Phone Sales: The Science of Making the Sale

By Kerry Johnson

How can you get through gate-keepers? How can you get calls returned? How can you reach more prospects instead of their voicemails? Phone Sales will make your phone a profit center. This book includes actual phone sales calls from top producers.

Some of the skills you'll learn are:
• The 3 best closes to use on the phone
• How to book appointments
• What to say when someone says, "I'm not interested"
• How to avoid telephone tag
• How to get your calls returned
• How to beat "call reluctance"

Dr. Kerry L. Johnson is a best selling author and speaker. He speaks to audiences around the world at least 8 times a month ranging from Hong Kong to Halifax, and from New Zealand to New York. Traveling 8,000 miles each week, Dr. Johnson presents such topics as “How to Read Your Customers Mind,” “The Trust Connection” and Peak Performance: How to Increase Business by 80% in 8 weeks.”

In addition to speaking, Kerry heads Peak Performance Coaching. Professionals around the world use Dr. Johnson and his coaches to increase business often by 300%.

Kerry currently writes monthly for fifteen national trade and management magazines whose editors have dubbed him, “The Nation’s Business Psychologist.” He is also the author of nine best-selling books including: MASTERING THE GAME, PEAK PERFORMANCE: HOW TO INCREASE YOUR BUSINESS BY 80% IN 8 WEEKS, and WILLPOWER: THE SECRETS OF SELF-DISCIPLINE. Kerry spent two years competing on the International Grand Prix Tennis Tour. He played both singles and doubles matches against some of the worlds top tennis players. Kerry was also recognized by the U.S. Jaycees as one of the Most Outstanding Men in America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G&D Media
• Release date: Sep 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781722522766

Kerry Johnson

Kerry Johnson has been conversing with fictional characters and devouring books since her childhood in the Connecticut woods. A long-time member of ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers), she’s a seven-time Genesis Contest finalist and two-time winner. Kerry lives on the sunny, stormy west coast of Florida with her family, a lazy boxer and a tempermental sun conure, and way too many books. She loves long walks, all creatures great and small, and iced chai tea.

Book preview

Introduction

In my travels as a speaker and consultant, I’ve found very few people who have even read a book on doing business on the telephone, yet even face-to-face sales demands a very high level of telephone expertise.

The cost of doing business is increasing. It costs much more to do business face-to-face now than ever before. In fact, a recent study done by the Xerox Corporation showed that seeing a prospect face-to-face costs approximately $300. Obviously, this includes preparation time, secretary time, and travel time. Yet the cost of seeing prospects belly button to belly button exclusively is prohibitive.

We can no longer afford to do business in the future as we have in the past. I frequently consult with companies who send their salespeople out to cold-call face-to-face. Often they’re effective, yet they rarely are able to see the right person on a walk-in basis. Even on those face-to-face cold-call appointments, proper telephone follow-ups could be much more useful than a handshake.

One Midwestern company, realizing that their costs were going higher and higher and their profits lower and lower, decided to cut their sales force from five salespeople to one. This one salesperson had practiced the art of selling face-to-face for years and years in his job. Suddenly his production goals were multiplied by five. He had no recourse but to use his time much more wisely. He was forced to use different strategies. He talked both to new prospects and existing clients by phone. Only in those instances where he was sure he would be able to get a sale would he take the time to see a prospect face-to-face.

As you might imagine, profits increased by 300 percent. Sales costs were cut by 90 percent. The company experienced a sizable revenue increase, and coincidentally added twenty new salespeople, producing past their sales goals, by using the phone. It’s a shame that the company had to learn to train its salespeople with telephone techniques as a last resort.

Years ago, when I started my business, my goal was to see people face-to-face in order to get them to utilize my consulting services. My primary objective was simply to get a prospect on the telephone, commit him to an appointment to see me, and then try to sell him.

My closing rate was approximately 35 to 40 percent on face-to-face appointments, but through the years, I’ve found that when I talk to prospects by telephone first, I’m able to close not only face-to-face but also on the telephone. I obviously receive more rejection on the telephone than face-to-face, but that’s only because the phone allows me to make more calls than I ever could by seeing prospects (particularly because my clients are now located worldwide). I was making more sales in less time and increasing my company profits.

