This summer I’ve had the honour of working with smart, dedicated, enthusiastic sales teams. While each group was unique, they all shared a passion for their work, for learning and for understanding the “why” of today’s effective phone communication. This resulted in training sessions so full of ideas and inspiration that I became student as well as teacher.
For example, this past Thursday, one participant shared her reaction to getting right to the point at the beginning of each call (eliminating questions about health and weather): “I didn’t realize how much time I was wasting before getting to the point. I’m calling to ask an important question, so why am I wasting so much time.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. One of the most important things we can do today to create great phone conversations is remain empathetic to the hectic schedules and overwhelming workloads of our prospects and clients. Displaying our empathy at the beginning of each phone call is a strong sign of respect and goes a long way to building and maintaining trust.
But this workshop participant took it a step further: “I’m now much more strategic when I pick up the phone. I get on and I get off so I can get on to my next call.”
Of course! By not wasting our prospects’ and clients’ time with unnecessary, and often unappreciated. chit chat, we are also being more efficient with our own time. We create the space to make more calls, reach more people, book more meetings, create more proposals, etc. And this makes the task more enjoyable, our work more bountiful.
Enjoy your phonework everyone!
Oh, what fun! You must get a little thrill every time someone you’ve trained applies what they’ve learned. The learning is one thing but the doing… that’s where things get exciting.
It is a lot of fun to work with individuals as they incorporate their skills into their daily practice. And this is where I continue to learn, as I hear how the skills are of value in different industries and situations. Lucky me!