Quick phone hacks for sales reps to crush quota

There’s no doubt that the effectiveness of the sales team affects the overall performance of any business. Improving it, therefore, should be one of the main priorities for every sales rep out there. Luckily, there are quite a few quick phone hacks you can implement to crush quota. Here they are.

A lot has changed in the realm of communication and support, yet, the majority of all customer interactions still happen over the phone.

Even though cold calling slightly lost its charm over the years, phone conversations are a thing – in fact, more than 40% of salespeople name ‘calling’ as the most effective sales tool at their disposal. Are you making the most of its potential, then? 

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The concept of calling prospects has been around for years, but not every sales rep seems to be taking advantage of it. If you truly want your sales team to become effective on the phone in no time – it’s time to learn a few quick phone hacks to help you crush quota. 

Quick phone hacks for every sales team

1. Make your move as soon as possible. 

Don’t wait too long before you get in touch. Rumour has it that by getting in touch with leads within an hour, sales reps are even much more likely to have meaningful conversations than those who wait longer than that.

Actually, the shorter the time, the better! It’s mostly because your prospects might easily lose interest or become contacted by your competitors in the meantime, which is something that should be avoided at all costs.    

2. Do your research. 

When calling, you should have a decent knowledge about the prospect and their needs. The least you can do is to have a look at social networks and gather some basic details.

This way, you can make your calls warmer and establish rapport almost immediately, especially if you got introduced by a shared connection, or interacted with each other beforehand (via social media, for example). 

3. Send an invitation first. 

Speaking of past interactions: If you’re already in touch with a prospect, try to schedule the call in advance, or at least let them know that you’re going to call at some point.

By doing so, you might encourage them to save some time to hear you out and give your services a thought. Send an invite, share additional resources, and get ready to have more meaningful conversations. Which brings us to the next point…   

4. Be prepared to have meaningful interactions. 

You might find it surprising, but 85% of prospects and customers are dissatisfied with their experience over the phone. It does mean, however, that doing it right can easily help you stand out.

Start by creating a relevant script, which can help you sound much more confident. You shouldn’t just read the script out loud, though. It’s important to listen to the interlocutors carefully, and be ready to answer all their questions.

If you actually pay more attention to your conversations, you can not only have more meaningful interactions, but also identify the most common objections, requests, and issues, which allows you to tailor the sales pitch to them.

5. Build trust along the way. 

If your prospects don’t trust you enough, they are unlikely to buy from you. Let’s face it: many sales reps don’t exactly have the best reputation, but this is quite easy to fix.

Start by making sure that you’re genuine and focused on building relationships first before you start selling anything. You’ll be able to prove that you’re not just another “cutthroat sales rep”, and you actually care about what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to.  

6. Ask questions during the phone conversation.

Thorough research can get you far – but there’s nothing like a proper conversation filled with relevant questions to make a good impression on your prospect.

As a matter of fact, research shows that there’s a clear relationship between the number of questions sales reps ask and their chances of success. In order for your call to go well, then, you should ask your prospect a question every now and then.

If you’re not sure what to ask, consider finding out more about the prospect’s pain points and needs. This way, you’ll be able to suggest the best solution possible at the end of the day. 

7. Highlight use cases and case studies. 

Provided that you’ve taken the previous hacks into account, you should already have an idea of what solution you could potentially offer your prospects. Now it’s your time to shine and encourage them to buy from you.

Essentially, it pays off to showcase the benefits of your products with stories and personalised recommendations. Always personalize your pitch – focus on features and use cases that are relevant for a given prospect, and mention other clients who used it for a similar purpose. In fact, customer testimonials are a great way to raise interest and win trust. 

8. Don’t give up until you get a definitive answer. 

You might find it desperate at first, but following up is actually crucial for any sales effort. In fact, 50% of all sales happen after the fifth contact, but most reps give up after just two attempts. Don’t make the same mistake!

It’s worth taking that chance – and follow up as many times as necessary until you get a response. Whatever this answer might be, at least the potential customer is not leaving you hanging. 

9. Equip your sales team with a proper cloud-based phone system (and a few other tools, for that matter).

Making the most of your phone conversations can be really difficult without the right sales tools in place. Actually, a powerful phone system paired with a CRM tool is the absolute essentials when it comes to keeping your customer data up-to-date and streamlining your sales process. How come?

CloudTalk, for example, will not only allow you to make and receive more calls but also access caller data right away by integrating it with your CRM (and plenty of other tools).

Essentially, with tool integration and sales automation, there’s no need to waste time on administrative tasks such as data entry and call logging – a powerful phone system can easily do it for you. You might as well spend more time on closing deals, not entering data manually and checking their accuracy between the systems.  

Ready to crush quota with these quick phone hacks?

By now, you should already have an idea of what phone hacks you could implement in your day-to-day tasks. Some of them might seem obvious at first – but somehow, many sales reps are still not using them in practice.

The best recipe for success here is to test at least a few of these quick phone hacks and figure out what works for you best. These tips are more likely to work if they’re tailored to your needs.   

Don’t forget to keep your eyes open, learn from every interaction with your customers (be it prospective or existing ones), and make sure you’re equipped with the right tools to help you focus on boosting your sales rather than performing manual tasks.

Once you’re at it, you might as well check out what CloudTalk has to offer.