Shelby Carter, senior vice president for the Xerox Corporation, said that salespeople in America have too much windshield time and not enough contact time with prospects: we spend too much time on the road traveling to appointments and too little time eyeball to eyeball, toenail to toenail with our prospects and clients.

We can no longer afford to conduct business simply by sending an email informing our prospect of our intentions to do business. How often have you received a letter or email with a message that could have been more effectively communicated by telephone? Letters are very expensive to write these days. According to the Dartnell Institute, it costs approximately $10 for a staffer to type a simple letter.

It’s also obvious today that America is in the midst of a email glut. We are deluged with spam and junk mail enticing us to buy everything from cars to carpeting and curtains. Emails should only be used to confirm the information provided in a telephone conversation.

Until a few years ago, direct-mail solicitors received approximately a 10 percent response rate. Now they can expect one-fourth to one-half of 1 percent response rate. Email spammers are lucky to get one response out of 10,000 mailings. Out of every 200 snail-mail letters you mail, you’re lucky to get one response. Misunderstandings occur much more frequently in emails than on the telephone, but the two working together provide for effective business relationships. Proper use of the telephone allowed me to go from being a local speaker and consultant to being a national and worldwide consultant.

Joe Gandolfo was one of the insurance industry’s top producers. A heavy telephone user, he also sold nationwide. He used the phone to service existing client needs and prospect for new business to expand his markets. Before traveling, he simply made an appointment with a qualified prospect. Then Joe turned into the expert from afar. Even an insurance agent from the little town of Lakeland, Florida, is an expert to somebody in Iowa.

A recent McGraw-Hill Corporation study found that over 65 percent of personal sales calls were made on the wrong people. In other words, many prospects who were seen face-to-face were not people who could make a decision to buy a product. The proper and effective use of the telephone would help you at least to qualify your prospect to make sure that when you see him face-to-face, he can make a decision.

Because of the low cost, the telephone should be the first resort and the letter your last. After reading this book, you’ll be able to get many more sales on the telephone than you ever could with emails, personal letters, or even face-to-face.

A good example of the striking difference between telephone and letter is an international client I had in New Zealand. This individual, Ian Clarke, and I corresponded for approximately one year way back in 1985. At one point, my letters were reaching New Zealand after two months. While some letters got back within fifteen days, I was appalled at how poor the postal service was between the two countries.

One day I decided to make a phone call to New Zealand. It was expensive, but I got more done in fifteen minutes on the phone than I did from six months of writing letters. A phone call is here and now. An email or letter is so impersonal that it can be easily ignored. You undoubtedly have sent letters to which you never received a response. But it’s very difficult not to respond to a telephone call, as long as you can get through to the right person.

Some of the things you’ll learn in this book are (1) how to get referrals from existing clients and customers and use them to prospect for new business; (2) how to use referrals to your best advantage; and (3) what to say to a referred prospect in the first fifteen seconds.

I’ll also tell you how to use a receptionist to help you get to that prospect. If you’ve been selling for more than a few weeks, you probably realize that one of the responsibilities of an efficient assistant is to serve as a screen to block you. You’ll learn how to get through that assistant and get to your prospect. You’ll even learn how to get your prospects to call you back if they are unavailable at the time you call.

You’ll learn how to avoid telephone tag and how to arouse your prospect’s interest in wanting to talk to you. You’ll gain information on ways to avoid getting blown off the telephone within the first thirty to sixty seconds, and on ways to use lists in prospecting for new customers. You’ll learn how to create a follow-up system that will help you keep on track, and you’ll receive clear direction on how to keep your motivation high even while you get rejected.

You’ll learn how to use a script. You’ll be able to develop your own verbal outline so that you’ll be prepared for anything your prospect says. This script will help you avoid being caught off guard. Since your voice is the most important tool over the telephone, you will learn how to develop it.

During this process, you will increase your listening power. You will learn how to use voice recorders to help you analyze your effectiveness. You’ll be given tips on how to get your prospect to tune into your high level of sincerity and to feel a sense of urgency about doing business with you. Possibly the one technique that will generate the greatest amount of sales is determining quickly what your prospect really wants.

