Great Ideas for your Small Business: Free Up Your Sales Force
“Most salespeople love to sell but hate to generate their own leads,” said the co-owner of a financial planning firm in Orlando. “So we invest a great deal of time and money for telemarketers to generate leads. This frees the salesmen to do what they love to do the most—sell.”
Freeing people to do their best work is good not only for morale, but also for your bottom line. For the aggressive salesperson who hates to dig up leads, a good telemarketer using a current database can provide dozens of leads in a few hours. They can eliminate the chilling aspect of cold calling. This two-pronged approach works best when you are selling a high-end product or service, like financial products.
Busy, well-to-do people don’t like to be interrupted in the middle of dinner by an unsolicited phone call. But they will make an appointment to speak to someone if they are interested in what you are offering. Supporting your sales force with telemarketers and appropriate communications technology makes good financial sense.
In many cases, top sellers not only hate to generate their own leads, but they also dislike and resist filling out the after- sale paperwork. And when they mess it up, it creates more problems down the line. So consider hiring an assistant to take care of the after-sale details. This expedites orders and frees the salesperson to move on to the next sale.
Smart managers know exactly what everyone’s time is worth and provide all the necessary tools and support to maximize productivity.