Outbound sales are a kind of old school, ‘push’ Marketing strategy which interrupt rather than engage prospects.

No one likes to sit and cold call prospect after prospect. Especially not to have rude, ignorant or uninterested responses and one lead to every two hundred or so phone calls. Outbound sales feel outdated. Alas there are ways to overcome the stereotype of a telephone salesman!

There could be many reasons why your outbound sales are failing you, three of those reasons (and how to tackle them) are listed below.

Reason One

You aren’t doing your homework. This one applies to both B2B and B2C sales.

In the case of B2B, have you researched the company? Have you researched the person you are trying to reach? Or are you calling up the main desk in the hope that the receptionist will put you through to the most important person in the building?

You need to do your research. Not only what the company does, but what it stands for and what they are driven by. Platforms like LinkedIn mean there is no excuse for not knowing the name of the Marketing Director or the CEO in big businesses.

For B2B, do you know your consumer? Do you know what their incentive is to buy from you or use your service? Do you know what drives them?

Researching your consumer is key to drawing them in with your words – because in outbound sales that is all you have. You need to understand their motivations to buy and play to that tune.

Mentioning irrelevant information and failing to engage the prospect because they are the wrong person or you don’t know anything about them, no way you will obtain a lead or make a sale.

Reason Two

Low quality of training.

Are your outbound sales people trained in outbound sales? Are you trained? Most importantly, do the people selling the product/services share the same passion for is as the founders?

Poorly trained outbound sales people calling and emailing strangers about a product they may not care about could be jeopardising your outbound sales. Training doesn’t only teach your employees the basics of outbound sales, it motivates them. Feeling valued enough to have the time and money spent on them motivates them to be better sales people.

Reason Three

Relying on a sales script.

Don’t get me wrong, having notes to help guide you through the process of explaining what you have to offer and what kind of questions you want to ask to engage the prospect is all well and good. But having a full, monotonous script to repeat to customer after customer is both a quick way to bore yourself and a sure way to have the phone put down or your email deleted.

Customising your words to the person you are targeting is more conversational and personal. A prospect is more likely to be responsive to a friendly phone conversation than a sales pitch over the phone that they never asked for.

Take another look at your outbound sales and check if any of these reasons are where you are going wrong.

Happy selling!

If you’d like more information about how you can convert and manage leads effectively, click below to check out our latest eBook, designed to help you think about your lead process.