Training programs are only as useful as the results they produce. Are yours producing the results you’re looking for? Let the telephone skills professionals come in to review your programs, upgrade them if necessary, and get back the results you’ve been missing.

The goal of all PFS training programs is to produce long-lasting, tangible, positive results that will increase overall staff performance. Our extensive experience conducting telephone skills training programs has taught us that they are far more effective when they are customized to suit the unique needs of each individual company. By providing information and examples in our training that relate specifically to your products and services, and by showing how this information can benefit trainees both personally and professionally, your sales professionals will dramatically increase their learning and retention—and your bottom line will show it.

“Two Sides of the Same Coin” enabled us to unify the sales and service process…Our trainers have now delivered the program to almost 600 people and we have an ambitious calendar scheduled.”
-Elaine Kiuber, Bank of America

Two Sides of the Same Coin - Sales & Service
3-Day Training Program

A combined sales and service training program that maximizes the true potential of every customer contact.

Two Sides of the Same Coin is a 3-Day combined training program for all staff that performs both sales and service functions! The cross-training benefits for staff as well as managers and supervisors result in one of the highest returns you can get for your training investment.

Two Sides of the Same Coin demonstrates that sales and service are really just two different ways of achieving the same goal: superior customer service while up-selling and cross-selling products as a means of meeting customer needs.  When done right, customers benefit exponentially…and so does your organization! This program is the solution when a traditional two-program approach - one for sales and one for customer service - is not appropriate.

Win-Win-Win for Staff, Customers — and Your Bottom Line!

Two Sides of the Same Coin is designed to help you meet the challenges of today’s highly competitive marketplace. Your staff will feel better about their work, your customers will be happier and more loyal — and your bottom line will prove it! Deliverables include:
•    A common language unifying customer service and sales staff
•    Increased sales of company products and services
•    Increased customer satisfaction
•    Increased customer retention
•    Cost-effective cross-training

Sample Topics
Course content is determined once the needs assessment phase has been completed by Phone for Success with your company’s call center project team.

Sales & Service Overview

•    How to Communicate Effectively - The Four Principles behind effective telephone communication:  Audio Only, The Summons, Commanding Attention, and Dialog.

•    Everyone Sells - From combing one’s hair to getting dressed to meet the world, we are all involved in being advocates for ourselves and selling our ideas each and every day.  Selling skills are life enrichment skills that, if they are learned correctly, can make our lives more interesting and rewarding.  This is a beginning motivational module designed to show that we are all involved in the sales process and how it’s in our personal interest to be excellent sales practitioners.

Greeting Customers

•    Introducing Yourself - The first 15 seconds of every call should include critical elements that help to establish early rapport.  You only get one chance to make a good first impression.  Learn the important elements that must be included in your introduction.

•    Prepare: Anticipate Needs, Get Organized, Get Focused - all professionals, whether athletes, actors, lawyers…etc, prepare and get organized before they perform their best work. This segment covers all the things you need to do before you meet your customer on the phone.  Topics include pre-call planning, time management, setting primary and secondary objectives for your day.

•    Building Rapport - Easy-to-follow, illustrated steps that help to develop and maintain rapport and build relationships with both customers and prospects.

•    Professional Voice Techniques That Create a Positive First Impression - Voice technique depends upon appropriate pacing, diction, proper inflection, and speaking in an enthusiastic tone.

•    Understanding: Asking, Listening, and Restating - A consultative approach requires you to truly understand your customer/prospect. Define each of these important steps and discuss why they are essential tools when working to establish rapport and  “real conversation”.

•    Understanding Customer Needs - Probing is a process that starts with the discovery of a need (or needs) that the customer/prospect may be unaware of and leads to a desire for a solution.  Reps will also learn that they must earn the right to ask questions.

•    Selective Hearing, Hearing without Understanding, and Active Listening - Everyone hears… but no one really listens.  This section contains great practical advice on how to listen effectively on the phone.  Topics include how to avoid being judgmental and how to focus on the customer/prospect after your 90th call even when you think you’ve heard it all before.

•    Asking open-ended questions to build rapport - How to ask effective, open-ended questions that uncover needs and lead to strong, proactive conversations vs. one-sided, interrogatory monologues.

•    Paraphrasing the customer/prospect’s needs - An important active listening skill that helps build rapport and identify which features, benefits and solutions to present.

Presenting Solutions (Service Situations)

•    Responding with a Choice of Options - Everyone, your customer/prospect included, wants to feel in control of all situations.  This segment is designed to help you and your customer/prospect arrive at several options to resolve a need or handle a difficult problem. Through role-play exercises the trainee is encouraged to think creatively and help customers come to appropriate solutions resulting in loyal, delighted customers.

