Marketing: Sales Talk, Telephone Talk and Psychology – Starting your own Business Part 13
Sales calls require a lot of skills, abilities and knowledge. The sales talk usually results in a mix of communication, psychology and, of course, elements such as facial expressions, gestures and strategies such as mirroring.
Leading and conducting sales calls
In a sales conversation, you not only have the advantage of being able to advertise your product directly and immediately, you even get direct feedback from the customer. This allows you to learn a great deal from sales conversations, even without a successful sale. Not only for the next sales talk but also for the entire media advertising. Because there is no other media channel that provides such direct feedback as in sales talks. Market Research.
Sales talks take place in many places. From telephone calls to customer conversations in business, also via e-mail and non-verbal communication.
Tip! Written price
Tip! The power of the written. It is always worth having a piece of paper and a pen with you during the sales talk. For two decisive advantages, on the one hand the USPs of the product can be noted directly. That’s why they’re carved in stone. By writing them down, the advantages can no longer be changed and are permanently present. This directly results in the second advantage, the price is no longer so easy to negotiate. As long as you negotiate a price orally, the price is variable. If a price is noted, e.g. 5.350 €, this price is set. Not 5.000 €, not 4.000 €. On paper it says 5.350 €.
Tip! Mirroring facial expressions and gestures
Another tip that is easy to implement is “mirroring”. Mirroring takes over the posture, facial expressions and emotional mood of the other person. So if the other person sits in front of me with his legs closed, I close mine as well. If the customer swings slightly to the left with his body or head, I turn to the right accordingly. If the other person has a friendly and open nature, I try to react emotionally immediately. The advantage is that there are fewer differences and more similarities, a fundamentally positive mood.
Sales phone calls
Telephone conversations in classic telephone sales are also indispensable. More and more companies are turning to external companies when it comes to telephone acquisition.
For many startups, hiring their own sales representative is too risky. After all, it is not possible to assess the performance of the new employee at the outset. If, after one or two months, you notice that the performance is not right, the next person has to go straight to it. How often do you want to play this game? How often do you want to write resignations, pay wages and shoot new employment contracts? Outsourcing telephone sales to a third-party provider is therefore an advantage for many.
Tip! External call center
In the external call center, sales employees are located in several price levels. So you can specifically select people with know-how. The other big advantage, sick days, vacation days, does not matter with an external call center. In theory you can work every day and of course the expertise of the sales people, who have also sold in other areas, can be used profitably. So if you’re thinking about telephone sales and marketing, invest a few minutes in the idea of outsourcing. You can find providers quickly and easily on the Internet. Get three or four comparative offers and you’ll have a good overview.
Sales promotion and documents
You are on the road or one of your employees – What stays with the customer when you are away? Another example: a customer cannot make up his mind in the shop and would like to take information material with him. Of course, documents are essential for sales promotion. What’s it called? Pictures say more than a thousand words. This is precisely why so many companies rely on information documents. The image brochure or the product flyer, a complex business model explained in simple words.
Spar tip! Graphic design online buy
Here, too, there are many online tricks with which you can save a lot of money when hiring designers or advertising agencies. Especially because there are many design templates for your own editing on the Internet. With a mix of the Adobe Creative Cloud or another graphics program and design platforms like Graphic River, you can buy and produce graphics in no time at all. The designs cost on average only 5 to 30 $. In the preview you can directly see how the image brochure looks finished. The other big advantage, all graphic elements are already included. Chic icons, creative design elements, but also text blocks and formatting, sometimes even different, complete templates for business card, image brochure and flyer in package. So you don’t have to resort to an agency for every single design change or new production, but can produce such important media directly in-house.
Guideline: Setting up your own business & business plan
You want to start your own business as a real estate agent or with another business idea? We support you with tips on your business plan and concept. Whether self-employed full-time or part-time self-employed: If you want to set up your own company, you have to think about a lot, in advance and in the operative business. From the right idea to health insurance – what needs to be considered if you want to become self-employed?
There is no training or further education for entrepreneurs. Managing director is you or not. Your own ambition is always important, because this is the only way to improve, every day.
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