In chapter 8, you’ll be exposed to many valuable facets of probing. You’ll learn how to increase your closing rate even as you increase the amount of useful information you receive on how that prospect will buy from you. Through sophisticated probing, you’ll discover what your prospect wants. You’ll be able to qualify that prospect, making sure that he’s actually the right person to talk to. You’ll learn how to access and understand your prospect’s key words, and, more significantly, how his mind is organized.

You’ll recognize your prospect’s easily identifiable buying strategy, which in turn you will use to sell him. You’ll be given workable steps on how to reach the decision maker, as well as techniques that you will use as a bridge to take you from the approach stage to qualifying your prospect.

You’ll learn how to find out what your prospect considers the most important benefits of your product or service and how to withhold those benefits at one point in order to draw your prospect in more closely. You’ll be given effective methods for finding out the process your prospect will go through in making a decision.

You’ll learn how to ask the right questions, whether they be structured to get more information from your prospect or just to get yes or no. You’ll learn how to prepare your prospect for the second call and how to make them more receptive when you talk a second time. You’ll also learn how to end the first call while increasing the prospect’s enthusiasm for talking with you again.

Have you ever had a prospect seem uninterested while you presented your product? You’ll be given directions on how to present your product benefits, keeping high interest. You’ll learn how to match the prospect’s needs with your product’s features and benefits. You’ll gain information on how to reconfirm your prospect’s needs before you present your ideas as well as on how to avoid the twelve turn-off phrases.

You’ll learn how to develop storytelling techniques to help your prospect get a better idea of how your product will help him. You’ll learn how to reference-sell your prospect on your products using benefits. The fifteen-second rule in gaining agreement will help you keep your presentation short as you learn about three reasons why people don’t buy. You’ll discover how to make sure that your prospect sells himself during the process.

Are you good at cashing in on your prospect’s objections? In chapter 12, you’ll learn how to handle objections on the telephone. You’ll study the four steps for finding out what is really behind the objections and how to cash them in, making an even bigger sale. You’ll learn the feel-felt-found technique and what objections really mean. You’ll develop methods to make sure your prospect is always proven right, never wrong. You’ll find out how to deal with unsurmountable objections such as I’m not interested or I don’t buy from people on the telephone.

I’ll also give you data on how to close on the telephone. We will focus on two basic closing situations: how to close a face-to-face appointment, and how to close a sale solely from the telephone. You’ll learn how to handle both of these situations as well as finding out the three most useful telephone closing techniques. You’ll learn the recommend close and why saying the word because will help rivet your prospect closer to buying your product.

You’ll discover how to transfer urgency in order to get your prospect to buy more quickly. You’ll discover techniques on how to increase your prospect’s trust while closing, and you’ll learn how many times you may have to actually ask your prospect to buy before he says yes.

In chapter 14, on dealing with difficult clients, you’ll discover how complaining prospects can become your best customers, and you’ll be given statistics on the number of customers that could hurt your business and how to turn them around. You’ll learn how to dig up new business by keeping in touch with customers who have already done business with you.

You’ll also learn how to cross-sell and how to get customers to increase their purchases after they’ve made an initial buying decision. You’ll find out why customers stop doing business with you. As you understand more about how to keep track of your greatest strengths and weaknesses in dealing with customers, you’ll become skilled at playing up those strengths and clearing away the weak points.

In the last chapter, you’ll learn how to motivate telephone salespeople. You’ll learn information on how to pinpoint, interview, and select the right kind of telephone salespeople and how to coach them in improving their skills. Other information will tell you how, and how much, you should pay telephone salespeople.

I recommend that you read this book at least five times over the next three months. Read it all the way through once every two weeks for maximum impact. Plan to apply every technique the day you read about it. If you follow these very simple rules, your sales and effectiveness in dealing with prospects, customers, and clients on the telephone will increase dramatically.

One

Getting Through

Whether you sell face-to-face or work primarily on the telephone, your business depends on how effectively you can talk to prospects without seeing them face-to-face, at least initially.

What do you think your customers want most from you? Let me give you five choices.