•    Setting Expectations - Taking charge of each telephone call and setting the right expectations of outcomes is one of the keys to being a professional on the phone.  This segment shows how to set appropriate expectations and get positive reactions.

Presenting Solutions (Sales Situations)

•    Identifying Customer/prospect Needs - Probing skills are key elements in establishing rapport, gaining control, uncovering needs (qualifying), and identifying present and future opportunities.

•    Linking Features to Benefits - Important to the prospect/customer only if they are based on needs that have either been expressed or implied in the probing stage.

•    Power and Action Words - In an audio-only environment, words take on heightened meaning.  There are several words you can use to capture attention and get customers/prospects to focus more effectively on what you are trying to communicate.  There are also several emotionally charged words that should be avoided because they could get in the way of establishing rapport and communicating your message.  This segment covers the best words to use.

•    Recognizing Buying Signals - Learn to recognize buying signals and bring the customer/prospect to a successful close by using questions that elicit “yes” responses.

Closing

•    Up-selling and Cross-selling - The link between probing, listening, and the opportunity to offer additional products and services that might meet a customer/prospect’s needs.  We encourage proactive attitudes that will help reps overcome a prevalent fear of being pushy.

•    The C.A.R.E. Method:  Clarify, Ask questions, Resolve, and End with a trial close.

•    Types of “Closes”: Choice, Assumptive, Direct - Learn to recognize different types of objections and several successful methods for overcoming each type.  All possible objections that might be raised about your product will be covered.

•    The Importance of Reassurance - Learn how to make the prospect feel they have made the right decision.

Handling Challenges

•    Anticipating and Viewing Objections as Opportunities - Learn how to overcome your fear of objections, and even welcome them as a natural part of the buying process.  Use the “Feel/Felt/Found” technique to keep the customer/prospect involved and listen to and acknowledge their comments.

•    Reliable Techniques for Handling Objections - Learn to recognize different types of objections and several successful methods for overcoming each type. All possible objections that customers might raise about your product will be covered.

•    How to Handle Challenging Customers Using S.E.R.V.E.™
Techniques for handling challenging and irate customers and resolving their complaints and upsets.   Depersonalize trying situations while resolving customer needs amicably, empathetically, and professionally. Learn how to remain upbeat, motivated and “not take the call personally”.

•    Getting Agreement - Learn to recognize solution and satisfaction signals and bring the customer to a successful resolution by using questions that elicit “yes” responses.

Does your call center:

• Handle inbound or outbound calls or both,
• Handle B2B and/or B2C calls.
• Perform inside sales for high-net-worth clients or high-value products
• Cold-call to generate leads, appointments or sales
• Have a help desk, or provide tech support, or
• Want to increase your staff’s ability to upsell or cross-sell,

If you answered YES to any of the above, we can deliver dramatic results with
performance increases of 200% or more.

Our specialty is telephone communication for sales, and according to our clients we excel at what we do.

When Dale Carnegie, a leader in sales and communication training was looking to improve its staff’s telephone sales performance, they came to us to help them implement a training program. The result was a 50% sales increase virtually overnight. While those results would make any client happy, the real test of whether training program is worth the money is whether those results hold up for the long term.

Seminars Don’t Work

A seminar can be fun, exciting, inspiring and even teach something important. But it rarely changes behavior for the long term. In fact, the benefits last only for a week or two at most. No matter what you spend on a seminar, you’ve spent too much if your goals are long term.

While we will happily deliver a one-day seminar to fire your staff up for a special launch, we will also customize a systematic reliable process for your company that will actually change behavior for long-term sales success.

Results Get Better and Better—even two years later

If you’ve ever witnessed the results from your training investment dwindle after a few weeks, your experience is no different from 90% of the companies that have hired an outside firm to deliver a training seminar. Our track record is just the opposite. Our clients:
• Get great results immediately
• Results keep improving over time
Many of our clients report continued performance improvement more than two years after the initial training program.

Why We Get Outstanding Results

• Our programs are designed so that results keep getting better over time
• We deliver a complete system and strategy—not a seminar.
• Follow-up is built into our programs right from the start
• Supervisors are a key part of the program and learn how to coach for immediate and long-term results
• We customize all programs, incorporating deep product/service knowledge and your unique value proposition.
• Experts who have been on the phone in similar situations deliver our programs
• Our CEO, a recognized expert, is personally involved with all projects

Joel is recognized worldwide as one of the leading expert on telephone sales techniques and customer service excellence. A frequent keynote lecturer, speaker and trainer, he is also the Author of The Complete Guide to Tele-Marketing Management, a book that has received broad acclaim, has been reprinted in Japanese, and is considered one of the definitive books in the field.

