Sales can be a competitive field, but one way to stand out amongst your peers is to increase your productivity.
In the fast-paced telesales industry where results are hugely important, boosting your productivity levels will make you a valuable asset to your employer and could help significantly with your career progression.
With that in mind, we have listed seven handy tips to help you become more productive in your telesales role.
How to boost productivity in your telesales role.
1. Set yourself targets
It may sound obvious, but without an aim, your work is likely to be pointless. By setting yourself achievable goals it is much easier to be focused at work and get the kind of results that your line manager is looking for. Set yourself a sales target for the day, week or month and keep track of how far off you are. Perhaps your company has an incentive that you would like to claim – make this your target and watch your productivity levels skyrocket.
2. Take a break
That’s right, taking some time away from the desk can actually result in you becoming more productive. Long periods without a break can lead to fatigue, particularly mental fatigue, which often results in a drop in standards. Taking regular, short breaks is a good way of keeping energy levels up, ensuring that your sales tactics stay engaging for clients and consumers.
3. Learn new skills
Undergoing some personal training not only shows that you are dedicated to your profession, but it could also improve your productivity levels. This training could be in telesales directly – both the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management (ISMM) and the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) have courses available – or regarding the products and services that you are trying to sell. Improving your skills in areas such as selling and time management could lead to a significant improvement in your productivity.
4. Use a sales script
Consider coming up with a rough script for common telesales situations. Of course, you should remain flexible as customers do not want to face an overly-robotic telesales pitch, but having a simple routine in place could help you to identify which calls are likely to lead to sales and which are not much more quickly.
5. Analyse data for opportunities
This one may be for more senior members of a telesales team but could still prove hugely important for your business. More and more companies are utilising data analytics to track sales and discover potentially valuable market trends. In a results driven industry like telesales, being able to analyse data is critical and many sales managers are already turning to analytics to gain an upper hand on their competitors.
6. Call monitoring and feedback
Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses is the first step to personal improvement and in telesales, call monitoring can help you achieve this. Ask your manager to assess a couple of your calls and provide some feedback, or alternatively listen to the calls of some of your colleagues. If it results in a higher conversion of sales from the same number of pitches, it will provide a significant productivity boost.
7. Up-sell
Rather than look for new customers, look for opportunities to sell more to existing customers while you have their attention. With an existing relationship in place, you have a better understanding of your customer’s needs, giving you the perfect opportunity to up-sell or cross sell. Analysing your client base for these opportunities could see the value of your sales increase substantially.
