Dear Tony,
I have found out that my sales staff plays a game whereby they try to quote famous movie lines to customers over the phone during sales pitches. This seems very unprofessional to me, and I usually wouldn’t condone it, but since it started their morale and sales have gone up. How do I stop a potential customer relations disaster but keep the sales and morale high?
I have heard this before and it certainly does seem to boost morale and have a positive impact on results. My thoughts on this are, as long the prospective customer is unaware that it’s being done and therefore doesn’t take any offence, then its fine. It’s crucial that the perception of the sales team is always professional, friendly, polite and enthusiastic; as long as they are perceived in that manner, then a bit of fun can’t hurt anyone.
Many sales people fear the phone and they attempt to do anything but pick the phone up; the longer this continues the more frightening the task of making sales calls becomes. Therefore, if you can reposition a sales call in a sales persons mind that it is a game and it can be fun, then it takes away the fear factor and changes how they approach the call.
Other ideas I have suggested to improve the morale is bring into their conversation a famous saying i.e. it’s raining cats and dogs and reward the first sales person to achieve this with a bottle of wine. For such a small reward, it’s quite incredible what a difference this makes to call activity and morale in the office. After an hour of pitching, it’s incredible how all the nerves go out the window.
I recommend having different themes throughout the day to keep the team engaged and motivated. You can use famous song titles, phrases, movie titles etc. Equally, you can challenge the team to find out personal information about their clients to build rapport and the person who finds out the most wins.
Although it’s great that the sales team start to enjoy making calls, they must always remember the GAP of the call:
Goal – what are they looking to achieve as a result of their call?
Angle – What is the reason for their call? What are they going to discuss that will create an interest and engage their prospect?
Prepared – Are they truly prepared to make the call?
As long as the GAP is covered and they sound professional, then not only do I condone some fun, I encourage it!