Joel has trained thousands of employees to use the telephone effectively in virtually every kind of business environment. His innovative programs
reflect a results-oriented, proactive philosophy that leads to increased motivation, sales and service excellence and job satisfaction. His friendly, direct and interactive approach has made his programs popular, practical and rewarding. Managers, Supervisors and staff who participate in his programs consistently generate sales and service results to be proud of.

Joel is president and founder of the New York Metropolitan Chapter of the American Teleservices Association, and is a member of the National Speakers Association. He has appeared on Moneyline, Court TV, Money Radio, and American Radio. He has also written articles for publications, such as Call Center Magazine, Telemarketing Magazine, TeleProfessional an The Selling Advantage.

Randy Wells - Senior Consultant

Randy Wells has always been a leader having built many successful organizations. As Senior VP for Michael Gerber (the “e” myth) Randy learned that systems management is the key to the dynamic growth of any organization. “Growth can be 10 fold in a short amount of time if the proper systems are in place to accommodate”. He was instrumental in building the largest internet attorney matching solution in the industry. LegalMatch.com grew 300% in the years Randy spent with that organization as its CEO. He understands the sales process and the scripting and training necessary to accomplish your goals. Mr. Wells is in the Hall of Fame for Prudential Financial Services, having developed the number 1 ranking for sales in the entire country. During his tenure at Prudential, he led a team in developing a recruiting, training, monitoring and management system that enabled his representatives to more than double the company average. He has graduated from the Presidents Negotiation School (the Sandler System), has completed advanced coursework in Taxation, Investment Analysis, and Wealth Accumulation Strategies through an extension of USC and completed many other courses through the year.

Understanding the end result, then building the framework to achieve it has always been the basis for success.

Toni S. Erlich - Director of Training

Toni is a professional trainer specializing in interpersonal communication skills. Her approach to training is hands-on and she readily involves participants in learning through discussion, structured exercises, and role-playing.  Her coaching skills are extraordinary and her sessions are lively and well received.  Toni’s informal approach yields consistently high ratings.

A wide variety of industries and Fortune 500 companies, including AT&T, Estee Lauder, Chase Bank, Exxon Mobil, and the New York Stock Exchange have used her Active Communicating and Listen! programs.  She has been on the faculty of the Graduate School of Management at The New School for Social Research and she has served as a course leader for the American Management Association.  Toni has also written handbooks for the insurance industry and written articles for a broad range of business publications.

Toni has enjoyed a lengthy tenure with Phone for Success as Director of Training. She has spoken before many organizations, both live and on television, and maintains membership in a variety of professional associations.

Lucy Lasky  - Senior Consultant

Lucy is a Senior Consultant with more than twenty years of experience in sales and sales management. She has held numerous positions, ranging from Senior Sales Executive to Vice President, within a variety of industries. She has held management positions with several companies including Cable and Wireless, Sprint, and Prudential.

Lucy has worked with numerous call centers in such diverse companies as Prudential, Dale Carnegie Training, Bank of America, and Dreyfus Mutual Funds. Her experience includes designing training programs, manuals and job aids. In addition, Lucy has broad experience training and delivering seminars on TeleConsulting, Sales, and Sales Management Techniques.

Lucy is the former CEO of UpTheLadder, an executive search agency providing custom services for a limited number of corporate clients. Her candidates include C-level executives, all levels of management, and key corporate personnel in Marketing, Sales, and Finance.  UpTheLadder is now a subsidiary of the Phone For Succes Corp.

Phone for Success operates with a multi-tiered approach to consulting and management.

We can assist you in the complete end to end creation and training of a call center, or assist in any aspect thereof.
PFS specializes in compliance with ATA and FTC guideline training and is a noted expert in scripting, monitoring and reporting systems.
Phone for Success has completed inbound and outbound scripting and training for some of the largest organizations in the United States.

– Joel Linchitz, President of Phone for Success

What If You Could Maximize The Results Of Every Customer Contact?

Every communication that occurs in the telephone channel is an opportunity for your firm to increase profits and retain customers. Whether you have field sales that use the phone to generate appointments, call center or inside sales personnel who sell products directly, or a customer service team that has a variety of responsibilities, there are numerous situations that if handled optimally, would result in increased revenues and profits.

