9 Really Easy Phone Sales Tips

Do you find yourself using the phone less in selling? Regardless of your answer, many of your competitors are saying yes to that question. Fewer salespeople are actually picking up the phone and truly calling prospects, and this is your opportunity to stand out.

The phone is still one of the most powerful tools that we salespeople have in our arsenal. Whether you're cold calling, calling is part of a prospecting campaign, following up on referrals or calling established clients. The approach really shouldn't change that much, but what you do in those calls really, really matters.

In fact, the data suggests that over two-thirds of salespeople are actually doing things in the selling situation that actively hurts the sales. Don't let this be you. Plus, in a world where more than half of a salesperson's day is spent not actually selling, the phone becomes more and more distant for so many.

In this video, I'm going to show you nine really easy phone sales tips to close way more sales. Check it out. Number one, don't wait to get motivated.

Just pick up the phone. I remember when I first started selling and I would have to make around 50 to 100 dials every single day. I'll never forget the feeling in those first couple of weeks, how heavy that phone actually felt, and so I would come up with every single possible excuse that I possibly could to not pick up that phone.

I would go get that extra cup of coffee or I would check that email or I would have a conversation with someone right nearby, I would do anything I could to just avoid picking up that phone. What I was really doing was waiting to get motivated, and I think what most of us have discovered is that when we wait to get motivated, it never comes. What we need to do is just pick up the phone.

The most successful people, regardless of whatever their profession is or whatever they're great at, the most successful people don't wait for that motivation, they just get going. They don't have to be in the mood to do it, they just do it. So just pick up the phone.

Number two, set a daily dial goal. I cannot tell you how many salespeople I know who will block out, let's say, an hour of time to make calls, but within that hour, they really have no specific goal of how many calls that they actually wanna make. And when I say calls, I mean literally dials, right?

How many phone numbers do you dial? And again, the reason that we even track dials in the first place as salespeople is because that's really the only thing that we can actually control, right? We can control, of course, how much time we allot to making calls, but the problem is is when we only focus on how much time we allot, we could end up making five calls in an hour because we're dilly-dallying, taking our time, just going really slowly, but when we track the number of dials that we're making, that's something that we can truly control.

What I find is, of course, it depends on what you're selling and whom you're selling to, but most salespeople are capable of making anywhere between 15 and about 30 dials an hour. And that, of course, assumes that most people don't pick up. Maybe a couple people actually do pick up.

But throughout that time, what we're doing is we're really committing to the number of dials as opposed to the amount of time. So in my schedule, if I'm to say to block out an hour, what I'd really do is instead, I would say my daily goal is going to be let's say 20 dials today. Other people, it may be 100 dials, but focus on the number of dials and not the amount of time, because ultimately, the number of dials you make is going to connect directly to the number of appointments you set, the number of sales you make, and thus, what you actually make at the end of the year.

Number three, make it a game. You know, so often, salespeople think of the rejection that exists in our space, and as a result, they get really discouraged. But the reality is is that when we pick up the phone and we call someone and they're not excited to hear from us, in fact, they are annoyed by us, and they curse at us or they say something really mean or they just hang up the phone, or they politely get off but we know that they're just trying to get rid of us, most people unfortunately are taking that rejection very seriously, but it's not serious.

They don't know you. They don't know who you are. They don't know your family.

They don't know anything about you. Sales is a game. Imagine if every time a little kid plays soccer, you know, community league soccer, and every time they lose, they're crying and they're pouting.

The reason that that's happened, of course, is because they're taking it more seriously than it should be, and that exact same thing happens to us as salespeople. We can't take this stuff that seriously. I remember when I was first learning to make dials and I was having good mentorship and what I would do is if someone was getting rude or snippy with me on the phone, I'd get playful.

I would really make it a game. And that doesn't necessarily mean that it would necessarily turn that specific call or interaction into something more positive, maybe it did, maybe it didn't, but what it did is it made it so that way, every rejection just rolled right off my back. It doesn't matter.

Make it a game. Number four, call really early and really late. This is such a simple, simple tip, but it is so incredibly effective.

