The phone rings.  Your prospect is busy, but they lift the receiver, secretly hoping for an interesting opportunity to distract themselves from another daily task.  As they answer, they hear a brief silence while the auto dialling system finds an available telemarketer to take the call.  IF, and only IF you STILL have the prospect on the phone at this point – you must capture their attention, or risk wasting the chance to convert the captive listener.

At this point, 9 out 10 telemarketers make a mistake that lets the potential sale slip through their fingers.  By making any one of the following TEN disastrous mistakes, you can squander important sales opportunities.

ONE: Failure to Introduce – You know the old adage ‘People Buy From People’.  It’s vital to connect with the human being at the other end of the telephone, to communicate with them.  If you begin your telemarketing call without properly introducing yourself, you will experience a long pause, followed by:

“Sorry! Who are you again?”

Having proven yourself incompetent of even the civilities of a basic conversation and being embarrassed by your mistake, you’re unlikely to turn the conversation around and sell the prospect anything at all.

TWO: Failure to Improvise – They say in the Military, that no battle plan outlives first encounter with the enemy.  In other words, if you follow your pre-planned strategy, without being prepared to shift and adapt your tactics to your opponent’s manoeuvres, you’re dead meat.

The same goes for Telemarketing.  You need the capacity to go with the flow of the conversation, rather than be restricted by a fixed script.  The prospect may challenge you, they may attempt to distract and hinder you, you must be prepared to adjust your strategy and adapt your response likewise.

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