Ahead4Business Ltd

MasterMind Growth Podcast with Katharine Rose

Katharine Rose — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 14:36:54 +0000

How do you sell during this crisis without appearing uncaring/insensitive?

Katharine Rose — Thu, 23 Apr 2020 16:25:22 +0000

I’m still telemarketing for my clients during the lockdown.

However, I’ve clearly needed to adapt and change how I approach my calls.

Here are my top 3 tips to help you get on that phone:

1. Don’t ignore the elephant in the room. If you think you can carry on introducing yourself in the same way as before, you’re deluding yourself. Acknowledge it. Start with this: “Hi, I’m X from X, you’re probably working remotely too, I’m calling for X, are you working in the office and able to transfer calls or working from home?” An immediate ice breaker, it allows you to determine a number of things, and, if they’re not able to transfer you, you’ll usually get a direct email.

2. This is the time to dig deep and understand them and how this is affecting them personally too. You can then match the things that are affecting them right now with your service/product. Save the knobs and whistles (features/benefits) for another time. Fulfill their immediate need and you’ll sell now.

3. Don’t give up. In normal times, it can take lots of ‘touches’ (calls/emails). These are not normal times, don’t be discouraged and keep going.

The Fear of The Phone – making the phone your friend and not your enemy

Katharine Rose — Mon, 01 Jul 2019 16:18:10 +0000

My 17 year old daughter refuses to answer our landline. It’s so odd; she’s as bright as a button, great company (most of the time…) but when it comes to picking up a call, she runs a mile. “I don’t know what to say” “What if they ask me something I don’t know” and other similar excuses. It’s been useful for me to see this fear in action whilst I wrote the content for a 2 hr training workshop I recently ran for a local business networking group called ‘Phone Frights – how to overcome them, perfect your pitch and win more business’.

It can be all too easy to become complacent when you’re someone like me who’s lived and breathed telemarketing and has worked on the phone all her career. You can forget that for many, the fear of rejection, of getting it wrong, of saying something daft means they simply avoid the phone. Even though it’s the most direct and simplest way of introducing your business to another business.

So, my first couple of tips to those facing the phone and about to make some cold calls are:

1. breath slowly, talk more slowly than you think you need to and 2. when you ask a question -shut up and let them answer!

More to follow…

Do you talk too much when you’re on the phone?

Katharine Rose — Sat, 13 Apr 2019 16:22:08 +0000

It’s easy to fall into the trap of gabbling but you risk missing crucial opportunities to develop rapport if you don’t embrace ‘the gaps’.

When you pick up the phone to someone, take a moment.

Ask them a question and then….actually allow them to answer.

You’d be amazed how many people fail to do that.

Desperation to get results, close a sale or get an answer on something means you risk getting the opposite result you hope for. If you use the phone for selling anything, aim to be speaking no more than 25% of the time.

Try it, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much less stressful it is to first pick up that phone if you’re doing less of the talking and more of the asking and listening.

6 Top Tips on best practice for a successful Customer Satisfaction Survey

Katharine Rose — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 16:15:39 +0000

Tip 1. Use a third party

It’s a mistake to think that your customers will always let you know if they’re not happy. More often than not, they’ll just go to another supplier rather than bother telling you. It’s not that they’re lazy, they just don’t want the hassle or to have a confrontation.

Think of the waiter asking if everything’s okay. How many of us just say yes in order to get rid of them, even though the order may be wrong, the food may be cold, or you were in the middle of talking.

Tip 2. Ask the right questions, in the right order and not too many

This is really important. If you ask too specific a question, you could miss some important feedback. If you ask too general a question, they might just skip it because they haven’t the time to really think about it. And most of all, don’t ask too many. Depending on your customer, we usually recommend no more than 15 and that should include confirming name, position and business name.

Your best bet is to ask for the customer’s overall rating first and then drill down for some more detail in the questions that follow with some as score ratings (we suggest no more than 1 to 5) and some with the opportunity for them to pop in some text. You can get some great testimonial and marketing ‘bites’ here then too.

