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Are you throwing away sales? You are if you’re not helping your telesales agents to reach their potential. You can awaken their abilities and realize results. Below are six quick tips for igniting your agents’ inner talents and turning them into demand generation pros.
In the rush to generate qualified leads to drive sales, managers often jump over the soft skills to teaching something that is easier to tackle and quantify. But soft skills are an essential part of the human touch that can set your company apart.
What soft skills are necessary?
You need to develop people who are emotionally stable. After all, they’re on the front lines, running into challenges and rejection from tough prospects. So if you have agents who ride a rollercoaster of emotional peaks and valleys, help them to become aware of what triggers their emotions and to develop an even-keeled response to situations.
Also, you need good listeners. Teach agents active listening skills that enable concepts to sink in. Agents must follow the thread of the conversation, and not interrupt a prospect. If, for example, the prospect says, “I’m not interested now,” be ready to ask “when?”
Listening well is the first step towards understanding and developing empathy for prospects, walking in their shoes and wanting to help them—an essential ingredient to winning over a prospect.
Teach your agents how to handle objections.
Agents don’t need to pounce on every objection. First, they should listen and then gather more information so they can understand the problem and paraphrase the issue back to the prospect.
Finally, they can counter the opposition. Have your agents internalize a list of common objections, as well as statistics and stories to use to reassure uneasy prospects. Having these answers etched into their minds acts like anti-freeze for the brain when an objection arises.
Agents need to know that communication is more than stringing words together. In a face-to-face conversation, body language accounts for 55 percent of the communication, the tone of the voice is 35 percent, and the words are only 10 percent.
Of course, that equation changes when you’re on the phone.
Your body language becomes a fraction of the communication. How does it play a part in communication when the prospect can’t see you? Sit up straight and smile and you’ll sound more upbeat, confident and professional. Body language translates into tone of voice, which becomes more important when your contact cannot see you.
Also, the rate at which agents talk can raise or lower the prospect’s level of engagement. Speaking at a rapid-fire pace makes an agent seem nervous. And if they talk slowly, prospects can end up shrouded in a mental fog. So, use a Goldilocks strategy—teach agents to speak at a speed that’s “just right.”
Use both group training and one-on-one training to give your agents important new skills. However, you’ll likely find that group training yields the best results. When others are present, reps give the best of themselves and learn from each other. Also, it gives them a chance to role-play, practicing their skills in a safe environment.
Listen to calls with your agents. Count how many Situation, Problem, Implication and Need-Payoff (SPIN) questions they ask. Highlight what agents did properly, as well as opportunities for improvement. You want any critique to be upbeat, so agents gain confidence.
Conduct briefings on products and services. A full grasp of features and benefits enables agents to explain concisely how prospects and clients can use the offering to solve problems and exploit opportunities.
After working in administration and customer service for many years, Annika Widen started doing business development in the Swedish market for 3D2B. After a year, she became Team Leader for the Nordic countries. She trains and motivates her 8-person team, assuring they work as a cohesive unit and meet their performance goals. She is certified in SPIN Selling, a methodology of asking the right questions to determine a prospect’s Situation, Problem and Implications as well as the Need/Payoff of your solution. Annika is also certified in Motivational Interviewing.
To learn more about empowering your sales reps, visit our website, or download the free e-book.
