We are not allowed to read books, use the computer/internet/mobile phones or eat at our stations. I seem to spend a LOT of time twiddling my thumbs waiting for someone to pick up and I want that time to be productive. The only thing I can think of is to knit something but I dont really want to do that.

Any suggestions of something discreete I can do/make/ learn so that I do not feel that time has gone down the drain for nothing.

Thanks.

However, there’s still nothing better for my palate than a great slice of pizza. I particularly like thin crust, New York style. Could eat it every day. Normally I don’t go more than a few days without a pizza-fix.

When I was living in Omaha I was a bit limited in my choices of places to get exceptional pizza. One day, lusting for a slice and wanted to try something different, so I went online and was reminded of a place not far from my home. I had tried it a couple of years ago, was not impressed, so they fell off my radar.

However, I read some of the recent favorable reviews and thought I’d give them another shot. After all, right down the street…if they’ve improved, this could become a spot I’d be dropping lots of cash in the future.

So I called, intending to order a pie. After about eight rings, the out-of-breath voice answered–with chaos in the background–and greeted me with, "Can you hold?"

(I’m intentionally leaving out the name of the place–she did say it when she answered.)

Reluctantly, I agreed.

She did NOT put me on hold. She just put the phone down.

So now I’m hearing the banter of the kitchen staff, and occasionally her voice. One minute passes.

I’m getting restless.

Two minutes, I’m annoyed.

Watching the clock on the computer screen tick away, three minutes. Now I’m pissed. The kitchen staff continues whooping it up.

Trying to put it all in perspective and remind myself that in the whole scheme of things this is not worth getting upset about, I decide to give them one more minute. Sure, I could have hung up and called back, but the devilish side of me wanted to see just how long this customer service train wreck would continue. Plus, I thought I had the makings of a weekly tip.

And I really didn’t feel like driving any further than a few blocks to get pizza.

At the five-minute mark, I FINALLY hear someone pick up the phone, and…hang it up. "Call Ended" flashes on my cell phone.

At that moment I decide to provide the owner with some unsolicited phone sales training.

While I was simmering, waiting, I was online, reading about the history of the joint, and about the owner who had come here from Chicago a few years ago. I remembered seeing him the last time I was there, working the counter and the kitchen. Chances are he was there and I was going to tell him about my experience.

Certainly as an astute business owner he would welcome feedback and offer to make things right.

I called back.

Busy signal. Hit redial. Busy signal again. Undoubtedly someone else was told to hold, but then forgotten about.

THREE more times I tried back, hearing the busy signal each time.

Finally I heard a ringing sound. A male answered, and said "This is____," giving his name. It was the owner.

I said, "Yes, I called there about 10 minutes ago. I was going to get a pizza from you. I was asked to hold, was forgotten about for exactly FIVE minutes, and then was hung up on. I wanted you to know this personally since you might be losing customers because of how calls are handled."

"Sorry about that," he said in a tone that contradicted his words.

That was it. No attempt to recover. Nothing like, "Wow, that certainly is not the way we do things, let me make it up to you…"

"Sorry?", I repeated, after he was silent for a few seconds, giving him a chance to say more.

"Yeah, sorry, he repeated with an attitude that I read as, "Look, I’m busy here."

I remained silent–and a bit stunned–for a few seconds, thinking he might come to his senses as a business owner and do the right thing.

Silence.

I was not an a-hole about this by any means, but I finally matter-of-factly said, "Well, you just lost a sale and more importantly, a customer."

That, I thought, might cause him to realize he could still fix this. Instead, I heard, "Sorry to hear that."

He was one of the sorriest guys I’ve ever heard.

So I found another place, a few miles from my house, that answered on the first ring, did not put me on hold, repeated back my order, made an upsell suggestion for a salad, which I took advantage of, and told me precisely when my order would be ready. THEY will be getting a lot more of my money in the future.

Now, you might be thinking that from the first pizza joint’s perspective, so what, big deal, they lost a sale, under $20 in revenue.

Wrong.

A number of years ago a marketing exec with Dominos spoke right before me at a national sales meeting. He talked about the value of a customer, something many people do not keep at the forefront of their mind. He said their research indicated that a customer would spend–I don’t remember the exact number, but this is close–in the neighborhood of $8000 with Dominos in their lifetime.

They would emphasize that to their employees who answered the phone, and anyone who had contact with customers. It wasn’t a one-pizza transaction, you were talking to an $8,000 customer.

One of my business mentors, Dan Kennedy, stresses the importance of "future bank" vs. "present bank." Future bank is what your customer means to you over their lifetime, and yours. That’s why smart marketers often take a loss in acquiring a customer, knowing that the real profit is in keeping them over time.

Let’s try to stitch this back together to some relevance for you: What do YOU do to ensure that you make it easy for people to become customers?

Are there any deterrents that make it difficult for people to become customers…like saying, "Can you hold?", when someone WANTS to buy from you, now?

Do you know your own "future bank" number? If not, figure it out, and be sure EVERYONE who has customer contact knows it.

