Is your business open for sales?

I’m sure you’ll read the title of this article and say to yourself of course it is but,are your customers aware of this?

I ask this question and write this article because of an experience that I’ve recently had whilst undertaking a telemarketing campaign for a client. The businesses I contacted clearly weren’t open for sales!

The campaign involved calling people on their database that they send a regular email shot to. This database, although GDPR compliant and fully opted into, didn’t have telephone numbers so I’ve needed to do a little research to obtain these numbers. This is where the fun began!

Google

My first port of call is to “Google it” (other search engines are available!). There were several businesses that

didn’t have their company on Google or if they did their contact numbers were wrong.

The most common way to look for product and services online is to “Google it” and then click on some of the organic results that come up. Some people will click to the website others just use the result that comes up to get some information about your business and to navigate further. It’s a free service and it also enables you to have greater visibility across the entire web.

You’re missing a trick if you haven’t got a Google account and your contact details aren’t up to date.

Action Tip – Do you have a Google My Business account? If not, think about

setting one up. If you do, check that your contact details are correct.

Website

If Google fails, then I move onto their website. I’ve been astonished at the number of businesses that make it difficult for their prospective customers to find their telephone number; some didn’t have one at all! Fancy designs are all very well and good, but if customers can’t find what they’re looking for quickly they’ll move on and call your competitor. My telephone number is at the top of every page on my site and can be seen easily on desktops as well as mobile.

Action Tip – is your telephone number easily found on your website?

Answering the phone vs voicemail

During this most recent lockdown,we’ve all been asked to work fromhome and there’s been a very largeproportion of businesses I dialledthat have set up their technology tofacilitate “business as normal”. Great!It was apparent that some of thephones weren’t being answered bybusiness owners or employees butwere being answered by a telephoneanswering service, but the bottomline was that they were makingthemselves available and open forsales. Their customers and prospectivecustomers could reach them.

Telephone answering services don’thave to cost the earth. I used onemyself for many years and they areparticularly useful if you work alone inyour business, and they ensure that youdon’t miss those all-important calls.

But what if you don’t want to usethis type of approach?

Voicemail

Forwarding your landline to mobileis a simple and straight forwardthing to do. Yes? You’d think so right?

However, that wasn’t my experience.Many calls went straight through toa mobile with the standard networkgreeting and nothing to confirmthat I’d reached the right company.Subsequently I didn’t leave a messageand I would also suggest that aprospective customer wouldn’t either.

Voicemail is a very useful tool, butit goes without saying a greeting isimperative if we want to encourageprospective customers to leave theirdetails. One company I phonedmade a lasting impression on meand not for the right reasons. Theiranswerphone message said:

“I’m sorry we’re not available totake your call and this answer phoneis not being monitored or messagespicked up so please email us instead”!That was the best anti-sales messageI have ever heard!

Action Tip – review your telephoneanswering set-up and make sure youcan be reached!

The missed call

When I’m in telemarketing mode andI “hit” an answer phone I don’t tend toleave a message. From my experience,

it doesn’t breed a call back. During this campaign, as you read above, I encountered many mobile phone voicemails and didn’t leave a message. Bearing in mind I make a lot of dial outs in a day, that equates to a high number of missed calls on mobile phones (if calls are diverted). With that in mind, I have only every had 2 people call me back to ask if they can help. This means that there are a lot of business who haven’t bothered to find out if I am a prospective customer!

Action Tip – On your business mobile, always call the number back, you could have missed an enquiry!

Businesses always want new enquiries, but some simple mistakes can stop these in their tracks. Please don’t be one of them!

Julie Futcher

The Sales Ace

Julie has nearly 25 years experience within a sales role and has successfully trained many individuals to sell by developing their own style but using tried and tested sales techniques. She understands how daunting it can be to have to pick up the telephone or meet with clients/customers face to face. Julie established The Sales Ace to support and train business owners to increase their revenue. She also provides a sales support service which provides telesales/ telemarketing, assisting in managing sales staff, help with setting and managing KPI’s and well as one to one coaching.

01604 532004

julie@thesalesace.co.uk

thesalesace.co.uk