This is one of my pet peeves when it comes to telephone sales. There is a very critical and important distinction between “telephone sales training” and “sales training” that few if any make.
It’s a pet peeve because of the great importance the difference holds. To this day I have not discovered another trainer or author who makes this difference and actually teaches real “telephone selling skills.”
Why is this important?
Telephone selling skills are different from “sales skills” in that they address those issues specific to the telephone. These differences are created by the differences in the relative environments of the telephone and face-to-face selling.
Quality telephone sales training needs to address the critical issues of the phone such as lack of vision and the implications of not seeing the prospect and the prospect not seeing you.
I submit to you based on my own observations that it is these specific factors that make the biggest difference in the success of inside sales success. They are only surpassed by the quality and power of the unique selling proposition being used by salespeople.
When researching other popular sales training companies before starting SalesBuzz.com, I found that almost all of them had telesales as an “add-on” or a “oh yea, we do that too”.
If your salary/commissions depend on how well your team sells over the phone and you feel you may be in need of outside help for developing a sales process that will help your team excel, find a company that specializes in phone sales.
You wouldn’t go to a chiropractor, even if they were the best one in the world if you needed a heart transplant.
We specialise in sales training so before I’m accused of plugging myself let me say I blatantly am!
I totally agree with the point raised that telephone selling must be differentiated from face-to-face selling. Your words, tone and manner become a lot more important on the phone where in a face-to-face situation your customer is also taking into account many other factors (your stance, dress, facial expressions, handshake, body language, where you look etc). On the phone you have the words you used and your tone, that’s it.
Thank you for this important distinction. The challenge is in getting organizations to understand the importance in investing in the unique needs of their inside sales people, or even in training specific to their field reps using the telephone to prospect to set appointments and leverage referrals.
The main reason, in my opinion, that telephone sales skills training has become so much more critical is the same reason we now have a “do not call list” at the consumer level; self-serving, “needle-in-a-haystack” approaches that disrespect the prospect and have commoditized everyone who uses the telephone to reach out to prospects, B2C or B2B.
Only those who have a clear value proposition and make it about the prospect will differentiate themselves and succeed. Most salespeople do not know how to do this effectively on the telephone without some very specific training and follow-on coaching to ensure the behavioral changes are made.
Hello Flyn,
I completely agree that there are difference is telesales and face to face selling that most training doesn’t take into consideration. That is one of the reasons I’ve chosen to specialize in working with that market in particular.
The number one issue that telesales people have when going to training is having to translate a face to face concept into their phone sales environment.
FYI: most of them can’t, won’t, or don’t know how to make the translation… so instead they do nothing with the training content!
Lynn
I totally agree with noth of you but you do not say why it is different and how to handle it, the trouble with all sales training and salestraining books is they tell you what to do but not exactly how to do it. In my lifetime of selling, training sales and managers selling everything form Colliers to investments in Pine trees that do not give you a return for at least 15 years, yeah try and so that now, to porty pottys and everything in between I have found only one book from a professional sales trainer that does just that.
Oh and Flyn, I do not agree with your way of handling objextives, what if the item you are selling does not do the thiings that you say they do, what then?
Anthony — because you were a bit rilled when you wrote this, and you have some typos and run on sentences — which is fine I am far from perfect explaining my points as well, but it is a bit hard to understand all of your points.
Let me first agree with you that most training is very ineffective in teaching reps how to DO what they are learning. And for many other reasons most sales training programs are very ineffective.
Finally, I like this method, but it’s not mine — it’s Les Dane’s. If you are selling something that doesn’t do what you say it does, then you’re a crook not a salesperson and reading this post will have no value whatsoever.