Here at Your Ideal Sales Advisor we have a successful, thriving B2B Telesales team that are happy to take the time to understand our clients’ organisation and the ethos behind their business but what are the key characteristics that make up the perfect telesales person? What do they need to make them tick:
1) Listening Skills: When you think of the skills of a telesales person ‘communication skills’ are likely to spring to mind and you’d be forgiven if your thought train then takes you directly to ‘spoken and talking skills’ first. Of course being well-spoken is important. According to Maventm.com overall potential customers should be speaking for 80% of the time. This means a lot of listening on the telesales person’s part. How else are they going to understand the prospective customer’s problems or needs to be able to faciliate a solution in the form of a relevant sale? Listening can be revealing and rewarding.
2) Organised and unflappable: When the expert telesales person isn’t listening they will be making their words count-for everything. They will always talk about the customer and not themselves, accept for when it is to relate to the customer and empathise with their needs. Instead of being pushy, as is often the stereotype, they will make every open question they ask important, every word they say relevant and scrutinise their script in minuscule detail, ensuring it is conversational yet concise, as time is precious to any perspective customer. As Entrepreneur.com says: “Exceptional salespeople don’t get flustered. They have a Zen-like ability to focus on the specific task at hand while exuding an aura of calm confidence. They are unflappable in the face of challenges.”
No one is going to be a credible telesales person if they don’t know their product and customers inside out (and upside down… back to front). No customer is going to invest their time and money into a telesales person if they haven’t done their homework. No one is going to build that much needed rapport the telesales person craves. Get organised, do your product research and any surprise questions from potential clients shouldn’t throw you off guard.
3) Resilience: The ability to bounce back is essential in telesales- the majority of potential client’s aren’t going to say that all important ‘yes!’ so if a telesales person gets disillusioned after their first rejection, they’ve well and truly fallen at the first hurdle. Tomarket.co.uk state that what a prospective client’s ‘No’ really means is that they don’t want to buy it now. That might not be the case next month, or in six months time. Tomarket.co.uk advises: “don’t treat a ‘no thanks you’ as forever.” Dust yourself down and pick up the phone again.
4) Upbeat voice and persona: In a job where rejection is rife this trait is understandable difficult to maintain. The best telesales person, however, projects rays of sunshine down the phone to their potential customers, without being annoyingly chipper. After all, who wants to talk to a down in the dumps person on the phone, or in fact, in general? Any stress, problems or bad moods- leave them at home.
5) Not having an ‘off-button’. As Americanexpress.com insightfully tells us telesales people “are constantly in think, plan and prepare mode in order to continue to build their client base and keep their pipelines full.” Whether they’re on holiday, driving home or in the shower chances are the most successful telesales people are ambitious, their minds always simmering away, working on new ways to generate leads.