Cold calling is a way to generate a lot of leads while also saving a lot of money. When you make calls with smrtPhone, they integrate right into Podio making them easy to track and organize. There’s really no reason you shouldn’t add cold calling into your marketing mix, whether for new leads or follow-up leads.
Best Practices for Training Staff on the Phone
The first thing you’ll need is a good script for handling objections that they can follow. Something I’ve noticed within my organization is that people like to start with the basics and listen to me close first.
With smrtPhone, all of our training calls are recorded so we can go back, listen, and use them for current and future training calls. Eventually, the staff will learn how to handle objections and how to answer questions by using the recorded training calls on a weekly basis.
The Importance of Recording Your Teams’ Daily Calls
Often times your team will be out there making calls thinking they are saying the right thing, but then you go back and listen to the call and find out they were saying something incorrect. By being able to go back and listen to calls at any time with any lead, you can monitor what you’re team is doing and give them feedback.
We never approach it from an angle of what they did wrong, but instead, what could they do better. When we do training, we’ll listen to a call and go around the room and ask what was done right? What could do better? This helps them identify the strong points of the call and how to improve.
What Makes a Good Follow-Up Sequence?
We have follow-up sequences and systems in our Podio; however, we are horrible at using them. But here’s the thing about follow-up: it’s where the fortune is, so it’s necessary! It doesn’t have to be automated. It can happen once a month and all you do is tell smrtDialer to dial all the leads that didn’t sell you a property and voila. The process is half manual, half automated, but it’s incredibly important to have some sort of follow-up system in place through either text messaging or calling.
How Important is Text Messaging as a Sales Tool?
It’s a proven fact that everybody keeps their phone within about two or three feet of them at all times. Not everyone gets email or opens it for that matter. But when you get a text message, it pops right up on their phone. For this reason alone, it’s important to be using SMS, text broadcasting, or text follow-up in your business.
We’ll follow-up with a lead 3-4 times by calling, and then we’ll send them a text message. But here’s another important factor to keep in mind… you need to set-up your text broadcasting with a company like smrtPhone or GameChangers. That way if you have any tech problems, these guys can jump on it and handle it without causing any grief on your leads (and taking it off your hands).
Getting Started with an Auto Dialer
If you’re just getting started with an auto dialer, it’s one of the most important tools you can have. I think a lot of people fear adding another tool into their system because it might complicate their process, but here’s the amazing thing about smrtPhone: it integrates them all for you right into your Podio.
It tracks whether or not you leave a message with a lead, whether your call went through, or if someone talked with you on the phone, and call notes. All of it will go into that leads profile in Podio.
This means that at any time, anyone (your acquisition manger, salesperson, manager, yourself, etc.) can go into Podio and look, listen, and see what the status is of any call that’s been made. You can see everything that’s happened right away and keep track of how your business is doing.
-Larry Goins
Reach out on the smrtPhone users workspace if you have any questions regarding call integration. We’d love to hear from you!
Happy phoning!
