What's stopping you from marketing your business and especially making calls to set up appointments with prospective clients? You may be asking yourself the same question, and yet you still haven't picked up the phone and started dialing for your business dollars.

Your telephone is the most valuable tool in your business and yet it's the most under used. When used effectively, the telephone will get you more clients and more income — fast. Don't spend thousand of dollars in the wrong places: get on the phone!

The Biggest Barrier to Effective Telephone Use

Not knowing what to say to a prospective client is a big issue for sales and business people. In fact, I'm sure the annual loss in income to businesses today is in the multi-millions, maybe billions. I started PhoneTalk Communications to address this exact need. I was constantly being asked, “What should I say?" or "How do I ask for an appointment?”

Note:  This article only covers a few points. Stay tuned for future articles.

Getting Started

Before you get on the phone to potential customers, consider these three questions: Why? Who? What?

Why Are You Calling?

Start with the end in mind. What do you want from this call? Do you want an appointment to see this prospect? Do you want to schedule a phone interview? Do you want to send information with a follow up call to schedule an appointment? Be clear! If you're not clear about what you want, your prospective client won't be clear about what you want and will say something like: “This isn't for me”, “I don’t think I'm interested”, “Call me another time”.

Who Are You Calling?

Think about who you are targeting: a business owner, CEO of a company, Human Resource department. Will you be calling a home owner or individual market?

What's Important to Them?

Think about how you can get their attention. If you're making a cold call, maybe you need a statement of benefit for them; then ask for a moment to talk. (The idea is to target your market, sorting out the people who would not be interested in your product or service).

Suppose you're making a cold call to request an appointment to discover where you can help a company. In this case, your opening statement will need to be fairly general. You want to engage the person in conversation that will lead to an appointment. Remember, you are selling the appointment only, not your product or service. You want to get in front of the prospect to discover their needs, so you can provide the best solution.

If you try to sell your product or service when making an appointment, you give this prospect something to aim at: “No thanks, we don’t need that”. They may not ‘need that’, but they might benefit from all or some of the other products or services you have. So don’t try and sell too early, only sell at your appointment, once you have a better understanding of their needs and how your products or services fit.