That’s what Phone for Success has been doing for its clients for over 20 years.
We have an unparalleled track record of working with companies to maximize the performance of all personnel with customer contact responsibilities.

Our objective is not to sell you a Training Program; but to maximize your profit potential by turning every telephone communication into an opportunity. Sometimes this involves creating better sales strategies for the medium, easy to use tools for your personnel or a customized training program. We help your staff capitalize on missed opportunities to sell, generate appointments, retain more customers, up-sell and cross-sell, and always to build future goodwill with customers.

WHAT WE DELIVER:

• Dramatic increases in sales performance
• Maximum up-sell and cross-sell opportunities
• High level sales professionals that achieve their full sales potential
• The ultimate Customer Service experience to your clients
• Field sales reps who can double their appointments by cold calling
• Frontline Managers who can motivate their team for long term results
• Employees trained to maximize their results from every customer contact

TRAINING

Can You Track Your Training Results Directly To Your Bottom Line?

Today, you can no longer afford to spend money and hope for the best. Neither can you train your staff just because it might motivate them for a week or two. Any budget money you spend has to be an investment that will pay off now and for the long term.

. For more than 20 years, we have been delivering extraordinary results with our customized Phone for Success ® Training Programs to companies like Sharp, Sonoco, ING, Prudential, and many others. All of our clients both large and small have one thing in common: They can demonstrate more sales, and more profits directly related to our participation.

Based on the proven Phone for Success ® methodology developed by our CEO, Joel Linchitz, (he literally wrote the book on Sales and Service Training for the telephone medium) we have trained thousands of reps and Frontline Managers to achieve results that immediately lead to increased profits.

Contact us now and we will demonstrate how we can guarantee your success

CONSULTING

How Do You Meet Your Profit Objectives In a Tough Economy?

In every organization there are numerous one to one conversations between your company representatives and your customers and prospects. While one missed opportunity may not dramatically alter company profits, when taken together, however, the calls that occur each day can have a significant effect on the bottom line. As a Training and Consulting Firm we look to convert those lost opportunities into new found profits.

Starting with a thorough Needs Assessment, we look at all customer touch points, across various business channels for opportunities to sell more effectively, retain more customers, collect more revenue, and bring more profit to the bottom line.

As Consultants, Phone for Success ® understands that any successful solution must fit the unique and specific needs of your company or department. We can examine your current results by analyzing several areas that might be impacting performance including hiring, training, incentives and motivation, leadership and coaching issues.

If any of these issues are affecting your business performance, contact us and we will demonstrate how we can guarantee your success.

COACHING

On-Going Coaching Is The Key to Long Term Results

Seminars are great motivational tools, but unless you have the right follow-up your investment may not last for more than a few weeks. Phone for Success ® Programs are designed to accomplish just the opposite. Our clients report that they are still seeing dramatic results even after 2 years of our initial Training Program.

Our results last because we have learned that changing behavior doesn’t happen until you create new habits. And new habits are not created overnight regardless of how good or motivating a Training Seminar might be.

Your Supervisors And Coaches Hold The Keys To Long Term Success.

From Day One we focus on your Supervisory staff, we get their buy in and make sure they have the Coaching tools, structure, and techniques to continue the learning process long after we delivered our initial Program to your Sales or Service reps. We provide a systematic reliable process that Coaches can easily use to give feedback, conduct on-the-spot training, evaluate staff, set clear cut measurable goals and drive performance.

Tell us what you need and we will start providing immediate help in building new standards of excellence and quick improvements to your bottom line.

All people in business today have phones they use every day-to listen, to obtain information, to persuade.  I view those business phones as resources.  And used pro-actively, every phone in your organization can be a profit-making resource.  This book explains how.
Telemarketing is no longer new, and many fine books on the topic are available today.  But most deal with telemarketing as if there were only one way to go about achieving success.  The Complete Guide to Telemarketing Management is different; it shows that the design and implementation of your telemarketing program are determined by your specific application.
Although its main focus is on business-to-business telemarketing, the Guide also covers the full range if inbound and outbound telemarketing applications, including business to consumer.  If the more complex and sophisticated requirements of high-ticket, business-to-business telemarketing are understood, then the same principles can easily be transferred and applied to low-ticket and consumer marketing programs.

