The Great Guns Marketing Blog

The Great Guns training team holds regular buzz sessions with our telemarketers to refresh skills. It provides an opportunity for team members to contribute and feedback their experiences regarding current telemarketing activity that we are undertaking for clients.

One topic that regularly gets raised, especially from our newest team members, is the role of ‘gatekeepers ‘ and this quite often brings about a lengthy discussion.

Firstly – what do they mean by the term gatekeeper? Ask the team to explain and a succinct description would be: “ PA’s, secretaries, receptionists…. those answering the phone who block me from speaking to the decision maker”.

OK, so turning this around, we always encourage the team to step into the recipient’s shoes and imagine themselves in situ.  For example – PA’s and secretaries are simply doing their job, quite often managing  extensive diary commitments, undertaking a varied workload and in many cases representing the senior management team at a high level – in addition to dealing with inbound calls and enquiries that can be distracting and interrupting. Empathy goes a long way towards building a relationship with someone with such a heavy workload.

In our Drill for Skills sessions we reiterate some simple do’s and don’ts…

Do

• Be polite and courteous and respectful.
• Listen, show an interest and ask questions that will help to qualify the prospect.
• Build a rapport – PA’s for example probably take over 20 sales calls a day, why would they put you through to their busy boss over somebody else?
• Recognise that the individual who answers the phone is an integral part of the sales process and respect them.
• Remember, if you can’t get them on side then you won’t get through to the decision maker.

 Don’t

• Be too forceful, pester or become a pain.
• Ignore the influencing power of the person answering the phone – they can be responsible for deciding who gets transferred through to the decision maker.
• Use the term ‘gatekeepers’!

 In fact here at Great Guns Marketing we have banned the ‘gatekeepers’ term within the office, instead using  ‘influencers’ – its much more positive and has definitely had a great impact on the success of our clients’ telemarketing campaigns.

Why role play is essential to efficient telemarketing?

Here at Great Guns we host many role play sessions on a weekly basis. This gives our telemarketers the opportunity to practice their approaches and objection handling in a safe environment.

In this “safe” environment our team can make all their mistakes and approach things from different perspectives without risking our clients’ brand.

When we first started role play as a training model many of our team found themselves completely out of their comfort zone. I found that people fell into two camps- those that love it and those that don’t.

The way I persuaded them that role play was a worthwhile exercise was to let them watch their colleagues achieve higher results than average – especially in the early stages of projects.

Role play should be a fun experience. I find that these sessions are always much more successful when our team are relaxed so I encourage loads of banter and creativity. I think it’s really important that we try and preempt as many objections and therefore prepare as many answers to objections as we can.

I know role play is critical because even the best telemarketers – myself included- find it difficult to come out of a client brief, pick up the phone immediately and sound fluid, professional and competent. Carrying out these sessions prior to project start not only gives our team the great opportunity to build their confidence but also gives our account managers the opportunity to ensure our guys have really understood our clients features and benefits.

I personally carried out a role play session this week on a project. The exercise was 40 minutes long and the transformation that took place in our telemarketers and their ability to present the client was incredible. When the session started they were rusty and their voices sounded quite monotone. By the time the session had finished they sounded like they had worked for the client for years and their personalities really came through in their tone. This was because our team members were now comfortable with the subject and able to combine this with their natural telemarketing abilities to successfully represent the client.

At Great Guns Marketing we offer Telemarketing training. If you don’t currently use role play with your team and want help in developing techniques, call Great Guns Marketing 01256330571.