1. Contact with a capable outside salesperson.

2. Frequency and speed of product delivery.

3. Price range.

4. Range of available products.

5. Contact with a capable inside salesperson.

According to a study done by Arthur Andersen and Company way back in 1970, the number-one thing on the customer’s mind was having contact with a capable and competent outside salesperson. But in 1985, the same study showed that contact with an outside salesperson was dead last, number five. In the number-one spot was a capable inside, phone salesperson. Today the reliance on a capable inside salesperson is even more important, and inside, consulting salespeople are even more valued. This is because more vendors are forcing you to use their technology to communicate instead of people. Have you noticed how difficult it can be to talk to someone? They would rather have you read their FAQ page.

Obviously, frequency and speed of delivery as well as a suitable range of products were still important. Also important was getting a good price, but the studies showed that your prospects are not as money-limited as they are time-limited.

Have you noticed? People and things are pulling at us from all directions, trying to entice time away from us. Chances are, you put more value on your own time than on money. Most of us will pay a huge amount of money to get convenience. You’ll pay a premium to get something that will save you time. This concept is important to realize in telephone selling and customer service: what customers really want is to get things accomplished in less time. When they see a salesperson in their office, they expect to spend sixty to ninety minutes to achieve even the simplest of objectives. On the phone, they can get things accomplished in ten to twenty minutes. Granted, it’s easier to communicate when we’re face-to-face with each other, but if you’re good on the telephone, you can accomplish far more in a shorter period of time. That also means you can make more money more quickly.

In the movie Back to the Future, Michael J. Fox was whisked in a futuristic time machine back to the mid-1950s. In a small hometown, he ate dinner at a home in which the father had a nice, new black and white television set. Michael made the mistake of telling this family that he had two television sets in his home in the future. The kids in the family showed strong reactions as their mouths dropped open in amazement, obviously marveling at such vast resources. Can you imagine what your grandkids would say if you told them what life was like without the internet and social media? What if you told them that you listened to AM radio and had to park the car without radar beeping or a rear-facing camera?

Times have certainly changed, haven’t they? We possess more spendable income than ever before but have less time to enjoy it.

Tom Lambert, a wholesaler with a real-estate limited partnership company based in Salt Lake City, covers six states. Getting business done in such a large territory may impress you, but it’s even more phenomenal when you think he only travels two days a week. Obviously, marriages are hurt when the breadwinner travels too much, but Mr. Lambert has found a way of using the telephone so that by the time he sees someone face-to-face, he is nearly 100 percent sure that he will do business.

One stockbroker in Santa Ana, California, with the old Smith Barney earned approximately $750,000 a year, yet he saw only one-third of his clients. How could this happen? He communicated sincerity and honesty to his clients over the telephone, and they trusted him so much that they didn’t need to see him in person.

A life-insurance salesperson in Toledo, Ohio, has a 100 percent closing rate. Making more than $1.2 million a year, he qualifies his prospects over the telephone so well that he rarely wastes time with a prospect who will not buy.

Research has shown that approximately 65 percent of the face-to-face appointments are with the wrong prospect. This means that more than two-thirds of the people you see are people you should not have been talking to in the first place. Now that you know this, it makes a lot of sense to treat the telephone as the best tool you can ever use to increase your business.

Now let’s focus on how to approach and get through to prospects and clients. Have you ever had problems building your prospect’s interest in the first few minutes? If you’re like me, you’ve been rejected or put off, or even had prospects who wouldn’t let you talk to them at all.

One thing I’ve learned through years of training salespeople is that most marketers, whether they’re selling a product or simply trying to book an appointment, forget that the prospect or client on the other end of the telephone is human too. These salespeople concentrate so hard on the product’s benefits that they lose sight of what the person on the other side of the line wants to hear.

The most important thing in approaching a prospect on the telephone is to remember that first you need to gain rapport. Second, you need to solve their problems.

One of the biggest problems with cold calling is that your call interrupts your prospect in whatever he was doing. That interruption is often less irritating if your call is the result of a referral, so you have to be more skilled in making cold calls than referral calls.

A few years ago, I hired a new phone salesperson for my business. After a few months, I realized that she wasn’t making much headway. The more I taught her about my business, the worse