What are you doing so that when your competition calls your customers–and you know they will–your customers say, "I’m happy with who I’m buying from."

View full post on Art Sobczak’s Telesales Blog

Thanks,

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In my research, I thought it would be good to go back to the basics, and look at what has always worked, particularly some of the things I did years ago when I first started my business. So, I used some special technology (you might not yet have heard about the special iPhone app) to actually call myself back in 1983.

It is humorous at times explaining to someone in the past all of the things we are doing and using today. And it also points out some of the absurdity of what we do today. Enjoy.

(click on the graphic below to play)

View full post on Art Sobczak’s Telesales Blog

Telecommuncations providers like Numberstore (www.numberstore.com) provide geographic and non-geographic telephone numbers which “overlay” organisations’ existing telephone numbers. As well as providing a wide variety of call management facilities, these numbers perform the all-important task of data capture. A caller’s number (CLI) is recorded as the call is received along with other key information, such as whether the call was answered or unanswered, the call duration and the path which the call took (for example, through an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, a call-hunt group or to a voice mailbox).

Call Detail Records (CDRs) are extremely powerful to organisations for a number of reasons:

• By assigning dedicated telephone numbers to particular advertising and promotional activities, it allows them to gauge the response. They can ascertain the number of calls, average call duration etc, which a particular campaign yields.

• CDRs allow organisations to benchmark the performance of call-handling personnel, be they inbound sales, customer or technical support staff. Average call durations and time-to-answer are valuable KPIs in measuring SLA performance.

• They allow organisations to understand and optimise call delivery thereby improving call-handling efficiency and the caller experience. For example, a call hunt group may be optimised following analysis of the CDRs because certain destinations are taking too long to answer calls or are frequently busy.

Since data is now available for online analysis, or .CSV download, organisations are able to learn much about their internal efficiency and the effectiveness of their promotional activity for less than £10 per month. Furthermore, call statistics form only one part of many call management features available from a hosted inbound telephony solution. Many other call routing services are included in geographic and non-geographic number service plans.

For further information, please visit Numberstore now.

Kieron James is the managing director of Zimo Communications, a Network Operator providing number translation services on a wide range of geographic and non-geographic number ranges.

"Smart Calling-Eliminate the Fear, Failure, and Rejection from Cold Calling,"

First, say the words, "cold calling."

That causes chest-tightening, loss-of-breath anxiety for many.

Let’s look at a typical cold call opening.

"Hi Mike, I’m Dale Dufus with Insurance Partners. We provide employee benefits, including health insurance. I’d like to take 10 minutes of your time and tell you what we do, and show you how we could save you time and money. I’ll be in your area next week. Can we meet either Tuesday or Wednesday morning?"

There were no fewer than SEVEN mistakes there that would cause the caller to get blown off the phone quickly. (We detail these, and about 20 others in the book.)

That was a pure cold call. And it’s dumb. I suggest you never place another one. In fact, never even use the term when referring to professional telephone prospecting. You can prospect by phone successfully, when you are Smart about it.

Let’s look at another opening from a sales rep who "gets it."

"Hi Michael, I’m Pat Stevens with Insurance Partners. Hope you enjoyed your golf vacation. In speaking with your assistant, Suzanne, I understand that you are evaluating your competitive edge in the employment market and what you can do to attract and keep the top talent in your various locations. We’ve been able to help other companies in the same situation lower their recruiting and hiring expenses, and increase their retention of managerial staff. I’d like to ask a few questions to see if I could provide you some information."

Pat was able to do a number of positive things in this opening:

-He used Michael’s first name, since he knew that Michael was somewhat of an informal guy who no one called "Mr. Johnson," and hated to be called Mike.

-He knew Michael is a huge golf nut, and just returned from a golf weekend

-He mentioned Michael’s assistant Suzanne, adding credibility

-He knew that the company had recently missed out on some managerial candidates who were hired by the competition because of a better benefits package, as well as some existing employees who left for that reason

-He did not talk about insurance or benefits, but instead, results– the precise results that addressed the issues that Michael now faced.

And all of that took place in the first 10 seconds or so. Later in the call Pat also:

-Asked questions to which he pretty much already knew the answers about the company’s growth plans, their position in the marketplace, and the existing benefits package and how people felt about it.

-Commented on the great article that Michael had written for Construction Executive magazine.

-Asked about Michael’s experience working with one of his company’s competitors prior to coming to work for this company two years ago.

As a result of all of this, Michael of course viewed Pat not as the typical sales rep, but as someone who understood his business and what he was concerned about right now. Plus, he liked Pat. And Pat got an appointment.

How did Pat accomplish all of this?

The same way you can. Pat did his research. He did Smart Calling™. There’s no excuse NOT to.

He used several online resources and social media sites to get personal and professional information about Michael, his company, and industry, and very importantly, what Michael was concerned about right now.

Then Pat used "social engineering," the process of speaking with other people within Michael’s company to gain intelligence about the company’s current situation regarding their recruiting, hiring, and retention issues, and present benefits package.