Tip 3. Keep things simple

Don’t ask your customers to work too much out. They’re more likely to skip questions that way or even not bother finishing the survey. Keep the language simple, not ambiguous. If you want numbers, give them options such as 1 to 5, 6 to 10, 11 to 20 rather than asking them how many specific ‘widgets’ they ordered last year. They won’t always remember and are unlikely to have the inclination to look it up.

Tip 4. Use language that makes sense to your customer when using scales

You can use ‘Excellent’, ‘Good’, ‘Satisfactory’ etc. But it may work better in some instances if you provide something more emotive like ‘loved it’, ‘it was generally good’, ‘it was okay’, ‘it could have been better’ etc

Tip 5. Be sure to act on any specific comments

If an issue is brought to your attention, deal with it promptly and keep them informed. If you get some specific praise, thank them for it. Send them a card, a discount off their next purchase. Something to acknowledge it.

Tip 6. Give them the chance to opt out of doing the survey

Avoid GDPR issues by sending out a pre-survey email, letting them know a survey will be sent to them by your chosen third party and giving them the option to opt out if they don’t want to join in.

It’s also a useful way of cleaning your data and means there’s been a ‘warm up’ sent before the actual survey goes out. Ones who don’t complete the survey through the email can have a call and have it completed with them over the phone. Another opportunity to connect with your customers.

Sometimes, you can know too much….

Katharine Rose — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 00:00:41 +0000

The pitfalls and common mistakes of the ‘expert’

This might seem an odd thing to say, but this is often something that crops up with businesses that are selling products or services that can be very technical, or new to market.

They are so keen and excited about their new product or service, that they forget

‘it’s not actually about them’

It’s fundamentally about what problem/need or pain they can solve or eradicate for their prospective customer.

It may have all the bells and whistles, do things no others can do, be the latest design, have the best this, that and the other. But if all they do is just tell, and not listen, it will fall on deaf ears. No one likes being sold to, but we all like to sound off about our problems from time to time. An that’s what you need to address.

That’s why, when I get asked how telemarketing can possibly work if you’ve never sold ABC widgets before, or XYZ services, I explain that before they can successfully ‘sell’ to a prospect, they need to know what they might actually want to buy and when.

And the only way to do this is by asking questions first that ‘pinpoint the pain’ and ‘find the need’, which is what good telemarketing is about. In fact, that’s why it’s called telemarketing, not telesales.

So, remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them.

When I hear ‘my old Telemarketers were rubbish’…..

Katharine Rose — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 16:10:31 +0000

If a business approaches me for telemarketing and lead generation work, but they’re telling me that the last time they used telemarketing it didn’t go well; I have to dig deeper.

Was it that they weren’t getting meetings or leads for them?

Was is that when they got meetings or leads they didn’t produce business?

The thing is, I know what great telemarketers we are. However, you can pass as many ‘hot leads’ through as you like, if the sales process that’s in place with your client is broken or not working; those leads will go cold. And guess what? they’ll be turning around and saying ‘my old telemarketers were rubbish’….to the next one.

My first reaction is to ask some targeted questions (I call it my Sales Reality Check) to get to the bottom of where they are now; what they want and where they want to get to.

These are the most common issues:

There’s no sales process is in place. Or, if there is, it’s all in the boss’s head and the rest of the staff don’t know what it is. Or it changes so often, they can’t keep up. There’s nothing written down.

The database is out of date or is not targeting the kind of business they want. Plus, it’s not all in one place, there’s data everywhere and things get duplicated or missed.

The only person doing sales is the boss and when they’re not there no one follows up leads.

The sales person/team don’t have defined targets/goals and get distracted/lose motivation.

When a lead is followed up there’s either no material to send them or there’s too much.

There are more but these give an overview and enable my team and I (we call it Your Sales Partners) to work with our clients to deliver great telemarketing results.

We enable our clients to benefit from an ongoing, steady flow of sales which their team know how to manage and nurture.