There are tested, fundamental principles of telemarketing.  Years of “trial and error” telephone selling have given way to controlled, systematic methods.  Today, telemarketing means being in control-of your message, your market, and your costs.  This book is for business leaders, marketing and sales executives, and business owners who sense that they can use this type of telemarketing and what that kind of control.
Currently, over 57.8 billion a year is spent on telephone marketing, placing it firmly in the upper ranks of a major marketing media.  Two factors have primarily fueled this growth trend.
First, while costs of all other marketing media have risen dramatically, telemarketing costs have actually gone down.  Second, new development in telephone marketing have made it much more attractive than conventional marketing methods.  This is particularly true when telemarketing is employed in conjunction with conventional methods, as part of your overall marketing plan.
The Complete Guide to Telemarketing Management provides fundamental telemarketing principles, using a step-by-step, “how to” approach.  It answers these key questions:
•    How can I use the telephone to increase sales and profits?
•    What information do I need to achieve that result?
•    What are the tools my people need to achieve that result?

Part I of the book concentrates on the first question, providing basic concepts needed to understand how a successful telemarketing strategy achieves a return on investment (ROI) of $20:1 (or better).  It explains why telemarketing is not telephoning.  To some readers, Part I may seem unnecessary or “too theoretical”.  Nothing prevents them from skipping ahead, of course, though the following fact should make them hesitate: Fifty percent of all telemarketing programs fail with six months-fail to produce projected sales, fail to support the marketing plan, fail to generate black ink.  Knowing at least some of the theory and the psychology of telephone communication (and how to make it work for you) can make the difference in sales dollars, market share, and your bottom line.
Part II takes the fundamentals from Part I and shows how use them to plan and develop a systematic telemarketing strategy.  The focus is primarily on outbound, business-to-business telemarketing, for two reasons:

1.    Outbound, business-to-business telemarketing presents the most complex challenge.
2.    The other type of telemarketing (consumer sales, inbound sales customer service), though less challenging to develop and manage, can be built on the same basic principles.

Case histories and examples culled from nearly fifteen years of telemarketing management and development experience are used throughout Part II.  They demonstrate clearly how clients in a range of industries use these fundamental principles to increase sales, market share, and bottom-line income.  Equally important, the case histories document the pitfalls the unwary can stumble into and show how to avoid them.
Part III is devoted to one of those pitfalls: the critical issue of scripting.  More than any other factor, lack of a good script can kill an otherwise solid telemarketing program because your script is the key to controlling the medium.  Most marketers-including many ad agency professionals-are not comfortable writing telemarketing scripts.  Their scripts tend to be too wordy and end up being unbelievable.  Anyone who has been on the receiving end of a telemarketing call-and by now most readers have-knows just how phony many scripts sound.  So I devote four chapters to this topic and walk you through the process of developing scripts for both inbound and outbound calls.
Part IV concentrates on specific knowledge and skills telemarketing staff must have to carry out a telemarketing strategy and achieve its objectives.  For managers, it offers detailed guidelines for making key decisions about hiring, training, compensating, and motivating telemarketing personnel.  Examples of checklists, training exercises, forms, and procedures are provided so the new telemarketing manager can adapt them easily.
One of the key issues in telemarketing is training.  This book emphasizes how to teach the important skills of probing and paraphrasing because without them, your telemarketers cannot control the call.
In addition, I address the problem of “fear of phoning”-particularly common in programs that involve getting outside salespeople on the phone to generate appointments.  However, every telemarketing manager must confront and manage this fear or risk declining profits.  How do you get telemarketers to handle fear of phoning, stay on the phone, and overcome it?  My solution to his common problem is detailed in Part IV.
The focus in Part V is on key implementation issues, with practical advice on how to approach automation, telephone equipment, and long-distance services, and the major legal and ethical issues that telemarketing technology has raised.
Telemarketing isn’t a cure-all for sagging sales or a quick fix for product quality that doesn’t meet the competitions.  But properly planned and executed, telemarketing does deliver your message-to people who are ready to buy-and convert them to customers effectively and predictably.  The Complete Guide to Telemarketing distills what I’ve learned about this amazing medium and shows why it can work for you.

Chapter 1

Getting the Most Out of Every Phone You Own

“I hear! I hear!”
- Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, upon first communicating by telephone, 1876

Today most people smile at Dom Pedro’s exclamation of amazement.  With nearly 273 million telephones in the United States alone-including over 70 million business phones-most Americans now take instant telephone communication for granted.
“Everyone”, it seems, has a phone these days.  At home, at work, in the car, even on airliners anyone can punch a few buttons and call cross-town or across continents.  But does “everyone” really know how to get the most out of this powerful means of communication?  The answer is no.  Using the phone the way most people do is like using a powerful computer to perform simple, one-time calculations.  Used properly, computers increase productivity.  Used properly, so can your telephones.
Start with the three essential characteristics of telephone communication that follow:

1.    It summons a response.
2.    It is audio only.
3.    It is interactive.

These characteristics differentiate the telephone from every other communication medium.  Knowing them, and their special advantages, is your first step toward getting the most out of every phone you own.