Let me ask you a question. When do you think the majority of salespeople are making their dials during the course of a day? If you said something like between 10 and 11:30 and/or 1 and 3:00, then you're right.

The majority of calls from salespeople are made in those times. It's often, in a lot of organizations, that is call time. That 10:00 or so to 11:30, or in the early afternoon.

The problem is is that this is when most salespeople are making calls, and as a result, not only are prospects receiving more sales calls during that time, but it also just happens to be the time when they're really, really busy. And so what I challenge you to think about is, when can you be making calls when prospects are both not being bombarded by other salespeople and when they're not really busy? And the reality is is that if you're calling really early in the morning or really late in the afternoon or even evening, your prospects, who are typically higher-level folks who are true decision makers, they're gonna be in the office.

A typical CEO gets in the office at around 6:30 in the morning. They don't typically leave til 8:00 at night. And yet when is the gatekeeper there?

The gatekeeper is there from 8:30 to 5:30. So call outside of those hours and you're going to get through the gatekeeper, you're going to be associated with a lot less clutter, and of course, you're more likely to catch them when they're not bombarded by people walking into their office and overwhelmed. Call early and call late.

Number five, avoid the sales voice. Now, this is so pervasive in our industry, where you ask a salesperson, "Do you use "an overly enthusiastic voice when you make calls? " And they typically say, "No, no, no, I sound normal.

" And then I listen to them make a call and they sound something like this. "Hey, George, Marc Wayshak calling, how are you today? " If you were the prospect receiving that call, what do you immediately assume about the person making that call?

That they're a salesperson. What I have discovered is that salespeople, when we go into making calls, they're very typically going to increase the cadence or the pace of their speech, so they're gonna speak more quickly, and they're going to go up a couple of octaves. And what we want to do is avoid that completely because we don't want people, when they pick up the phone, to assume that we're a salesperson.

We want them to think, you know, this just sounds like a normal, genuine person. Avoid that sales voice. Lower the tempo, lower the pace.

And by the way, one of the best things that we can do to really make sure that we're not using the sales voice is to just record your own voice during calls. This is really simple, so you don't have to record the whole call, so there's no disclosure issues because what you're gonna do is you're just gonna use your iPhone or your Android, and I just want you to use the audio recorder to record just the sound of your voice so you don't actually have to hear what's going on in the call, you're just hearing your own voice. I guarantee you're going to find is that you are using a pace and a cadence that is not entirely natural.

Instead, what I want you to sound more like is just low-key and genuine. "Hey, George, Marc Wayshak calling. "Did I catch you in the middle of something there?

" That's the kind of pace and volume that I want to hear from you. Avoid the sales voice. Number six, pattern interrupt.

This is one of, I would argue, the most powerful concepts in selling, and it's something that people just don't spend enough time to think about. And so my question to you is, what do the first six or so seconds of your typical sales interaction sound like? Let's say it's a phone call, cause that's what we're talking about right now.

What do the first six or seven seconds of your phone calls typically sound like? Most salespeople can't exactly answer that, right? We typically go more off the cuff and the opening and then we may structure out what happens later on, but we're not really thinking about, how are we starting that call?

The data suggests that prospects are deciding whether they want to continue a call with us in the first seven seconds, and so we need to fully map out what that sounds like, and that's where this idea of pattern interrupt comes in because what we wanna do (snaps) is break the pattern. We want them, when they're picking up the phone, to suddenly wake up to something different. If you're starting your call with a typical, "Hey, George, Marc Wayshak calling, how are you today?

" You're typically going to turn that person off and they're gonna go right into their typical pattern, which is to treat you like a salesperson and try to get you off the phone. So, in fact, the role play that I just did a minute or two ago in the previous point is really pattern interrupt because it's breaking what they expect. So what I challenge you to think about is, how can you script your first seven seconds in a way that they're not expecting?

My approach would be something like this. "Hey, George, Marc Wayshak calling. "Did I get you in the middle of something there?

" Now, time out for a second. I'm not gonna completely analyze that because we don't have the time in this video, but what you'll notice is that it was a different approach from what they would've expected. I'm breaking the pattern.

