You might be wondering what B2B telemarketing experts can teach sales – after all, telemarketing is, well, marketing. It’s useful for conducting market research, prospect profiling and appointment setting, but it doesn’t do much in terms of converting leads into customers. B2B telemarketing might not be the domain of sales, but there’s a lot that salespeople can learn from B2B marketers. Here are some of the tips sales should take note of:
“A person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
As obvious as it may sound, so many salespeople still neglect to call whoever they’re engaging with by their first name (or title and last name, depending on the situation). It’s such a small action, but it can have a huge impact on how the person you’re interacting with responds to you. Dale Carnegie, author of the seminal ‘How To Win Friends And Influence People’, wrote that “a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” And it’s true. Use your recipient’s name whenever appropriate, especially at the beginning and the end of the call or meeting. It’ll signal to them that they have your undivided attention and that you care about them on a personal level. It’ll also help ignite a feeling of trust, which is, as we’ve stated several times before, so important for starting the relationships that turn into sales and ongoing business.
‘Warm-calling’ is all about putting your prospect and their needs and interests first
Don’t cold-call – warm-call. A cold-call is an unsolicited phone call (or email) from a complete stranger who knows as little about you as you do about them. A warm-call might still be a phone call from a stranger (i.e. you, the salesperson), but the difference is that you’re already well briefed about the person you’re calling. You’ve invested time in research and prospect profiling to find out who you’re calling, what their business does, the challenges facing them and their industry and how your product is going to make their professional life easier. With this information, you can speak to them about the issues most important to them and show interest in their pain points. Another brilliant take out from Dale Carnegie’s ‘How To Win Friends’ is: make someone feel important (by taking an interest in them) and you have their attention. It might sound counterintuitive, but let them do most of the talking by asking the right questions.
Align the messaging of your sales conversations with all other forms of marketing
Your sales conversations with prospects are essentially an ideal ancillary channel to support marketing material such as email marketing, online content, and even events. A phone call before a prospect has received an email or downloaded an eBook can help generate interest; a phone call after is an opportunity for you to add further value by answering any queries they might have. The key here is to ensure that your sales conversations align in terms of messaging with all other marketing channels.
Brush up on your psychology know-how to make B2B sales calls more effective
A little knowledge of behavioural economics and how to apply it can vastly improve the efficacy of a B2B telemarketing call. It might not be appropriate to use the scarcity heuristic on a B2B client (although this tactic works wonderfully in a B2C/FMCG environment), but leveraging a little loss aversion and framing during a B2B sales call can make the difference between a prospect showing interest or not. Loss aversion hinges on the principle that people would rather take a risk to avoid losing something, then take one to gain something pleasurable. Knowing this, you can use framing (the way you present something) to convey your point more convincingly to your prospect.
Follow up every call with another one
A great sales person never falls at the first hurdle, or gives up after the first phone call or meeting. It’s very unlikely that any prospect is ready to buy after their first conversation with your business, and it’s for this reason that follow up calls, or emails, are so important for the success of any B2B marketing campaign. Even if it’s simply to touch base and have a one minute conversation with that lead, every phone call helps nurture trust and form a solid relationship with your prospect.
Know when to ‘fight or flight’
You might not want to give up after the first call, but part of successful B2B telemarketing is knowing which leads to pursue and which to let go. Depending on the criteria you use to qualify leads, you’ll be able to tell within a few phone calls whether there are any deal breakers, for example, your lead can’t afford your product. Being able to tell the potentials from the pointless will help you save a lot of time that can be spent nurturing the right leads.
Given two choices, most people would much rather speak to a person than to a machine, which is why B2B telemarketing still has a very important place in the digital age. To find out how telemarketing can help you set up appointments with the right prospects, download our guide:
