Our Training

What makes SMART staff different?

For starters, we look for individuals who can inject character, intelligence and communication skills into a conversation. The emphasis is on the word CONVERSATION, rather than inflicting a torrent of sales statements threaded through with manipulative attempts at rapport.

Training

“People buy from People” is a well worn phrase but it has a firm basis in the truth. We put a lot of emphasis on rapport because it not only engenders trust; it makes the experience more pleasant and sets our calls apart from “just another sales pitch.”

When we interview we look for confidence, personality and drive. With those three elements, conversation is easier and there is less emphasis on sales pressure and pure ‘numbers’ and more on structured persuasion.

In my experience “traditional” sales relationships regard the prospect as somehow “inferior” to the sales person. The potential customer is perceived as someone to be manipulated, worn-down, pressured or even bullied into submission. Whilst forgetting that under different circumstances WE are that potential customer.

Respect is essential to any relationship and the sales relationship (if it’s to be long and fruitful) is no exception.

This is not necessarily unique in telemarketing but it’s the exception rather than the rule and quite possibly a rare exception at that.

Most clients are naturally looking for a reasonable number of well qualified b2b sales leads or effective appointment generation to get a return on their investment; opportunities where they can continue a positively initiated relationship, with a reasonable chance of closing business.

Too many telemarketing organisations seem to concentrate on the number of calls and by inference the number of “leads”. Many of our clients have previously engaged with telemarketing organisations only to receive a lot of “leads” which have never in fact ‘lead’ to anything. This may keep their sales teams busy but not necessarily productive.

One of the reasons Telemarketing organisations focus on numbers is because if they make enough calls they are bound to find someone in the right place or the right time or someone who is “persuadable”.

SMART’s approach isn’t just about skimming the cream off the top (people in the right place at the right time) but also making headway into that layer beneath the ‘cream’. This is why we promote and develop skills such as rapport, effective questioning etc.

SMART has an internal grading system for our staff. We look at recognising and rewarding the elements which bring a direct or indirect benefit to our clients. We reward our staff not only for reaching targets for number of leads / appointments, but also for the qualifying information they produce. The things we look for are;

  • Introduction and Overview
  • Courtesy and Professionalism
  • Listening Skills
  • Confidence and Assertiveness
  • Objection Handling (or pre-empting)
  • Rapport and Enthusiasm
  • Sales and Closing Skills
  • Effective use of Product Knowledge
  • Effective Questioning

We reward our staff with bonuses for over-achieving against target but not at the expense of quality. And we also recognise and reward initiative, positive attitude, positive client feedback, mentoring etc.

Ultimately our aim is to reach a point where our staff are a seamless addition to our clients business.

There are undoubtedly a large number of call-centres who fail to recognise the individual at either end of the phone. SMART’s ethos is based on not only recognising, but celebrating those two individuals. We’ve all been on the receiving end of a robotic, patronising and ultimately frustrating sales pitch. It’s our belief that it doesn’t have to be that way – Not all Telemarketing is the same!

Rob Evans

Rob Evans
Training Manager