The Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 rule, states that 80% of your results are made by only 20% of your activity. To some, this comes as a shocking statistic. Others – perhaps even you! – can stop and consider how many truly outstanding members are producing the bulk of the results on their telesales team and easily concur with this principle.
Research has revealed that up to 55 percent of people in the sales industry are in the wrong profession, and another 20-25% of them have the characteristics necessary to succeed in sales, but are selling the wrong thing.
With the deck seemingly statistically stacked against you, what should you be looking for as you build a successful telesales team for your business?
Know What You’re Working With
Dale Carnegie once said, “When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.”
This statement holds much truth when it comes to sales, and your telesales team needs to keep this reality in mind as they deal with the individuals on the other end of the phone line or the other side of the computer screen.
When you’re working to create a successful team, watch for salespeople or potential new hires who bring these four key qualities to the job:
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1. Customer Connection
Empathy is an important quality for your telesales team members to offer, because customers need to believe that the salesperson speaking to them actually identifies with and respects the feelings that they’re feeling. A sales team that can gain trust and establish rapport with customers, can then demonstrate their ability to provide a proper solution for the situation. This creates a win-win!
To develop this quality in your existing telesales team, work on training members to:
- Accurately identify and react to various customer emotions
- Develop strong, affirming listening skills
- Increase curious questions that allow the customer to share more than “yes” or “no” responses
- Adapt personality and tone to match the needs of the customer
2. Intensity in Reaching Goals
Although it is important for your salespeople to provide that cushion of empathy and attention to the needs of customers, it’s essential that they are also able to balance that time spent listening, with the ability to stay focused on the task at hand.
Telemarketing is target driven and requires that agents are ambitious and self-motivated by goals regarding the number of calls made, interviews completed, voicemails left, or connections established. Walking this tightrope is what keeps conversations productive and your business moving forward.
To help your telesales team improve in this area, work on training members to:
- Set goals and timelines and to persistently reach them
- Build the self-discipline necessary to provide quality individual service, while making a strong progress on the big picture number of calls necessary
- Stay on track and avoid unnecessary distractions that fail to support objectives
3. Healthy Ego-drive
In their book, How to Hire & Develop Your Next Top Performer, authors Herb Greenberg, Harold Weinstein and Patrick Sweeney discuss the importance of what they call “ego-drive,” as one of the qualities that make salespeople great.
Ego-drive is an optimistic, competitive persistence that results in a feeling of personal fulfillment when accomplishing a sale. This enthusiastic “must win” attitude towards accomplishing his or her goal is driven by self-motivation and a clear vision of what needs to be achieved.
To encourage telesales team members with ego-drive, and to help develop this quality in others:
- Provide opportunities for competitiveness and allow ways for team members to measure themselves against the successes of their peers
- Watch out for manipulators or members who are willing to win at the expense of the rest of the team! These individuals will create a toxicity in the team and halt the growth of trust and healthy working relationships.
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4. Personal Responsibility
When working as a unified telesales team, it’s important that each member also takes personal responsibility for their contributions (or lack thereof). When difficult situations arise, agents should accept the circumstances and work to find solutions, rather than placing blame on impossible to solve conditions. The ability to take the responsibility for bringing a positive resolution to problems is an important skill for salespeople to master.
To help develop this capacity in your team, provide training on how to:
- Anticipate objections and potential consequences, and to quickly evaluate potential solutions
- Stay positive towards situations and people, especially during challenging conversations
- Accept valid criticisms for the purpose of moving beyond the status quo
Support the Efforts of Your Successful Telesales Team
Even with all of these qualities, in today’s telemarketing landscape, it’s essential that telesales teams have the technological support needed to move business forward. Rather than succumbing to the inevitability of the 80/20 rule, leverage it by ensuring that your team members have the ability to stay organized, to dial faster, and to feel better prepared to connect with the “emotional creature” on the other end of the line. To discover how Call Logic can help, connect with us today for a FREE demo!