Sales prospecting calls will still be a major mainstay in the world of B2B lead generation and it does not look like it has hit its demise anytime soon. Outbound telemarketing has been integral to the lead generation strategies of many large companies in Singapore, but how do you really go about it with your own business? In this article, we will be examining the best practices for sales prospecting calls in the B2B sales process and how they impact B2B lead generation in Singapore.
Before we delve deeper into this topic, let’s first discuss what a sales call is.
What is a sales call?
A conversation over the phone where a sales agent persuades a customer to consider and eventually purchase their company’s products and services is referred to as a sales call. The purpose of these calls is not just to acquire new customers, but also to upsell or cross-sell to existing customers.
Different types of sales calls
When we talk about sales calls, what typically comes to mind is cold calling, or the act of contacting a potential customer before they show interest in your products or services. By making cold calls, sales representatives can recognize and cultivate potential leads who may not have otherwise heard about their company.
Sales calls come in handy, especially in discovering, prospecting, and handling objections. Here are the different types of sales calls:
Warm calls (or delivery calls)
These calls are made to potential leads who have displayed interest in your offers and wanted to know more about them. This is an opportunity to determine if the lead is a good match for what you are selling.
Sales appointments
A sales appointment call’s goal is to discuss the prospect’s concerns and how the brand can help resolve them. These types of calls provide the chance to convince the prospect to move forward in the sales funnel by sharing details about why your offers are the best options to solve their needs.
Follow-up calls
These calls are the most crucial ones for closing deals. Follow-up calls are used to identify the lead’s stage in the sales process.
Setting yourself up for sales call success: Tips and tricks
Sales calls play a huge role in educating leads about your product or service, building connections with potential customers, and ultimately sealing the deal. To excel in sales talk, it is vital to understand your clients and connect with them at various stages of the sales process.
Keep reading to learn about several tips and techniques that can make your sales calls more effective.
Establish Rapport
“You were never that close to your spouse when you first met, but now you share a family together.”
There are many tips and tricks that telemarketers use, but the first one we’re going to tackle is establishing rapport.
Establishing rapport is conversing with someone on the phone to the point that they can trust you to a certain degree. We know that it can be difficult at times, but people who are generally happy or pleased that they are speaking with you can generally help drive sales higher. It has become a term in outbound contact centers because of how effective it is when dealing with a client.
Do Your Research
Do you want to succeed in business? Then, you better understand that knowledge is power. Before you even go about calling your list of prospects, you have to understand that you have to do your research beforehand. Communicating on a sales prospecting call is more effective if you know who you are talking to and what that person is generally interested in.
Doing your research allows you a competitive edge in any type of situation.
Stay Focused on What You Are Doing
A lot of contact agents get easily distracted when they do sales prospecting calls because the scripts can be easily memorized and sometimes it becomes a habit to just talk. However, being laser-focused on what you are doing allows you to be able to be more effective in generating leads that you can really rely on.
Avoid being on Facebook or communicating with other people when you are cold calling because your main goal is to communicate effectively with your prospect. It’s not that hard to do when you already have the habit in place.
Prospecting in batches
Set aside a certain amount of hours each day to make calls. Making numerous outreach calls in a succession is far more efficient than calling one prospect, preparing for a demo, attending a meeting, making a couple more calls, connecting with ten people on LinkedIn, and so forth.
You’ll not only be in the prospecting mentality, but you’ll also be able to store all your supplies closely at hand.
Talk Less, Listen More
This point is another significant point that you really have to practice. Most of the time, people give away clues about their intentions through the words that they use. Think of it as part of the research, you want to know more about a prospect so you listen to them, not only are you building rapport as a good listener but you are essentially mining for information at the same time.
Staying focused is important here because, unlike a face-to-face conversation, you won’t be looking at gestures but rather focusing on intonations and tell-tale signs based on their speech.
Be Grateful
Regardless if they want to talk to you or not, still be grateful for the opportunity to have had the chance to talk to your prospects. This goes a long way because it establishes your company as a graceful one and it also uplifts your mood and gets you ready for the next call.
A lot of contact center agents will often complain about their ruined moods after talking to someone who has been so negative on the phone. This is unavoidable because humans are relational beings. However, one surefire way of getting this sorted out is by being grateful. It stabilizes your mood and keeps you happier about everything.
Look for Pain Points
Do you want to be more effective at what you do? Ask questions about the prospective client’s business. This is a great way for you to find out more about how you can help them. It leads to more fruitful conversations and also adds to the rapport that you are trying to build.
You are here to establish relationships that are long term, this is the backbone of repeat B2B sales.
Solutions Are What Works
Your aim is to be a consultant and not a salesman.
Nobody likes having products or services jammed down the phone, and as much as possible you want to be solutions-based and not product-based. When you become solutions-based, you stop being part of the sales team and you end up being someone that they can rely on to help make a difference in their company.
People do not want to know how good your products or services are, they want to know how they can have their problems fixed. Trust us, this is one of the most effective ways to communicate.
By being able to apply these simple principles you will be able to modify the process of how you go about your sales prospecting efforts. An efficient cold-calling strategy will not only save you on costs, but it will also make your sales process much more effective. Never underestimate the power of outbound telemarketing!
Not keen on making phone calls? Consider outsourcing.
Sales calls enable you to put your brand’s products and services in front of your customers. It is therefore important to research thoroughly, prepare adequately, and utilize efficient tools and techniques. When done correctly, you’re guaranteed more closed deals and meet more sales targets.
Phone calls can be a powerful marketing tool as they allow direct interaction with potential customers, enabling you to address their queries, gather valuable insights, and establish a rapport that may ultimately lead to a purchase. This level of personal engagement can yield positive results for businesses.
However, most business people dislike making sales calls due to the following reasons: fear of rejection, negative responses from prospects, the pressure to meet sales quotas, and the monotonous nature of making calls that sometimes lead to demotivation and burnout.
If making sales calls is effective but not preferable to you, have you considered utilizing external telemarketing services?
Outsourcing your sales calls process means handing over the responsibility of making sales calls to a third-party service provider, rather than handling it in-house. This allows you to benefit from the expertise of sales call professionals, freeing up your time so you can focus on core business functions and scaling your sales reach.
Getting expert assistance with your telemarketing lead generation efforts not only relieves you of the task but also saves you a huge amount of time. That is the time you could be spending attending newly scheduled meetings or being more participative in events knowing that you have a great follow-up system in place. This support will boost your confidence in speaking to potential customers and following up, as you can rely on someone to provide more information.
Don’t overlook the benefits of sales calls just because it’s your least favorite thing to do! Instead, consider asking for some assistance so that you can maximize the benefits of this approach by personally doing it. If you’re looking for a trustworthy B2B lead generation services provider to handle your business, Callbox is the perfect option for you.
At Callbox, we help our clients reach their ideal customers, arrange sales conversations with decision-makers, and provide valuable insights for better marketing and sales decisions.
Our Multi-Touch, Multi-Channel approach utilizes a variety of channels like email, voice, chat, web, social media, and webinars to reach your potential clients and engage with them at the different stages of your buyer’s journey. This strategy can help increase engagement, reach, brand awareness, and conversion rates, and provide deeper customer behavior insights.
We understand that outsourcing sales calls can be daunting, but Callbox is a reliable partner that you can trust. Win your sales calls with us today.
