Don't . . . Throw Away The Script!

The telephone is a powerful tool; good appointment setting campaigns can be done to get your sales team in front of the right decision maker at the right time, but how do telemarketing companies do it?

The latest buzz words in B2B telemarketing are all about ‘Throwing away the script’. Call it what you want script/call flow or call structure to name but a few, but quality leads and appointments are still booked by real people who are fully trained and understand what they are talking about by following a strategically prepared guide allowing them to anticipate all possible outcomes of the call. “If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail”

‘Use a strategic call structure, to book face to face or telephone appointments with a prospective customer who is in the market place for your product or service offering.’

It is business critical to use call structures. They are essential so you are empowered to maximise the opportunities whilst on the telephone giving you the best chance of success.  It provides you with a clearly defined path to follow – whether that is moving on or even better ensuring that you are getting through to that correct decision maker.

Used correctly, a call structure should be an invaluable tool for any agent, sales person or business owner making business calls and acts as a guide for all of them as well as being a confidence builder.  If you feel confident then you sound confident.  And when you sound confident you are more likely to succeed. The key to telemarketing success and sounding unscripted is the confidence that the call structure has been put together in such a way that it matches your individual style whilst providing the essential key messages and follows a proven psychological approach to obtaining that all important YES.

More often than not, if you are told you sound scripted it is because the call has not been put together with you in mind, resulting in low confidence levels.  As a result you will try to change the call to adapt to your style and then you will find yourself missing out essential linking phrases and the opportunity to stack the appropriate benefits in favour of what you are offering.

5 Essential Telemarketing Tips, You Need to Be Practising

Be Prepared To Adapt - think about the agents that will be calling and use the appropriate vocabulary for them.  If an agent struggles to say certain phrases adapt the phrases to suit.

Ensure Fluidity – it is essential that there is a proper flow in place, if the call sounds disjointed the agent will not follow it and opportunities will be missed.

Open/Probing Questions – this provides a conversation rather than a prospect feeling they are being talked at.  It also provides the agent opportunity to have thinking time whilst the prospect is talking to prepare themselves to get ready to stack appropriate benefits.

‘A common misbelief is that when reading off a script, staff sound like robots – wrong. It means staff have a flow, sound professional and constantly match needs with benefits.’

Listen To The Agents – if agents or your sales people are telling you that something is not working – Listen!  They are the people having the conversations and there is nothing more sole destroying than being forced to continue with something that is not working and therefore discourages calling.

Role Play – Role Play, Role Play, Role Play.  This is essential practice in building confidence and it will provide you with early opportunities to ensure that the flow really does flow and helps to hone their telemarketing skills.  Often call flows sound great when you are reading them in your head but you will often find them very different when spoken out loud. If it doesn't sound right when you are practising it then the agent has no chance when calling on the telephone.

Find out how we use call structures to create customers for our clients info@kmb.org.uk

Maximise Your Opportunity to Finding New Clients Using LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the third most visited website in the UK and with more than 320 Million Unique Visits in June 2013 on the UK version of the website alone, it has steadily grown to be the largest network of business professionals on the internet… and it shows no signs of stopping!

When researching your company and your products and services on the internet, people will most likely find you on LinkedIn. This is your opportunity now to capture those leads and turn them into customers.

But, are you equipped with the right tools to do this effectively?

• You may have a profile on LinkedIn already, but are you happy with what prospective clients are looking at?
•  Is it the best possible representation of what you do for your customers and what your company offers the market place?
• Are you really making the most of this largely free prospecting tool online?

KMB have conducted a number of LinkedIn workshops with their existing clients and feedback from the delegates was that the workshops gave them time and space to maximise that opportunity and learn to turn those visitors into customers. Check out their testimonials here

“A very informative workshop that revealed functionality within the LinkedIn site that I was not aware of and it identified keyword strategies for optimising my profile – perfect! It helped me understand the kind of influence I could have across the network and how important my second and third degree networks are in gaining access to key decision makers. The workshop has encouraged me to adopt a frequent LinkedIn habit to drive engagement and unearth quality contacts and referrals through the extended network” NS

We showed them the secrets used by the very few that are active on LinkedIn and who make it their business development tool of choice.

They learned to understand the value of a regular LinkedIn routine, even just one hour per week to amplify the exposure to their own profiles and their company profiles to encourage inbound enquiries.

They developed confidence in the system and learned how to navigate around the search functionality, giving them the opportunity to access a vast pool of potential new contacts that can not only turn into their customers but also become advocates for them and their company.

I want to Maximise My Opportunity to Finding New Clients and Generate New Business using LinkedIn, but what will I get out of the workshops?