THE TELEPHONE IS A SUMMONS

Have you ever settled down after a long day to relax, maybe read the newspaper, only to have the phone ring?  Many would be tempted to let it ring, but most people get up and answer it most of the time.  Why is a ringing telephone so hard to ignore?
Clearly, it’s the power of curiosity at work.  (Think of the extreme case of the passerby who answers a ringing public phone-a call that can only be meant for someone else.)  The summons of the phone is nearly irresistible because it raises questions:

•    Who’s calling?
•    Why?
•    What’s in it for me?

In addition to arousing curiosity, the summons of the phone makes us stop what we’re doing to answer it.  It interrupts us.  Though we may idly doodle while on the phone, it is close to impossible to do anything very substantial.  At least initially, we give the phone our undivided attention.
Other media, such as radio or television, rarely makes us focus on their message to the same extent.  Perhaps only during “live” broadcasts in times of crisis or coverage of major sports events are we riveted to the television in quite the same way as we are during the first few seconds of a phone call.
No matter what your business purpose in dialing, this summoning property of the phone puts you in a supremely powerful position.  If you have the means to satisfy the curiosity of the person you’ve summoned to the phone, you’re closer to achieving the purpose of the call.  If you know how to sustain the call recipient’s attention after the first few seconds, you’ve begun to make your phone, and potentially every phone your business pays for, a revenue producer.
But the opposite also holds true.  If you call people, you’re interrupting them and grabbing their attention.  If you’re not prepared to satisfy the questions your call immediately raises and keep attention focused, then you’re missing opportunities-for sales, leads, information, or whatever the purpose of the call is.

THE ENVIROMENT OF THE TELEPHONE

Communicating on the telephone means conveying your message in a solely audio environment.  You must shape your message to fit the requirements of this environment.  If you compare the solely audio environment with other environments, you can see why different approaches are needed.  In the move theater, a hush falls over the audience when the lights go down.  As images fill the immense screen and the sound track begins, the audience is swept into the film’s reality.
Watch the same film on television and it doesn’t have nearly the same effect.  The space is much smaller, and the screen is, too.  The quality and volume of the sound are much lower.  Frequently, some segments of the film may be cut to meet network requirements.  In total effect, the film is much less of an encompassing experience on television.
Movies combine both audio and visual media to convey time, place, characters, and their interactions.  When a competent director makes a movie, he or she creates a “world” that envelops the audience.
Within this world the director can shape the audience’s senses to achieve a specific emotional state.  A fine movie will not only accomplish this, but will also affect the audience in some permanent way.  Lower quality movies are more easily shrugged off-“It was just a movie.”  Their emotional effect-whether pity, fear horror, or some other-is temporary.
Compared with films, television generally lack this capacity to envelope the audience and produce a sustained emotional state except perhaps when it is conveying real events as they happen.  Radio comes closest to the telephone in the environment it provides for conveying a message.  It is an intimate, audio only environment.  Just a few decades ago, leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt were identified largely by their distinctive voices, as transmitted by radio.  Marshall McLuhan best described the impact of the isolated, amplified human voice:

If we sit and talk in a dark room, words suddenly acquire new meanings and different textures…All those gestural qualities that the printed page strips from language come back in the dark and on the radio.  Given only the sound of the play, we have to fill in all of the senses, not just the sight of the action.

The classical example of the power of the human voice in this environment-its power to arouse, excite, and inspire action-occurred one evening in 1938.  That night, the great actor/director Orson Welles threw the entire New York metropolitan area into a panic.  Welles announced over his Mercury Theater radio program that an army of Martians had just invaded New Jersey.  Using the device of the news flash, he created a graphic scenario of extraterrestrial attack.  The response of his audience is history.  Hundreds ran from their homes, seeking protection from the unseen army.  Telephones lines were jammed with calls for help.  Some even reported sightings of the creatures.  All of this resulted because of the human voice.
Like the radio, the telephone provides an environment for the human voice to create a scenario and convey a reality.  In the vacuum created by this single focus, the importance of voice quality is enormously heightened.
When you listen to a voice on the telephone, you inevitably “see” with your ears.  You are stimulated to supply the missing data the medium does not convey.  The sound of the message you receive is as important as its sense.
Clearly, a key to communicating well in an audio only environment is the voice quality of the communicator.  Tone, rate, and inflection can create an image in the listener’s mind and inspire action.  And though you don’t need to be a Churchill or Roosevelt to communicate well, you do need to make a conscious effort.  A good telephone voice differentiates professionals from amateurs.
The audio only environment of the phone also means you must choose your words carefully.  You don’t have eye contact and body languages to help you convey your message.  And you can’t see your listener’s expressions.  You may see this as negative.  What it really means, though, is that the medium imposes a special requirement on you-to script your calls.
Looked at another way, the nonvisual aspect of telephone communication works for you.  Your appearance or taste in clothing can’t detract from your message, and your aides, such as scripts, cannot be seen.

