Telephone: Business Tool

The telephone is an important business tool. To be successful in sales or any businesses, the use of telephone is a necessary skill to be mastered. The telephone serves the purpose of prospecting, following up, confirming appointments, servicing your customers, asking for referrals and many more. Cold canvassing on the street may be wasting a lot of time and many on transport, but cold calling at your home or office may be efficient and time-saving. For any salesperson who wants to succeed, they have to be committed, persistent and consistent in their cold calls.

Telephone proficiency can make or save you an enormous amount of money. However not many salespeople like to use the telephone. Many salespeople feel uneasy about telephone prospecting. Others have unconscious fears that paralyze them and hold them back. It is very normal for salespeople to face many rejections everyday. The phone calls that they made is one example. Out of the many phone calls that is being made, if they are lucky, they can have an appointment or two.

Mobile phones are very cheap nowadays. It is almost definite that almost all the people walking on the road have a cell phone with them. With more varieties of plans as well as cheaper plans, talking on the mobile phones are no longer as expensive as before too. Many businesspeople and salespeople make use of the mobile phones for prospecting as well as marketing their products to their existing customers.

The New York Times described mobile marketing as "the most powerful advertising medium ever." That's because 94% of all promotional text messages are opened and read compared to just 3% of promotional email messages that get through. Moreover, 84% of Americans have their cell phones on and with them 24/7. Text message short codes will soon become as common in advertisements as 800 numbers became in the early 1990's. Advanced Telecom Services offers a suite of online services called PromoTXT that enable media and advertisers to benefit from a text message campaign. This includes interactive text messaging via an SMS short code and text message alerts sent to your opt-in database. Everyday, I received many short SMS from various shopping centres, telling me about various promotion. I also received messages from the banks, informing us about investment plans. Unlike email, where you need to log on to internet, SMS via the mobile phone is almost reachable to every person nowadays.

Mobile marketing is surely another telephone technique to be learned if you want to increase your sales performance. Using the mobile phone to send out text message promotions can be very efficient. All you have to do is to compose a message and you can send it all your contacts. Sending bulk SMS like that really saves you a lot of time speaking on the telephone. There are still many people who have a handphone but do not know how to send instant messages. It is time these business people or salespeople should learn how to send SMS.