Here’s a call I received at my office:

“Art, this is Joe Collins with Data International. We’re the most respected provider of data funneling (or something like that–I had never heard the term before). We work with the IBM’s, AT&T’s …,”

Huh?

The guy lost me already, but I let him go on for at least 90 seconds,  nonstop, with his droning. I was not a prospect, and even if I were, I wouldn’t have been interested based on this opening.

On the phone you have about 10 seconds or less to capture a listener’s attention, break their preoccupation with whatever they were doing when you called, and place them in a positive, receptive frame of mind to share information with you and listen with an open mind. Therefore, you don’t want to muddy up your call with wasted words, or meaningless words.

It amazes me how sales reps (and many companies in general) use “corporatespeak”: slogans and overused, meaningless words to describe what they do. For example,

-”cost-effective,” as in, “We provide cost-effective products.”

-”leading,” or  “premier,” as in, “We’re the leading company in this field.”

-”solution provider, as in, “We’re a solution provider.”

-”meet your needs, as in, “I’d like to discuss how we can meet your needs.”

(Here’s a funny quiz that gives actual empty slogans created by corporate PR people and you try to pick what the company actually does http://contentfactor.com/quiz/quiz.html )

Here’s another one:

“Ms. Prospect, Josh Verbose with E-Commerce Applications. We’re the premier solution provider of cost-effective e-commerce systems. We help companies by facilitating their migration into electronic marketing by leveraging their options to meet their e-commerce needs.”

Uh, ok.

Here are a couple of fundamental ideas to keep in mind before and during your calls.

-Know who you’re talking to, both company and position-wise. The guy calling me was clearly not talking to a prospect. To avoid wasted time, energy, and resistance he could have simply said to my marketing person here,

“I want to be sure that what I have would be of some interest for your company. Please tell me …,” followed by some qualifying questions.

-Use clear terminology to quickly create interest. Let me say this slowly: you have just several seconds to create interest at the beginning of a call. You do this by alluding to what you might be able to do for them, and then asking a question.

So be simple with the hint of the result you could possibly provide. For example,

“Art, with other speakers, trainers, and authors, we’ve helped them take their database of existing customers and increase by two-to- three times their amount of repeat business . I’d like to ask a few questions to see if it would make sense for us to speak further.”

Along the same lines, avoid stilted words when simpler ones will do. For example,

“use” instead of “utilize”

“talk” instead of “have a dialogue”

“help” instead of “facilitate”

Examine your own language, both in your openings, and in all parts of your call. Are you creating resistance instead of interest? If so, change it today.

I’ll show you exactly how in my one-hour audio seminar on how to develop interest-creating openings, and I will personally review your opening/voice mail message and give suggestions for improvement. Check out the details at  http://www.businessbyphone.com/teleseminar2.htm

View full post on Art Sobczak’s Telesales Blog