THE TELEPHONE IS INTERACTIVE

Like direct mail, the phone allows you to get a direct response from each individual you call.  But unlike direct mail, the phone doesn’t limit you to an initial response.  Even when the response on the phone is negative, you can still interact and probe for the reasons behind it.  You may even be able to turn the initial negative response into a positive one.  At the least, you can get valuable information.

•    Does this person have needs our company can meet, either now or in the near term?
•    If so, when should we call again to receive a positive response?
•    If not, let’s remove this name form the “live” file so we can concentrate on more likely candidates.

The telephone allows you to have an individual dialogue on a mass scale.  Think about the following:

•    Five people on the phone (two, four-hour shifts) can make an average of 200 presentations in a single business day.
•    That’s 1,000 a week and 4,500 each month.
•    Five people on the phone calling consumers at home between 5:00 and 9:00 can make seventy-five presentations per hour.
•    That’s 300 per evening, 1,500 per week, 6,000 per month.

Clearly, the telephone can be used as a mass medium.  Yet because it allows for individualized exchange, it is both less alienating and more flexible than other mass media.
How can you get the potential of this interactive mass medium to work for your business?  How can you get the most out of every phone you own?  There are two main points to remember.
First, whether you use the phone as a mass medium or not, every call you make should have at least two planned objectives.  The key word is planned.  Without planning your call objectives, you can’t have a dialogue because you don’t know what you’re looking for.  One objective is always primary: a sale, an appointment, an agreement of some kind.  The secondary objective(s) may vary, but often they amount to information-about timing, needs, other useful contacts-that bring you closer to achieving your primary objective.
The second point to remember is this.  A dialogue is a give-and-take process.  You listen and respond.  If you (or your callers) are not prepared for this process or don’t know the techniques it requires, you won’t be getting the most from every phone you own.

SUMMARY

Three characteristics make the phone a unique communication medium:

1.    It is a summons.
2.    It is audio only.
3.    It is interactive.

Each of these characteristics imposes special requirements on you as a communicator.  If your calls meet these requirements, you have begun to get the full return on your telephone investment.
The summons of the phone means it arouses curiosity and focuses attention.  As a communicator, you must be able to quickly satisfy that curiosity and sustain that attention.
The audio-only characteristic of the phone means that the sound of your voice and the words you choose to convey your message are all you’ve got to create an impression.  So telephone voice quality can and must be enhanced, and careful scripting is essential.
The interactive characteristic of the telephone means that you must be prepared for a dialogue process when you call.  This means knowing in advance what your objectives are and knowing how to use dialogue techniques to achieve them.

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Managers & Trainers
5-Day Training Program

Own or License the Best Training Program on the Planet

Prepare your in-house trainers to deliver Phone for Success® training programs whenever you need them.

Certification and Licensing

Our Train-the-Trainer® Certification Program is a four-step process that ensures your company trainers will be able to deliver program modules from any of our telephone sales and/or service programs consistently and successfully.

Step 1: Personal Interview
Trainer candidates are required to have a minimum of three years of platform experience and an interview with Joel Linchitz to determine if they match our defined sales and service profile for teaching this program.

Step 2: Observation of our Program (Certification days 1 and 2)
Selected trainers learn our program through observing and modeling our approach, techniques, and methodologies as we present our training program to a pilot group of reps from your company. We encourage trainers to personalize all elements of the program they will ultimately present. This includes examples, sales/service situations they’ve encountered, solutions to specific problems, and responses to objections.

Step 3: Trainer Presentation (Certification days 3 and 4)
Trainers present selected program modules to additional staff while Joel Linchitz evaluates, critiques, and certifies their delivery based on a set of written criteria.

Step 4: Post-training Feedback and Review (Certification day 5)
Joel Linchitz conducts a post-training session with trainer(s) to debrief their experience and give them feedback on their delivery. Certified trainers will each receive a Certificate of Excellence at the conclusion of this session.

