect and good questions to lead them towards the sale -- you will get hung up on. Developing good Stimulus in Hopkins' and also my view requires great preparation. In our next post we will discuss what exactly is good preparation.
Kamau Austin makes a living selling on the phone and is a regular contributor to www.TelemarketingCallCenterInfo.com.
As we have been claiming in the last 6 posts in this series acquiring good listening skills (LISTEN in -- Guys) is the strongest attribute of truly great professional telemarketers. Simply stated you have to listen to the needs, wants, and desires of your prospects to make the sale.
You have to listen to the objections of your prospects. On a more profound level you have to do marketing research (or the company you work for) in order to be prepared to respond to the questions - suggestions - reflections - or objections of your targeted phone prospect.
After giving them a good pitch and piquing their interest it is a good idea to start asking them questions about their business. This changes the conversation from your focus to sell them something, to a reflection of their needs and desires -- which of course you will fill with your product or service.
The formal question part of a phone sales call is called different things by different people. Some call it "the Interview".
I have found the legendary sales guru Tom Hopkins very illuminating on techniques to Interview your prospect. He calls his technique in his classic 1982 book "How to Master the Art of Selling": Stimulus - Pause - Response (S-P-R) on Page 18.
He claims S-P-R is the difference between "Have and Have Not". In short his technique is an insightful way to lead a prospect to a close by controlling the interview with a series of well thought out questions, and even as important listening to responses of the prospect.
The he uses a good number of closes to end the Interview or S-P-R. This technique has given me countless sales over the course of my sales and business career. However it is important to have good stimulus.
In other words if you don't have a good initial sales pitch to engage the prospect and good questions to lead them towards the sale -- you will get hung up on. Developing good Stimulus in Hopkins' and also my view requires great preparation. In our next post we will discuss what exactly is good preparation.
Kamau Austin makes a living selling on the phone and is a regular contributor to www.TelemarketingCallCenterInfo.com.
posted by Content Marketers at 3:59 PM
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