Best Telesales Training Advice: It’s Not What You Say, It’s When

Tele­sales train­ing is a hard, thank­less task. How can you train your employ­ees to be “nat­ural” sales­peo­ple if they don’t come with an innate gift or knack for sell­ing? Is it pos­si­ble to con­vert non-sales-type peo­ple into top-performing sell­ers? What is the secret that great sales­peo­ple have that the rest of us don’t?

Well, it turns out, there are tricks of the trade that can help even the most awk­ward sales­per­son improve. Here’s a hint: It’s not what the sales­per­son says, nec­es­sar­ily, that will close the deal. In sales, tim­ing is paramount.

Be care­ful when using a script

One of the key points to keep in mind when sell­ing is that you are not “sell­ing.” You are hav­ing a con­ver­sa­tion. While it may seem impor­tant to help keep your staff on-point by pro­vid­ing them with scripts, here’s a handy bit of tele­sales train­ing advice: a script can hin­der a con­ver­sa­tion. A script dic­tates that your staff should say cer­tain things to probe about the prospect’s cur­rent prod­uct, and a script tries to help steer the talker toward a sales closer. In the­ory, this should work well if the prospect responds to each ques­tion accord­ing to “the script,” but in prac­tice, that rarely occurs. If it does occur, then your sales­per­son and the prospect are not truly engag­ing in a con­ver­sa­tion. They’re engag­ing in a for­mal, scripted sales call, and few peo­ple enjoy the act of being roped into try­ing to buy a prod­uct. So the first step in help­ing improve your tele­sales train­ing is to teach your reps that they should be mind­ful of cer­tain points, but they should not read from a script. They should engage in a con­ver­sa­tion, first and foremost.

In sales, it’s not loca­tion, loca­tion, loca­tion. It’s tim­ing, tim­ing, timing

The real estate maxim “loca­tion, loca­tion, loca­tion” could be re-stated for sales to be “tim­ing, tim­ing, tim­ing.” In sales, it’s not so much what you say, but when the key points are addressed that can make or break a sale. A best tele­sales train­ing prac­tice tip to keep in mind is mak­ing sure your sales team under­stands the appro­pri­ate con­text for ask­ing impor­tant ques­tions. For exam­ple, don’t train your staff to open the con­ver­sa­tion by ask­ing who the com­peti­tor is buy­ing from – this ques­tion is per­fectly appro­pri­ate, but the tim­ing of the ques­tion is what really mat­ters. If the prospect describes a prob­lem that has been ongo­ing with their cur­rent prod­uct, then it is appro­pri­ate to ask who the sup­plier is. Sim­i­larly, if you know your prod­uct is priced higher than the competition’s, weave this nar­ra­tive in when the prospect is dis­cussing the issues he or she is hav­ing with the competitor’s prod­uct. Don’t state this upfront. Make sure it flows into the con­ver­sa­tion dur­ing the time when there is that “ah ha” moment of what your prospect’s prob­lem is, sealed by the reas­sur­ance that your (more expen­sive prod­uct) adds value because it will alle­vi­ate this problem.

Effec­tive sales is solv­ing a problem

The goal of any and all sales efforts, and, con­se­quently, of your tele­sales train­ing efforts, is to solve a prob­lem. Your prospects have a prob­lem – even if they’re not aware of their prob­lems. Your team’s goal is to unearth these prob­lems, already armed with the solu­tion that your prod­uct can pro­vide. It requires research, thor­ough knowl­edge of why your solu­tion is the best fit in the indus­try, and it requires build­ing a rela­tion­ship with the prospect. Seen in this light, sales seems a lit­tle less intim­i­dat­ing, right? You are not train­ing your team to sim­ply cold call, go for the hard sell, or reach a quota. You are re-framing sales into some­thing more mean­ing­ful and more lasting.

The best tele­sales train­ing requires a multi-pronged approach

To recap, remem­ber that even if you don’t have the most nat­u­rally gifted sales team, you can still make win­ners out of your reps. Often, it’s the “non-salesy” peo­ple that have the best results because they are good at build­ing rela­tion­ships and read­ing the sit­u­a­tion. So throw out the script, teach the value of con­text and tim­ing, and train your team to be prob­lem solvers and solu­tion presenters.