Jazz Up Your Telesales

Dialing with rhythm

By Jeffrey Hansler, CSP

The coffee is black, hot, and strong. The air is thick with smoke. Voices mix from a dozen conversations and fill the room with noise. The practitioners express their art with sweat and volumes of air. Their music presses against the walls of the room. These telesales people dial for dollars from dawn to dusk.

The industry is continually looking for tools to keep the individual at the task of dialing again and again and remaining mentally sharp throughout the process so that opportunities won’t be missed.

Beginning and average salespeople may stay focused on making a high number of calls because of enthusiasm or necessity, but miss a measurable amount of opportunity. They may miss opportunities because of average skills, but more often they miss opportunities because of a mental fatigue due to the numbing repetitiveness of the qualification, needs analysis, and reaching agreements (closing if you must) process.

The best salespeople remain sharp despite the repetitiveness of the process. They fight to remain sharp despite the unending laser intensity of focusing in on the process again and again.

They work to heighten their perceptions to capture all the nuances of communication during key steps in the sales process, and relax during passive portions of the sales process. It is during these passive portions that their minds may wander. They might eavesdrop on a nearby conversation going on in the office, play with toys on their desk, and add auditory elements to their environment to keep them sharp. It is during these points that they will fill their area with music. Too often, these momentary elements become full-blown distractions, robbing precious time and productivity.

Many businesses have searched for that perfect background noise for their environment. Searching for sounds that add to the pleasure of the environment for their customers and employees. Tunes to calm the savage beast and increase productivity and spending. Office buildings and stores use everything from Muzak to nature sounds.

As a telesales person, I tried to find a music that would work for me: Something that would carry me along from call to call without invading my concentration or leaving me tranquilized. I tried classical, Muzak, country western, new age, rock and rap music. All of them were too intrusive on the mind, requiring more attention than I wanted to give them. I had a series of channels that I could “channel surf” along, but this took too much attention from the real focus - calling and selling. Nothing seemed to work long term.

For years, I had thought it was just “my” problem until I had a conversation with a client’s top salesperson. During a training session where the subject was reaching new levels of excellence she remarked, “Hell, if they could find the right background music I’d probably do even better!” Maybe it wasn’t just “my” problem after all.

There had to be some music that had passion, highs and lows, with intense moments that just carry you along without stealing your concentration. Something that had rhythm and carried you on forever, dial after dial, and helped create that focus on the moment.

A few days later, after a late night keynote speech, I was driving home when I realized I was too charged up to sleep, but what do you do at 11 p.m. on a Monday night. I was traveling north up Pacific Coast Highway and just passing under Newport Boulevard when I remembered a jazz club I had been to once. I wondered if it was still there.

The club was nearly empty. I guess Monday nights were slow, but the band was getting down. The instrumental jam session went on ‘til the club closed. Playing seemed as important to the musicians as breathing. Sometimes it was hot and heavy. Sometimes it reached inside, cutting through the numbing vagueness of buried feelings. Sometimes it tripped along, cycling over and over, changing ever so slightly, and sometimes it grabbed that loneliness inside and cradled that mournful heart with a message - yeah, this is life.

As I sat there listening, I thought ‘Man, if you could get telemarketers and telesales people with that kind of passion and energy, think of the results they could deliver.’ Then it hit me. Maybe jazz was the background music I was looking for to enhance a telesales operation.

Telesales is full of cycles, rhythm, and passion. Dialing for dollars, call after call, searching for new prospects. Going over the same material, asking the same questions, to qualify. Listening for that key piece of information where the important values lie. Finding unfed values that have become hungry needs. Needs that can be fulfilled with products - turning money into tangible results.

Maybe jazz isn’t the right stuff for every situation, but I’ve put it to the test with some long stretches of very lonely telesales work. It’s passed my tests. I believe it is really an enhancement to the telesales process.

I have found that instrumental jazz is the music that feeds the telesales office with mental appetizers that stimulate their minds into focused alertness on the phone: Simultaneously appealing to the person prospecting or cold calling. Helping each person with their current situation.

One of the best ways to put it to the test for your company or your personal productivity is to put on some jazz during a stretch of poor productivity. During those times when everything slips away, is out of synch, or not grounded is the time to put jazz to the test. When your sales are not coming in and you’re doing hard work without any positive sales results, you may want to give jazz a try.

You may find, like I have that, a little jazz in the background can carry you back up to your best. When you’re near the bottom, when there is nothing to hold on to and nothing to guide you. You hear that sax call, like a voice far off in the distance, pained, yet singing of being alive. Calling to you. Telling you it’s time for a new beginning. Getting back into the rhythm - into the groove - jamming with friends. Yeah - jazz and telesales, a very cool combo.

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Jeffrey Hansler is a professional speaker, author, and consultant. He is a frequent speaker at association events and is the author of Sell Little Red Hen! Sell! He can be reached at jhansler@oxfordco.com.

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