Introduction
Alan Stewart on Aug 02 2007
How an Aussie Marketer Was Embarrassed Into Creating a System of Telephone Sales Skills That Can Increase Your Effectiveness on the Telephone by Over 321% and Have Fun Doing It
G’day,
Please allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Alan Stewart. As you can tell from my greeting, I’m an Australian and my work is supposed to be about helping business people to communicate in ways that make them more valuable, marketable and profitable.
I say “supposed to be” because recently I blew it!
If you have a moment then sit back and relax now and I’ll tell you the story.
Is this happening to you?
I was standing in a small queue of a local retail store waiting to be served. There were 2 Staff Members behind the counter, cheerfully serving customers. The whole atmosphere of the place was exceptionally friendly with no one showing the least bit of impatience for needing to wait.
Suddenly the phone began to ring and what I witnessed next was an almost Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Personality Change from one of the workers. He became extremely agitated and refused to pick up the phone. I counted 13 rings before finally out of sheer frustration he answered it. He rudely and reluctantly grunted out a short answer to the caller’s question before slamming down the phone. He then did another personality change and went back to cheerfully serving us.
Please don’t get me wrong, this guy was not just some jerk who didn’t deserve his job. Indeed his face-to-face rapport skills were brilliant. When it came to using the phone however he was dismal.
Do you think this staff member was helping himself or the business to be more valuable, marketable and profitable?
Wait until you read the irony …
The store this man worked in, was part of a franchise chain. I had been contracted by the Master Franchise Owners to develop a marketing campaign to help them make their phones ring.
Can you imagine how dumb I felt when I realized that the staff member was affecting my livelihood and reputation as well?
The beginning of an obsession!
The incident in the store highlights the fact that you should learn everything possible about Telephone Success Strategies and insist they are used by everyone in your organisation.
So off I went devouring everything I could about telephone techniques. Many of the courses and seminars were excellent.
What was interesting was what they all had in common.
The presenters talked about “how too many small businesses see phone calls as interruptions rather than opportunities”.
They dramatized how “business owners are literally squandering their hard earned marketing dollars (and reputation) by underestimating the value of each phone call”.
They gave great examples like: “If you spend $100 on advertising and 10 people phone, then it is costing you at the very least $10 per call.”
Their telephone training provided great tips such as answering the phone on the third ring with, “Good Morning, XYZ Company, This is Joanne”. Or always saying “Mr Smith is with a client” (rather than in a meeting) when not available.
Suddenly the light came on.
Whilst these may be great tips, you know there are countless businesses that answer the phone in this manner yet still manage to drive their clients away. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I finally realized where they were all missing the boat. I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was when the following distinction hit me.
There is more to being effective on the telephone than just ’surface language’.
Their focus was on what you should say rather than how or why you should say it. In other words they were all caught up in just their content instead of focussing on the way people process information and what motivates them to do business with you in the first place.
As silly as it may sound it is better to say the wrong thing in the right way than it is to say the right thing in the wrong way.
How many times have you been put off by a telemarketer who was blatantly reading you a script? They may have been given the right words to say but they definitely had the wrong approach.
Ultimately when you can say the right thing in the right way you’ll …
Stop Infuriating and Start Influencing!
Discover how to increase your effectiveness on the telephone by over 321% and have fun doing it.