The LinkedIn Achievers Mind Set

We look at why LinkedIn is a key lead generation tool, and how to get the most out of LinkedIn, even one hour per week. You will find out the key considerations to creating a LinkedIn profile that really works. We will reveal the secrets that are used by LinkedIn achievers to encourage inbound leads.

LinkedIn Profile Optimisation

We look at creating an optimised profile for LinkedIn success. By making the most of your personal LinkedIn profile as well as looking at the settings to ensure privacy and yet allow you to benefit fully from the lead generation and marketing potential of the site. We look at keyword secrets used by the pro’s that will get you found on the internet search engines. This session is hands on and changes made will show immediate results.

Accelerate your Network on LinkedIn

We look at developing your network of contacts, how to best connect with people in your own style. You will learn targeting and approaching prospects using Advanced Search and other tools. You will find out how a recommended weekly LinkedIn routine is the key to LinkedIn success.

Book Your Place Now

We have new workshop dates planned throughout August and September in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, London and Bristol so you can fast forward your LinkedIn strategies and accelerate your business development in the final quarter of 2013.

Places are limited so book Early Bird tickets Here with 16% off the delegate price before 1^st August 2013

10 Amazing Facts You Didn’t Know About LinkedIn in the UK

LinkedIn at the Centre of Your Marketing Universe

Are you using LinkedIn for your business or social? Or sales and marketing? In my role as LinkedIn Lead To Revenue Specialist at KMB, I have had the pleasure of working with some of the UK’s most powerful turnaround professionals and during our training sessions recently and they just could not believe how little they knew and how little they actually used their profiles on LinkedIn. 

You just don’t know, what you don’t know.

Here are 10 amazing facts about the UK’s 3^rd most visited website.

319,659 UK people visit LinkedIn every day

So far in June 2013 alone uk.linkedin.com (the UK version of LinkedIn) received 3.5 million visits from people all over the world, by people looking to see what the big deal is. It is a huge amount traffic you just can’t ignore and you have the potential in receiving referral traffic from. Are you happy with what these people look at when they visit your LinkedIn profile or company LinkedIn page? Figures come from Quantcast.

LinkedIn is a free cloud-based CRM

Last month (May 2013) LinkedIn upgraded their contacts functionality to include sophisticated CRM capability. Not only can you record all your connections contact details, but there are a new communications history thread and a powerful contact search facility available for free.

There are over 11 million users from the UK alone on LinkedIn, and 39.8% of them in the 35-54 range.  

Decision maker contacts are using LinkedIn to expand their networks and promote their business. An optimised profile will help get noticed and give you the confidence to contact them.

61% of social media users primarily use LinkedIn for professional networking, compared to 22% for Facebook, and 4% for Twitter

I know it sounds obvious, but it is worth mentioning the fact that this activity is going on the internet, and that by getting involved you may just pick up some business or a new business lead to say the least

22% of male UK internet users have active LinkedIn profiles, compared to 13% of females

A recent study by social media agency Umpf, confirms that not all profiles are active and that due to duplication, empty or fake profiles and procrastination. In fact ADOPTION is the big issue here. To make the most of your presence on LinkedIn you do need to exercise your networking muscles by regular visits to the site and connecting with new people every day.

41% of small business owners says that LinkedIn has the most potential to help their companies, versus other social networks.

LinkedIn is really made for business communications, it is a logical place to express your company values and product or service information. It’s professional, straight-forward, and you can direct real, targeted and profitable business communications to your specific market place.

More than 3 million companies have created LinkedIn company pages so far.

Why not you? It’s free, relatively easy and helps to broadcast your brand message with your connections. Your contacts effectively become advocates through their profiles every time you update the page. Product or Service recommendations will spread virally through your networks.

The average LinkedIn user’s 2nd-degree network connects them to over 6,000 companies and 9,000 people.

That’s a huge network for both companies and individuals to access as a database! You can easily access the sort of brands and connections you need do business with, to get a new assignment, find employees, associates to collaborate with or start a group discussion about topics you may need to know more about.

LinkedIn is a trusted website by 82% of those polled, compared to other social media sites.

Unlike Facebook which comes up with new privacy policies all the time, or Twitter which is a Catherine Wheel of information exploding in random colours, LinkedIn provides the professionalism that other social media sites lack. It is actually their mission "To create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce." And in this process has now become the No.1 source for relevant business information. What does this mean for my company? Click through rates on news posts and advertising have seen an increase of 55% versus traditional display marketing.

55% of UK businesses allow the use of LinkedIn in the workplace, compared to 47% for Facebook

If you are going to promote your business on a social network, UK business are more likely to allow their employees on LinkedIn.

To find out more and talk to us about we can help turn your LinkedIn profile into a powerful tool to promote your business call KMB on 01527 518373 or email info@kmb.org.uk