He also learned about Michael personally from his assistant Suzanne and a few others in the department.

Notice that Pat used a conversational, soft-sell approach in his opening to minimize resistance, and to create interest and pique curiosity. This put Michael in a state of mind where he wanted to hear more.

Can you see the difference between this and a typical "cold" call, where the sales rep knows nothing about his prospect, and is simply smilin’ and dialin’, repeating the same tired lines and closes to everyone who will listen?

There is no reason–other than laziness–to ever place a "cold" call. Use these ideas to make your calls Smart, and successful.

We are still offering all of the bonus audios, e-books, and special reports, over $450 worth, from a number of other sales experts (including Zig Ziglar) who partnered with us in this launch. Amazon is now shipping books again next week, and they are offering it at a crazy-low price of under $15. Get more info, watch a video about some more opening mistakes, and order here. http://www.smart-calling.com/launch.html

View full post on Art Sobczak’s Telesales Blog

But it happened. I’ll explain in detail.

I overheard Steve, my marketing guy, who also answers the phone in my office, talking to the caller:

"Well, that would be Art. I’ll transfer you."

He put the call on hold and said to me, "Some guy wants to talk to someone about Internet marketing. He’s being pretty evasive though. Might want to turn your recorder on for this one."

Sounded like it might be good material for this newsletter.

"Hi, this is Art."

"Doug? Did you say Doug?"

What a great first impression this guy was making. (I almost laughed out loud, being reminded of the movie "Multiplicity," where Michael Keaton WAS Doug, but the mutant clone kept calling him "Steve.")

"No, this is Art."

"Oh, uh, yeah, hi Art. I’m _____ with (I didn’t write down or remember the company name.) I just wanted to touch base to see how your Internet marketing was going."

"It is going just fantastic."

"Oh, good. Tell me what you’re doing there."

"Look, I’m busy (isn’t everyone?) and not interested."

End of call.

Wow. Let’s examine how this guy never had a chance.

Mistake 1: Not Getting a Name
He didn’t even get my name, therefore the comical "Doug" scenario, which blew him out of the water three seconds into the call.

He could have simply started out by initially identifying himself and his company to Steve, and then asking, "I hope you can help me… what is the name of the person there who is responsible for yourInternet marketing."

Mistake 2: Being Evasive.
Do some salespeople not realize that the person who answers the phone for decision makers actually TALKS to the decision maker before transferring the call?

Based only on what Steve told me before I picked up the phone, I for the most part knew that this caller had zero chance of success–except for the basis for an article like this one.

Callers must be prepared to work with the personnel who are closest to our buyers, gain their trust, and discuss value where appropriate.

What do assistants, screeners, office managers and others say about you?

Mistake 3: Not Getting Smart Call Intelligence or Doing Homework
Again, because of Mistakes 2 and 3, he didn’t ask any questions of Steve. Hmm, let’s see, call me crazy, but it seems that if you’re selling some type of Internet marketing, it would make sense that if you visited someone’s website, and found out what type of Internet marketing they do now, then you would be much better prepared to put together a nice opening, and ask intelligent questions.

So, after asking for the decision maker’s name, it’s quite simple to say, "Great, so I can be sure that what I’m calling about has value for the boss, I’d like to ask a couple of questions. Please tell me …"

Mistake 4: Horrible Opening Statement
To review,

"Oh, uh, yeah, hi Art. I’m _____ with ______. I just wanted to touch base to see how your Internet marketing was going."

Come on now, read this again, and think about how absurd that question is. What in the world does he expect people to say?

"Oh, my Internet marketing isn’t going well at all. I’m glad you called. I bet you can help me."

Right.

There are two purposes for the opening:

- put them in a positive, receptive, frame of mind, by mentioning an item of interest … a possible result or benefit you might be able to deliver, and,

- move to the questioning phase of the call. BUT, the first objective must be established.

Mistake 5: Asking Questions When They Don’t See A Reason to Answer
Again, as part of Mistake 4, if we don’t put them in a positive frame of mind, but then jump into questions, they don’t have a good reason to answer, therefore the call goes down in flames.

So short of a call, but yet so many opportunities to screw up. And this guy hit most of them. Sadly, I see this all of the time.

Worse, he probably believes that prospecting for him is "just a numbers game." Make so many calls, and you’re that much closer to getting a yes. Actually, he’s that much closer to getting another no, and he’s getting really good at making bad calls.

If you place prospecting calls, analyze each of these mistakesto be sure they’re not part of your calls, and practice the right methods, the Smart Calling way instead.

And by the way, these are just some of the call-killing mistakes made on dumb cold calls that I cover in my new book, "Smart Calling-Elminate the Fear, Failure, and Rejection from Cold Calling." Of course, we cover, in-depth, what TO DO instead.

We’re still offering over $450 worth of free bonuses to purchasers. See complete information, including a video of more opening mistakes at http://www.smart-calling.com/launch.html

View full post on Art Sobczak’s Telesales Blog