Andrew Seaward - Using the Phone to Sell: How to sell more to more people more often

CHAPTER 1:

WHY THIS BOOK?

Picture the scene

Imagine its sometime from the late 1980s onwards, possibly even recently. Youre at home, its early evening, and the phone rings. Your household is a hive of activity as usual. The evening meal is being prepared, the kids are being persuaded to have a bath and the TV is on. The soaps are starting shortly, or possibly its the game that you want to sit down to watch. The odds that youre going to be at home are at their highest. The phone rings. Whos that calling now?

Its another cold call, trying to persuade you to buy something or other, to agree to a free trial of something or make a charity donation to somebody. The caller is relatively untrained, reciting a script verbatim.

There is no natural tone, warmth, character or personality being projected at all. They dont sound convincing; theyre just going through the motions. Possibly anticipating another short call and an abrupt brush-off.

Deviation from their script seems unlikely, as the callers knowledge begins and ends with the words on the page. You hang up mid-sentence, swear under your breath, and resume your interrupted evening.

Meanwhile, in the call centre, the caller, unsurprised by the abrupt end to yet another call, activates the next number on the list. Only another two hours to go, and at least two

of the dozens called so far have agreed to move to the next stage. Its one way to make a living.

Weve all experienced this type of business to consumer (B2C) call, or a variation of it. Alternatively, it could be a daytime call at work, this time business to business (B2B), asking you about your phone system, or vehicle fleet, or I.T. supplies. Questions which tell you immediately that the caller knows nothing about your organisation or its present needs.

Intrusive, poorly researched, badly targeted and executed phone calls have made us all wary. Wary of receiving calls if we dont immediately recognise the caller, and therefore, with that experience as a call recipient in our heads, potentially hesitant of deploying the phone as a sales tool, let alone as our primary sales channel.

This is all compounded by the smartphone, which gives us endless ways around actually speaking to someone. Ill text him Ill contact her on Facebook Messenger Ill DM him on Twitter anything to postpone the potential crunch moment of a direct one-to-one conversation. Sending them a message leaves the ball in their court, potentially delaying things for an unspecified time. Meanwhile, who knows? They may be talking to your competitors or engaging with someone who, frankly, makes it easier to buy from.

JUST PICK UP THE PHONE AND MAKE THE CALL!

A phone conversation with your target prospect gets things done. It is quicker than messages backwards and forwards. You initiate a dialogue and decisions get made. You can gently cajole, persuade, and deal with any objections or misunderstandings that may exist. On finding out more about their needs you might sell them a more appropriate product or service. A better solution perhaps.

So, how will this book contribute to the subject of the value of the phone and how best to use it?

The phone as your key B2B sales tool

The focus of this book is selling in a B2B environment rather than a B2C one. B2B is my area of expertise, with decades of experience in a variety of sectors and businesses. Data protection restrictions, made tougher by GDPR in 2018 (more on this later), have particularly affected B2C telephone selling. Cold calling is difficult in B2C markets.