The salesperson needs to be creative in generating their own leads by knocking on potential customers' doors or cold-calling on the phone. Also, there are companies who provide leads for their sales staff through their own in-house telemarketing departments.
Some leads may come from outside telemarketing departments or some may be leads that have been created by your own in-house telemarketing department. First, let's address the leads that are created by outside sources. Many of these outside telemarketing businesses may have different ideas from yours. A lot of the telemarketing industry (not all) feel that you should never confirm an appointment, but just go on the appointment. From my many years of experience and the privilege of developing a couple of telemarketing and sales teams, I have come to the conclusion that you should always confirm an appointment, whether generated by inside or outside telemarketing departments.
Now, let's combine both lead-generating systems and analyze what to look for in a sales lead, whether you are generating your own lead or a telemarketing department is providing you a lead:
1. Make sure it is a confirmed appointment of at least 20 to 40 minutes in length.
2. You need to change the appointment, if you don't get the time you need to present your products and services.
3. When you call, confirm the address, contact name, all of the phone numbers, and the e-mail address.
4. Don't just drop off samples. Most of the time, it does not help you.
5. If possible, don't drop off information. You don't know the potential buyer's motives.
6. Don't try to get by the gate-keeper. Build rapport, relationship and a friendship, if possible.
7. You need to remember to communicate with the telemarketing department about the quality of each lead.
8. Practice a selling process, so you can do it in three minutes, if you need to do so. I will explain later.
9. As you use your selling process, remember to build rapport with the potential customer.
In the next article, I want to present to you The Sales Cycle. There are seven parts to The Sales Cycle: 1. Rapport/Agenda 2. Questions 3. Probing the Questions 4. Presentations 5. Objections (Three full articles on objections) 6. Closing the sale ( Three articles on closing the sale) and finally # 7. Follow-up.
In the next article, I will start with the first part of The Sales Cycle: Rapport and Agenda.
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About the Author
As a business consultant, I have had the privilege of working with some companies internationally, and I really enjoy working with people from other cultures. I have learned so much from friends that we have in Japan, Australia, England, The Philippines, Korea, and Costa Rica, just to mention a few.
Presently, I am a Business Consultant for One Cup International Consulting Group