They expected me to be smooth and polished, I was actually slow and almost a little bit hesitant, right? And so they're thinking to themselves, "Is this a salesguy? "Is it just someone else?

I don't know. " Pattern interrupt. Number seven, have a contingency.

Contingencies are one of my favorite and most fun things in sales, and what I find is that it's actually pretty ninja. Most salespeople, when I teach them contingencies, they get really uncomfortable, and so let me explain what a contingency is and then I'll give you some ideas. A contingency is when you call up a prospect and they're really busy and they're actually trying to get you off the phone in the first couple of seconds of that call.

What is your contingency? It's almost what you do, it's what your plan B when plan A doesn't work. So you call someone and you say, "Hey, George, Marc Wayshak calling.

"Did I catch you in the middle of something there? " And the prospect returns with, "Actually, yeah, you did. I don't have time right now.

"Can you call me back in a week? " Now, what do you do at that point? Contingencies are that plan B and these take some guts.

They really take the ability to be bold and step out there. Typical salesperson is just gonna say, "Oh, of course, yeah, thank you so much," right? Get off the phone.

But the ninjas, the sales ninjas are gonna have that contingency in place. My contingency in that particular situation might be something like, "You know what, George, "I really appreciate you saying that. "Would it be okay if I just took 30 seconds, "told you why I was calling, and then we can decide "if it makes sense to hang up?

"Does that sound okay? " Boom. Contingency.

Now, is that gonna work all the time? No. But I have a couple of contingencies in a row that I would put together in a call to make sure that I'm ultimately at least getting the first 30 seconds of the call.

And those work most of the time. Not always, but most of the time. Have a contingency.

Number eight, get them talking. Now, we don't have time in this video to lay out the entire script of a call. In fact, there are other videos that I've put together laying out really what that script should look like, but getting them talking is so important to a sales call because I want you to imagine what the typical prospect is experiencing during the receiving end of a sales call.

They answer the phone and the salesperson on the other end is saying, "Hey, how are you doing? "I want to tell you about my company, ABC, "and we've got this incredible product. " What do you think that prospect is doing while they're on the phone?

Let's say they have their phone to their shoulder and they're on the phone. They're going back because they've just determined that this is a sales call, they're going back into typing that email or reading that report that they were just looking at a second ago. And so they're letting the salesperson talk because of just being polite, but they're not engaged with what the salesperson is saying.

So a truly effective salesperson is going to have something in their sales call that's going to engage the prospect in a conversation to get them talking, because once me as the buyer or as the prospect is actually talking and engaged in the conversation, now, it's really difficult for me to continue reading that report or writing that email. You need to engage them in the conversation, suck them in so you get them talking. So you want to have questions in your calls that sound something like, "Does that make any sense based on what I'm saying?

" Or, "Does that ring true to you? " Right? We're sucking them into the conversation.

Get them talking. Number nine, always closing for the next step. Always closing for the next step.

Now, research from one of my favorite organizations, Gong. io, who uses artificial intelligence to analyze sales conversations and compares to the conversations that really work versus those that don't, and what they found is that effective sales conversations, the salespeople are spending significantly more time discussing next steps. Now, I think we always knew this instinctually, but it's the first time that we actually from a specific data perspective, that next steps are so important.

And what next steps means is that we never are in the business of saying, "Oh, you know, "how about I call you back in a week? " Instead, it's, "George, do you have your calendar out? "Let's schedule a next step to make sure "that we avoid that back and forth "and that we get each other on the next call "where we can review what we discussed today.

" Always close in for that next step. So in an initial prospecting call, what you're closing for is typically that next scheduled meeting, right? Whether it's face to face or WebEx or by phone, whatever it is, what we want to do is always be closing for the next step so there's never a point in the sales process where we have that wishy washy, I'm not really sure what's coming up next.

Always close in for that next step. So there are nine really easy phone sales tips. I want to hear from you.

Which of these ideas did you find most useful? Be sure to share below in the comments section to get involved in the conversation, and if you enjoyed this video, then I have an awesome free e-book on 25 tips to crush your sales goals. Just click right here to get it instantly.

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