Most business owners / marketing managers / new sales people go cold at the thought of cold calling and picking up the telephone.

Here, Andy Dickens of Sussex based telemarketing agency Virtual Sales Limited, gives a few handy tips to take away the fear:

1. Articulate your value proposition:

What are you selling?

• Develop key features and benefits of your product/service
• Prepare a price list

Who should buy?

• Are you targeting large companies, SME’s or both?

Why should they buy from you?

• Develop a list of reasons why a customer should buy from you
• Include customer testimonials – no one likes to feel they are the first to buy!

Who are your key competitors?

• Do a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats) analysis and see how your product/service compares with your competition

How can customers buy?

• Direct What are your routes to market?
• Do you sell via the web site? If so make sure all products/services are listed to make it easy for the customer to buy
• Make sure if you are selling direct that you have sales people that can respond to enquiries and follow each and every enquiry

or through a Partner?

• Make sure your partner is trained and fully briefed on your company, value proposition and remember they are an extension of your sales team

2. Decide who your target audience is. This may be a vertical market such as Financial Services or companies in a geographic location

3. Develop your own database or purchase one from a broker – it all starts and end with good data – the better the data the better the results!

4. Prepare a telesales script. This is useful if you outsource as will help a telesales agency such as VSL prepare for your campaign.

5. Allow a day before you start your telesales campaign to do a knowledge transfer. At VSL we act as an extension to your company and sales team and use your company’s email address and identity when calling as this helps with the credibility of the campaign.

6. You are now ready to start…