Outbound Sales Calling:
Get More Prospects and Leads Using Telephone

By Rich Webb

Most small to medium sized companies actually limit the amount of business their customers do with them. I know this sounds crazy, even unbelievable as no one in their right mind would restrict and limit customer purchases. The problem, of course is that it happens unintentionally.  In fact, I’ll bet it’s happening in your business right now. Here’s how:

• Most businesses simply do not allow their prospects and customers enough opportunities to buy from them

• Businesses don’t offer enough chances to expand and continue the customer relationship for the long-term.

One of the simplest and most immediate ways to turn this situation around is to find ways to stay in touch. So, how do you get started?

Force Yourself to Create a Relentless, Yet Courteous and Helpful Outbound calling Program: Most companies fail to maximize their profit potential through the telephone.  Even companies that strongly believe they stay in close contact with existing and past customers are usually surprised to discover how many customers they have missed when an actual survey is done.

Unless you hire personnel specifically for this task and make them accountable on a daily basis, many valuable customers will be left unattended. An outbound teleservices company may make it easier to uncover revenue you have missed by making more consistent contacts on your behalf.

Four Ways to Effectively Use Outbound Telephone Calling:

• Consistently call to follow-up and qualify all your leads, bringing them closer to a closing decision. Research indicates that 78% of leads generated are never followed up with more than once.  Research also shows that on the average it takes between 5 and 14 contacts to close a sale.  Simple arithmetic tells you that you can immediately begin to make more money by increasing your number of follow-up contacts.

• Maintain an accurate database. When businesses fail to maintain an accurate database, they tend to waste a lot of marketing dollars. For example, they’ll continually send information to a company executive that is no longer with the company. Your outbound telephone calls team should gather vital information, and sort leads according to where the prospect is in the buying process. This way, your sales team can focus on the “hot” prospects. You’ll stop wasting their time and your money. And, you’ll get more sales. 

• Prospect or cold call to generate new leads or set appointments. Typically salespeople hate to prospect and are not usually very good at it.  Prospecting is the psychological opposite activity of sales and it is usually much more effective when done by non-sales people.  A dedicated prospector or appointment setter is usually more effective at this task than a salesperson

• Consistently contact existing and past customer base for new opportunities. Deliver more relevant information and offer desirable end results to your customers more consistently. They will feel like they have a stronger relationship with your company. Your company’s barriers to customer purchases will begin to disappear. They will buy from you more. They will make greater efforts to refer more customers to you. And, your sales will inevitably increase.

If you do not have the in-house capability to make these kinds of outbound calls, you should think about hiring an effective outbound teleservices company. Whatever method you use to get it done, there is no question that using your telephone the right way can be extremely profitable.

Customer relationship marketing expert Rich Webb puts small businesses on auto-pilot with automatic contact services that follow-up, communicate, interact, and sell more products and services. Now, discover how to get more leads & sales every single week with this free Special Report “How You Can Instantly Improve Your Bottom Line Using Customer Relationship Marketing” at: www.winningedgemarketing.com/custmax.html

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