Core Documentation

We develop, research, and customize a Leader’s Guide for your trainers to use as the core documentation for the training program. We present the materials in a facing-page format with text and program information on one page and the related exercises and role-plays on the opposite page. The Phone for Success® training programs materials are noted for their clear and direct instructions to trainers, and for brief, easy-to-understand language in participant workbooks..

What We Deliver

• Licensing and Materials
Your company will have a license to order training materials from us, OR the right to reproduce materials for unlimited use and rollout.

• Train-the-Trainer Leader’s Guide
This guide forms the core training tool. It contains all training materials for the Phone for Success Certification Program. Training standards, schedules, and methodologies that we have developed and perfected over the last 20 years are integrated with your company’s sales/service information, culture, training requirements, and standards of excellence. The Leader’s Guide is the foundation for delivering and achieving your company’s sales and customer retention goals in the future.

• Teaching Aids
Customized color overhead slides (or software for LCD projection), handouts, exercises, and notes are provided for each skill set or module in the Phone for Success( Certification Program.

• Companion Student Workbook
This workbook is for training all designated telephone sales and service personnel. It is used in conjunction with the Train-the-Trainer Leader’s Guide, and follows the same step-by-step format.

• Follow-Up Support
Because the first six months is critical to the success of any training program, we will make appropriate arrangements for on-going consultation time. We are also prepared to oversee and monitor the project on an as-needed basis to make certain the program achieves your objectives. This would include additional training, if necessary, and trouble-shooting any problems that may arise.

• Training Expansion
PFS has the flexibility and resources to augment your company training schedule with our own certified trainers should it be necessary to meet deadlines or train more people.

• Supplemental Tools

We can support your in-house efforts to maintain long-term performance results by providing:

a. Offsite Monitoring to augment your coaching staffs resources expertise
b. Web Broadcasts with leading authorities on sales and service training
c. Teleconferences with your coaching staff to increase their knowledge base
and troubleshoot concerns.

Sales/service reps can learn to capture spectacular performance results by mastering the proven methods of Phone for Success“, a pioneer in needs-based telephone selling. Inbound or outbound reps, B2B or B2C all can explosively boost your call center’s performance—and your bottom line.

We Can Help:
• Boost your reps’ Telephone selling abilities
• Deliver the ultimate in customer service experience
• Maximize upsell and cross-sell opportunities
• Field sales reps master cold calling techniques

A SYSTEMATIC RELIABLE PROCESS FOR LONG-TERM PERFORMANCE GAINS

With 25+ years of training and consulting experience we know that seminars are great short-term events but they can never substitute for using a systematic, reliable process
that is fully integrated into your corporate culture, thoroughly customized to your value proposition and supported by managers who have been certified to follow-up, coach, and
lead their staff to success.

BY UNDERSTANDING YOUR BUSINESS NEEDS WE GET EXCEPTIONAL RESULTS

PFS customizes its workshops and training materials to reflect your company’s specific
needs and marketplace; we develop problem-solving strategies that address your marketing plans and sales goals; we take the time to become experts in selling your products and/or services and identify your key issues. As a result, our programs echo your culture, language, and specific solutions in our workshops and dialogue guides. PFS training solutions not only increase rep buy-in to the training, but establish the platform for long-term results.

Our proven track record shows performance improvements of over 200%

You can apply our systematic process to:

• Maximize sales for all call center sales professionals
• Maximize service for call center professionals
• Move from service applications to include sales offerings
• Maximize sales for high-level inside sales professionals
• Manage your pipeline and accounts for sales or sales support functions
• Upsell and cross-sell in the call center environment
• Get call reluctant field sales professionals to generate cold call appointments
• Add sales applications to technical support/service support and maximize success
• Improve morale and motivation with service staff who are asked to transition to sales responsibilities
• Help supervisory staff coach and motivate staff to excellence

Top Ten Reasons* We Get Outstanding Results

10. Our programs are designed so that results get better and better over time
9. Participants buy-in to our programs before we step foot in the classroom.
8. We have a plan for the morning after initial classroom training
7. Experts who have been on the phone in similar situations deliver our programs.
6. Follow-up is built into our program right from the start
5. We customize all programs, incorporating deep product/service knowledge and your
unique value proposition.
4. Our CEO, a recognized expert, is personally involved with all projects
3. Supervisors become keys to success as they learn how to coach for immediate and
long-term results
2. Reps have to demonstrate learned skills in a live situation before training is completed.

And the TOP Reason We Get Outstanding Results:
1. We deliver a complete system and strategy—not a seminar.

* Thanks to David Letterman