How to train a telesales team: a manager's guide to telemarketing training for staff

Why do telemarketers fail without sales training?

The pattern is common. A business hires people to make outbound calls all day, trains them on the product, then wonders why the results do not come. "There's no point training them, they don't stay long," managers say. Jenny's reply: of course they leave if they are not getting results. Train them properly, they get results, and they want to stay.

Jenny once assessed a call centre where callers made around 300 calls a day each and booked one appointment per caller per day. They had product training but no sales training, and the average caller stayed three months. Jenny believes trained callers in that role should be closer to one appointment an hour.

Her own method came from the phone, not a textbook. While promoting events for speakers such as Anthony Robbins and Tom Hopkins, she made around 100 calls a day and achieved record sales. She noticed what she did differently from colleagues, wrote it all down, and that became the training program she has customised for teams ever since.

Who should you recruit for a telesales role?

Product knowledge can be taught in days. Attitude takes much longer. Jenny found that successful callers share four qualities: enthusiasm, a positive attitude, persistence and self-motivation.

• Do the first interview by phone, because that is how customers will hear them.
• Include a short role play and listen for warmth, energy and how they respond to a no.
• Ask how they have kept going after a run of rejections in the past.
• Look for curiosity. People who ask good questions in the interview usually ask good questions on calls.

A simple onboarding plan for new callers

Give new starters a clear path through their first month, so they build confidence before they face a cold list.

1. 1

   Learn the product and the customer

   Cover what you sell, who buys it and why, and the questions customers ask most. Let new starters listen in on your best caller's calls.

2. 2

   Train the sales skills

   Openings, questions, objections and closing, practised in role play until they feel natural, in a 1, 2 or 3 day program or shorter 2 to 3 hour sessions.

3. 3

   Go live with support

   Start on warmer lists, such as past customers, while a manager or coach listens and gives feedback the same day.

4. 4

   Coach every week

   Review recorded calls, rehearse the tricky moments and reset goals each week for at least the first three weeks.

5. 5

   Raise targets gradually

   Once the ratios settle, lift activity targets step by step and keep celebrating wins.

What should telemarketing training for staff cover?

Jenny's research into what top callers do shaped this checklist. Each topic should be practised in role play, not just explained.

1. Voice and enthusiasm. Nothing sells without enthusiasm, and how you say it matters as much as what you say. Encourage callers to smile and to stand up every five calls for a more confident voice.
2. Positive language. Swap "You can't get the discount after Friday" for what they can do. Drop words such as "cheap" and "deal".
3. Openings that make a cold call warm. Research the business first, open with a referral where you have one, and lead with a benefit. See cold call openings that grab interest.
4. Open questions. Questions starting with what, why, where, when, how, which and who build rapport and stop the call ending with a quick no.
5. Listening. Summarise back what the customer said so they know they were heard.
6. A presentation formula. Benefits rather than features, a testimonial, the value in dollar terms and a reason to act now.
7. Closing. Trial closes and choice questions, covered in how to close a sale.
8. Follow-up. After mail-outs, after-sales service and up-selling.
9. Call reluctance. Where it comes from (fear of rejection, gaps in product knowledge, low confidence) and how to beat it.

Give every caller a script, an objection sheet and a goal sheet

Jenny does not believe scripts should be read word for word. Preparing one gives callers clarity on the best way to express what you offer. They then internalise it and make it their own, so they sound natural. Recording themselves saying the script before going live is a useful rehearsal.

By the end of training, each caller should have four things in front of them: a sheet of powerful questions, a script that works, a list of common objections with prepared answers, and a goal sheet for calls, contacts and sales. So many callers hang up after the first objection simply because they never worked out an answer to the ones they hear every day. The how to handle objections guide helps you build that list.

If your team needs scripts built for your market, Jenny's telesales script writing service starts at around A$600.

Setting call targets and tracking results

Callers should set their own personal goals within your team targets. Without a target they own, call reluctance creeps in. Track a few numbers consistently, review them weekly and celebrate progress.

Make sure every decision maker's name goes into your database with a date for the next call. Give callers good headsets and a reliable phone system, and get the team together daily to share what is working, air frustrations and keep the energy up. A contact centre should be a fun place to work.

Why coaching after training makes skills stick

A training day gives your team the tools. Coaching makes them habits. Jenny gets her best results when in-house training is followed by one-to-one or small group coaching once a week for three weeks, listening to real calls and practising the tricky moments.

If you would rather run the training yourself, you can license Jenny's program. Course licensing for How to Triple Your Sales by Phone costs A$3,000 and includes the facilitator guide, participant workbook and videos.

Classic telemarketing mistakes managers can fix

When Jenny assesses telesales teams, the same mistakes appear again and again:

• Not giving the caller's name, the business name and the reason for the call at the start, which the telemarketing rules in Australia require.
• Asking for "the office manager" instead of a named decision maker.
• Moving on to the next number without recording who the decision maker was.
• Opening with "How are you going?" instead of a benefit.
• Closed questions that invite a quick no.
• Not listening, then asking for information the customer just gave.
• Closing with "Would you like to meet?" instead of "When would suit you, Monday or Tuesday?"

Outsourcing does not make these problems go away. If you use an outside call centre, give it your script, train its agents on your products, monitor results and check it follows Australian rules. The Do Not Call Register legislation applies wherever the call is made from, and the regulator can pursue the Australian business behind an overseas telemarketer. Time spent in training is never wasted.