We deliver;

An up to date, researched, checked and relevant database

A well targeted and researched telemarketing campaign

Bespoke workshops for their sales team

A defined, written sales process and put it in place for the business

All just by just asking that first question ‘why do you think your old telemarketers were rubbish?’

GDPR – Why telemarketing is going to be more important than ever

Katharine Rose — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 16:06:51 +0000

We all know GDPR is coming (General Data Protection Regulations) on 25th May, but panicking about it won’t help and thinking it won’t affect you is just plain daft because if you have any of these:

Employees

Clients

Prospects

Suppliers

…then GDPR will apply and you need to make sure you are looking after the information you have on them properly and that you have their consent to contact them.

I was getting so many mixed messages about GDPR, and clients of mine were asking me questions that I wanted to be confident I was answering correctly, so I contacted the ICO directly and spoke with their special GDPR helpline and here’s what I asked the very helpful chap there:

Me: “I’ve been running a very successful B2B Telemarketing business since 2007, however, should I be planning on a new career after 25th May because I won’t be allowed to call anyone without having permission first?”

ICO Chap: “Absolutely not, in fact, you’ll probably be busier than ever because it’s going to be the best way to contact people, as long as you do it right”

Me: “What does that mean?, I thought I’d been doing it right all these years otherwise, how have I got my clients such successful results?”

ICO Chap: “Fair point, so, you must always say who is calling, allow your number to be displayed to the person receiving the call, and provide a contact address or number if asked and, at the end of the call, ask their permission if you want to contact them again and you must make sure they are not TPS/CTPS registered”

Me: “Well that’s exactly what I do anyway, so thank goodness for that! I use one of the authorised companies on the TPS/CTPS website as the charges are minimal and it’s very easy to use their system. If you only have a handful to check at a time, then you can check up to 10 for free. It’s refreshed every 28 days.”

He then said there were more specific details about telephone marketing and live calling on the ICO website that I could pass on to my contacts to check out.

If the data my clients provide me is old and I’m cleaning it as part of the telemarketing campaign, then I request that they have it TPS/CTPS checked or, if it’s only a small amount, I do it for them.

So, in a nutshell, I can continue to send emailers and newsletters to the contacts that I had previously spoken with and gained permission from to keep in touch with as it would be classed as ‘legitimate interest’. And I can continue calling prospects for my clients, safe in the knowledge that the man at ICO, he say yes!

If you’d like to have a chat about your business growth plans and to see how my team and I can help you achieve them, particularly after the GDPR kicks in, then please get in touch, it would be great to hear from you. I do need to pop in a disclaimer here about GDPR as I am not legally trained in any way, so this is all gleaned from my own research and digging.

All the best

Katharine

How to write a telesales script in 5 easy steps

Katharine Rose — Mon, 22 Oct 2018 00:00:10 +0000

It’s actually probably better to not think of it as a script but more of a prompter.A script tends to make people feel that they have to stick rigidly to it and can actually inhibit their listening skills and that could mean missing an all important buying signal.

There are some key things to remember, here they are in 5 easy steps:

A good opening sentence that makes it clear why you are calling, what you want and who you are but is no longer than 30 seconds long – think how quickly you lose interest with a cold caller who drivels on…

Asking them if they have time to do this now, they may say no, but just ask them which day and time you can call them back

Have the key open questions you want to ask them, remember, what, how, when, who and list some likely objections you could get and have those answers prepared, have it printed off and in front of you when you call.

Start out with the end goal in mind, if it’s to get a meeting, then ensure you ask for one in your script and always give a couple of meeting time options as that way, it’s harder for them to turn you down.

Finally, have a Call to Action such as a limited offer or seasonal product; a reason for them to do this now, rather than later. If they insist it’s the wrong time, that’s fine, but book a call for when they think it will be the right time, and diarise it.

Just remember to keep it simple. The idea is the conversation should flow, it’s about building rapport and understanding – your prospect understanding what you offer and want from this call, and you understanding what they want so that you can match your service/product to their needs.