Prospecting by phone

The most effective medium for obtaining an appointment is the telephone, which is a practical and accessible tool. Prospecting by phone is not improvised, and it is not a matter of sales technique, it is rather a matter of psychology, and this, at two levels: solid mental to face the fear of rejection / to show a great psychological finesse to influence a proposed interview of 2 or 3 minutes at most.

Why phone calls?

Use your time much more wisely.
We make it possible to make more calls than you ever could with face-to-face appointments.
The power to reach customers anywhere in the world.
We were spending too much time on the road to appointments and too little time with our prospects.
Using the phone correctly and effectively will at least help us qualify your prospect to ensure that when we see them face to face, they can make a decision.
We can get many more sales on the phone than we ever could with personal letters or even face-to-face.

The 12 essential rules of telephone prospecting

Stand out from the telemarketers
Prepare and write a script (organize your ideas and choose the terms carefully, write the main ideas, reread and finalize the text several times)
Your only asset is your eloquence and your ability to adapt quickly to different situations and to the objections of your clients. Telephone prospecting is a high-level psychological sport.
Everything is played out in 20 seconds, to make them want to see you; to earn money, save money, save time.
Conclude after every conversation, every time you speak, conclude with a request.
Smile on the phone
Have a clear speech with impeccable diction (in a call the voice and the language is visible), rule of form and substance (use of a vocabulary belonging to the classic language, proscribe absolutely the garden, short sentence.
Be careful with the term used (negative words, expense) replaced by positive terms (profit, economy, experience, success, win)

For example:

he will have no problems = you can rest easy
You will not run any risk = you will be safe
You do not lose any more money = you will gain money
It will be necessary to foresee a blow of = this investment will allow you to Sorry to bother you / could you give me a minute
Remain natural, stay attentive to your interlocutor, articulate well, speak at a normal pace and control your breathing.
Write a well-prepared script to be able to go beyond it which is articulated as follows
**Introductions, greetings, customary verification, you are Mr. Mrs.
**Hook: the promise of benefit, the solution to a problem identified by the client
**Conclusion: attempt to reach an immediate conclusion without letting them react by means of a subtle false alternative
Personalize as much as possible, the speech must be personalized
You must have a CRM

To succeed in your phone call, you must be well-prepared to deal with your prospect's objections.

How to deal with your prospect's objections ?

Make sure you hear your prospect and recognize the objection, listen to your prospect as if it was the first time you heard it.
Make sure to question the question object, the intention behind it gives you the opportunity to answer his own objection, try to let him explain his logic, not only does this help you understand what he meant by the objection, but it will also allow you later to answer more effectively the way he wants to hear it.
Prove your prospect right, this could most likely be used to acknowledge your prospect in the first step, say something like I understand you think it's too expensive, it certainly seems like it right now.
Try to meet their objectives and give more information, but at the same time answer the objection they think is the most important.
Objection handling processes to answer the objection exactly the same way the prospect asked it use the same meaning the same intention the same words your prospect used be creative and furthermore use a reference cell if possible tell him about your other customers who benefited from using your product and mention names and companies.

The 10 most common objections on the phone

I'll visit your site and call you back: I'll give you a brochure at the end of our meeting, because it's really complementary to it. You know that a brochure or website never develops the points that interest you and doesn't answer your questions in real-time.

Our company already has a supplier: I am not here to sell you a simple product, but rather to enable you (to optimize, to win, to improve).

It is not me who decides= would you be so kind as to tell me the name of the person I could contact on your behalf, please.

I'm not interested = I hear you, sir, in these conditions I propose to take a very limited risk and invest a few minutes of your time so that I can present you with a solution that will allow you to optimize.

We already have a supplier with whom we are very satisfied: I understand, but obviously, you are looking to make savings, increase profitability.

I don't have time: I know you weren't expecting my call and I can see that it's not the right time, so when can you free up 14 minutes so that I can present my solution to you?

Remind me in a month: what you are telling me is that in a month you will be more available because if you have a little more time in a month I propose you devote those few minutes available to meet with us.

We have already worked with you and that did not go well: I know that and that is why I am calling you, there is no question of leaving you with a bad memory and my management has asked me to contact you again in order to explain all the changes we have made in our processes in order to satisfy you completely in the future.

We are a small company: our service/product was developed specifically for small businesses.

Likewise, we know you are too expensive: so I did well to call you, we have just developed a range of products / services more accessible for customers who did not have the budget to acquire, but who needed it.

In telephone calls, we can distinguish 3 main prospecting techniques, as indicated below:

The cold call: a phone call to a person you know nothing about, you can neither personalize the call nor contextualize it.

By making a cold call, you must show your caller that you know him, that you are interested in him and that you are calling him in his interest, he must understand in less than 20 s that you are not a telephone walker, that he is doing slaughter, but that you are calling him to render a real service, to satisfy a need.

The warm call: refers to the phone call to a person whose profile is the need to inquire, so you can contextualize the call and relate their need to your service offering

The hot call: refers to the call to someone who already knows you on social networks.

You have already had an exchange, one or more exchanges with your prospect on social networks (LinkedIn).

To write a high-impact phone script in hot call, your caller must immediately understand that you are already connected on LinkedIn, he must immediately understand that you are calling him to allow him to solve a problem or satisfy a need.