5 ways to increase your telesales team's effectiveness

Sales in person has numerous advantages to sales over the phone, or across a screen. In person, sales people have the advantage of reading body language, listening and observing the many visuals cues we give when speaking to others.

When doing the same job over voice calls, sales people need to make more of an effort to actively engage prospects and ensure they’re equally engaged.

As a telesales person, the last thing you want is for a prospect to be replying to a lengthy email when you are hoping they are watching a demo you are giving. For sales managers, you need to find ways to ensure your team is supported properly.

In this article, we look at five ways telesales teams can be supported to improve effectiveness and outputs.

Telesales teams that operate without sales enablement, demo presentations, or marketing support, or screen share tools, operate at a disadvantage.

Whenever possible, people prefer information presented to them visually. Picking up the phone and dialing with a script is no longer as effective. Even if a sales team member reaches a decision maker, if they’ve got nothing to support that voice call — no way of giving them a presentation straight away — it can be difficult to encourage a prospect to take the conversation further.

Sales calls should support written information, of course. But to get the point across in a short timescale, telesales teams benefit from having visual supporting materials in place, along with other visual solutions to help them sell products/services to potential clients. Here is what this means in practice:

#1: Easy-to-use presentation

Presentations are essential tools for telesales teams.

Whether these are emailed to a prospect while on a call, or used in an instant online demo, your telesales team needs something visually impactful they can use to wow a prospect. It shouldn’t be too long. No more than 10 to 15 minutes.

It should cover all of the basics: What, who, why, and everything else that most potential clients ask about a product/service when they’re being told about it for the first time. If you’ve got client testimonials, quotes, and any positive statistics, then now is the time when they should be used to show potential clients how much others love what you provide.

When selling something visual, make sure sales leads can see it. Show them screenshots, when selling a software solution, or even better, link from the presentation into a live test account. It sounds obvious, but is easily overlooked: Show, don’t tell.

This way, with the visuals doing that part of the hard work, sales people can focus on asking the right questions, active listening, and qualifying the opportunity.

#2: Screenshare an online demo

Screenshare apps are one of the most effective ways for telesales teams to engage directly with prospects, qualify leads, and close deals faster.

Instead of booking a demo in the future, a telesales team member can jump on an instant online demo and showcase a new product to a potential client straight away. With tools such as CrankWheel, they can do this without a prospect needing to download software or even be at their desk.

If you want, prospects can try out a new software product using remote control. Giving someone who’s interested in purchasing a quick tour is far more cost and time effective than waiting days and weeks for a demo in the calendar. It avoids the risk of prospects repeatedly cancelling and a lead going cold.

#3: Cost/benefit or ROI calculator

Not every business can offer this. It depends what you are selling and how easily an ROI or some kind of cost/benefit analysis can be calculated.

But if that is possible, then an online version, or one you can screenshare while on a call, can be a useful selling point. At one glance, a prospect can see what you can save them, or the kind of ROI that can be generated from going ahead.

#5: Visual rollout outline

What if your product/service has a rollout schedule?

If someone is going to work with you, it would be easier for them to see this mapped out graphically than working it out via email. Show them the number of stages and milestones involved. Make it clear what they can expect. Give a realistic estimate, with the potential option to accelerate rollout depending on project urgency and client budgets.

Demonstrating this visually will be a huge time saver for you and the client. It is also a good sign, that if a potential buyer wants to see a rollout timeline that there is a clear interest in what you are selling.

With a screen share tool, such as CrankWheel, telesales team members can quickly and easily share a rollout plan with sales prospects.

#5: Automated low-touch after-call marketing

What if after an awesome presentation and what felt like a really good sales call/online demo, they say, yes, just not yet?

Do you give up, or stay in contact?

If you want the sale, you need to stay in contact. This can be done several ways. One such way is using low-touch methods, such as an automated email marketing system. For EU clients, always ask permission, to maintain GDPR compliance, and then input them into a drip feed marketing system that will keep them informed and keep your brand in their inbox.

This way, when a client is ready, they can get back in contact, or a call to them can be put into your calendar for a few months in the future.

With the right tools and assets in place, telesales teams can be more effective, productive, and increase conversion rates.