Tuesday, December 2, 2008

What is telephone selling?

By Terry Stanfield

Telephone selling is simply the science of acquiring business over the telephone. This can take different forms as you may have different goals for what you want to achieve from your telephone calls. That explains what telephone selling is. This article will give an idea of the different outcomes that you may look into when you are making phone calls.

Depending upon what kind of product or service you have, you may sell directly over the phone. If it is a simple product, many times you may sell over the phone. Examples of this could include newspaper subscriptions or any other easy product or service. It is not necessary to bring people in to do this nor would many prospects come in for a simple newspaper subscription.

Many businesses will use the telephone to find clients. This can come in the form of prospecting. You will often want to talk with the client just long enough to set an appointment for new business. It can be hard to sell over the telephone and you will not be as effective in closing your business when comparing in person sales to telephone sales.

Telephone selling can also differ for many different business callers depending upon whether you are making warm or cold calls. Warm calls entail people that you know or have met. They will know you when you are calling on them. Cold calls go to strangers who have never met you before. Telephone selling can make any cold call into a warm call by simply developing those cold calls into warm calls. This will happen as a result of frequent telephone contact.

Telephone selling is one of the most effective ways to build new business. You will not always know how quickly your market will react to your advertising but you can get instantaneous results from telephone selling. This can be important in a couple of different ways. You are able to work on your script so that you can become more effective and convert more prospects into business. You can also get good feedback about the product or service you are trying to sell. This may be a valuable form of market research for you.

What is telephone selling is a good question that many people will ask. Telephone selling can mean whatever you want it to be but the warm versus cold call along with the goal is going to determine what you look for. Telephone selling should be a part of whatever business development strategy you decide to undertake. - 15246

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