posted by AM_admin
A key ingredient, setting 1000’s of meetings for the sales team
Meet the team – Stephen Smith, telesales and marketing administrator
Stephen has been a valued part of the AM Services Group team at HQ for the last 5-and-a-half years, supporting our strategic sales growth and helping to win new business by contacting potential customers over the telephone and raising awareness of our business and services. Here, Stephen tells us what ‘makes him tick’ and what helps him to get people to listen…
Can you describe the job you do at AMSG?
I aim to support my business development colleagues out in the field in making the best use of the introductory sales meetings that I arrange. Despite a rather ‘dry’ job title, I thoroughly enjoy the creativity my job allows, and particularly creating bespoke emails to attract prospective customers.
What aspect of your role do you enjoy the most?
I always enjoy it when I successfully negotiate my way past the person who is ‘fielding’ the calls! I like to pay attention to detail, doing my research thoroughly. One facilities manager of a large electronics company actually called me back, completely impressed that I had been prepared with her name and correct job title; and we did go on to tender for the business! The variety and scope of our specialist cleaning has also been especially stimulating, simply because there are so many different aspects to it. And, as we offer these services nationwide, the potential target audience is huge.
Getting quality appointments is key for me and the confidence that my colleagues know, when they are going to meetings arranged by me, they are going to have a solid platform to build upon.
I love working for a fabulous company selling a fantastic service with a superb team ethic: “One team, one goal”.
How do you motivate others?
I think that self-motivation is the key to motivating others, with the persistence to provide as much useful information as possible to colleagues, so that they are equipped to have ‘the edge’ in front of the customer. This includes things that even seem trivial such as getting the pronunciation of the potential customer’s first name correct – especially if the spelling isn’t obvious. It’s surprising how doing this right/wrong can get your meeting off to the best/worst possible start!
What is the most important thing you have learned in the last ten years?
On one training course I attended, I was told: “Every telephone call that you make is an interruption of someone else’s day”. This is especially true if it is a sales call. Courtesy, consideration and conciseness are the key to success. Let people know that you realise their time is valuable and they’ll give you all the time in the world. You never get a second chance to make a good first impression.
How do you define success and how do you measure it?
Success to me is being happy when I am at work and being good at what I do. Although sales is clear-cut in terms of bringing in or not bringing in the business, if you don’t enjoy what you do it isn’t going to work. American motivational speaker and writer Jim Rohn once said: “The worst days of those who enjoy what they do are better than the best days of those who don’t”.
Tell us one interesting fact about you that we might not know.
I have always been a big fan of professional darts! When I was at primary school in the early 70s, I used to go home for lunch and watch a programme called Indoor League featuring bar billiards, American Pool and even arm-wrestling. I used to find the Yorkshire patter of presenter Fred Trueman hysterically funny. But the big draw was the darts tournament.