Best advice for someone new to sales over the phone

I started my career in sales by selling over the phone and then promoted to lead sales teams and now I teach salespeople how to specifically do early pipeline over-the-phone sales.

Here are the simplest principles that will make the biggest difference to your ability to sell over the phone:

1. Get everything you need ready and then set aside blocks of time for calls - Don’t haphazardly make calls. Don’t be unfocused. EVERY DIAL YOU MAKE EITHER MAKES YOU MONEY OR WASTES YOUR TIME. The last thing you want to do is be unfocused. You want to be in the zone. Enable yourself to succeed by getting organized before sitting down in the hot seat. Schedule blocks of time for calls and don’t take breaks. Call for an hour, then take 10 minutes off, use the bathroom, drink some water, then get back in the zone for another hour.
2. Know your talk tracks - You’re not really a salesman, you’re a performance artist. You’re a street performer who’s interrupting someone’s day. When your prospect picks up the phone you have about five to ten seconds to communicate what you’re about: don’t f*ck it up. If you showed up to an audition without knowing your lines you’d never get the part. Don’t do it now. Memorize your talk tracks, your pitches, your value props. Here’s a free one: when someone answers the phone you say “Did I catch you at a bad time?” When they say no, you have permission to pitch them.
3. Stay positive, enthusiastic, confident, poised and calm - Some people believe that sales is the act of transferring emotion from one person to another. I don’t think it is, but there is something true about holding one’s emotions in front of others. Staying calm, grounded, positive and enthusiastic in the face of hang-ups, being told no, and asked difficult questions, will make a difference in how many people will want to speak with you and it’ll improve your day.
4. Don’t try and make a sale, try to build rapport and understand the person on the other end of the phone - Making a sale is an equation between trust and cost. Instead of telling prospects about how great your product/service/solution is, propose value based on outcomes you can point to and then ask about their situation to see if there’s really a fit between what they need and what you have to offer. People will want to buy all by themselves if they believe that what you’re offering can really help them.
5. Stop when you get sour - Much, much, much of telesales, phone sales, and early pipeline sales is driven by personality. Because this is true it is paramount that you stay positive and enthusiastic. It doesn’t matter how wonderful your solution is if nobody wants to speak with you. Your first job is to sell yourself, and the best way to sell yourself is by being the kind of person people want to buy, want to interact with. If you feel yourself getting sour and angry, and you can’t get out of it, then step off the phone. It’ll be better for you to take a minute, clear your head, get back to being positive, and then stepping back on than to stay on and ruin chances to make a positive connection.

Keep this in mind: No matter how frustrating or hard it might seen, IT IS POSSIBLE to succeed, you just have to trust yourself!