Sales people are employed to grow the business and it is no coincidence that the first few coaching session have been focusing on attracting customers. We will continue this effort this week by looking at networking. Networking is not one big thing. Networking is a million little things and we now need to see how important this can be to grow your business.

The internet is the fastest growing communication tool in history and as selling is effective communication we should always be looking ahead to discover new ways to attract customers and close the sale. In this section we will be looking at simple websites you can open in 15 minutes for free, viral marketing that can grow your business exponentially and social networking as a business tool.

The telephone was developed over 130 years ago but we are still using it badly. The telephone should not just replace face to face communication and in this session we will consider the basic principles of improved telephone techniques.

Having got the basics in place we can now look at the way we construct a conversation on the telephone. These things are so often left to chance but with a few simple skills you can get a much better response from the customers you speak to over the phone.

Telephone scripts are both good and bad and the difference is often the way they are delivered. A telephone script is simply a pre-defined dialogue that has been professionally developed (hopefully) and shown to get better results. Good scripts work if we can learn how to use them properly.

Many of us have to make an appointment with the prospect before we can progress the sale and that is often where we get stuck. The mistake we often make is telling the prospect too much, giving him too many things to object to. When you are on the phone trying to make an appointment all you are selling is the appointment, nothing else. Today will look at an excellent telephone script that is designed to make appointments.

The basic principles of selling over the telephone are similar to selling face to face. We still have to uncover the customer's needs, provide our benefits that will satisfy those needs and ask for the business. The telephone differs in one fundamental way, it all happens a lot quicker!

The telephone is the most important tool in the sales person's toolbox and the last few sessions have focused on using the telephone more effectively.  By now you should have made the appointment script work for you and be seeing the improvement in your telephone strike rate. Are you still keeping up your strike rate measurement? I know it seems like a bit of a chore but it is important. You should be seeing an improvement in your strike rate and making more appointments to go together with the improved number of prospects you have identified through referrals and other things.