1. The Purpose of the Sales Call
Too often, because we have made hundreds of sales calls, we believe that planning a sales call is no longer necessary. Nothing could be further from the truth. Planning your sales call improves the likelihood of making a successful call, and it demonstrates your professionalism to your ideal client.
Planning a sales call begins with asking and answering the question: ‘What is the purpose of the sales call?’
Identifying the Purpose for Your Ideal Client
There are really two party’s purposes that we need to consider. We tend to focus on what we hope the outcome of the sales call will be for us, when we should first focus on what our ideal client needs as an outcome. This is why it is helpful to understand where the client is in their buying cycle.
If your prospective client is working on developing an understanding of their needs, they will expect that you can help them develop those needs and add ideas that they might need to consider. You have expertise in your industry that they don’t possess. Because of your experience, you know things they don’t know.
If your prospect has already developed their needs, they will expect you to help them understand the range of options available for meeting their needs. You have helped other clients, and you can help your ideal client understand what is possible, and what it will cost them in time, effort, and resources.
If they are trying to ensure that they make an effective choice and avoid risk (usually late in the buying cycle), you help them to understand the risk and you resolve their concerns in a way that gives them confidence to move forward. When they are unsure, you provide what is necessary to give them the confidence to move forward—and to defend their decision.
It helps to consider your client’s needs first because it means that you have a greater opportunity to create value for them during a sales call. When you open the sales call, you can confirm these needs, but you should plan to address their needs based on what you do know if you hope to create or advance an opportunity.
Know this: You can succeed at achieving all of the outcomes that you believe benefit you on a sales call and still have an unsuccessful call. Your ideal client needs to achieve their outcomes in order for you to succeed. Putting their needs first massively increases the odds that you achieve your outcomes.
Related: Win More Big Deals, One Sales Call at a Time
Then, Identify Your Purpose
Why are you making this sales call? The answer is obvious, right? You want your ideal client’s business. But that’s not an effective or acceptable outcome for a sales call.
The right answers as to your purpose are more specific, more concrete, and they are outcomes that you can achieve on a sales call. Achieving these objectives means that the call was successful. Failure to achieve the objectives means that the call was not successful.
Your objectives may include gathering information to learn and understand your client’s business objectives. They may include gaining access to additional people on your ideal client’s buying committee. You might need to demonstrate your capabilities so that you can create a vision of what your ideal client’s imagined future might look like. Maybe you need answers to some questions so that you can propose a solution.
Identifying the purpose of the call before you make the call greatly improves the odds that you will achieve the outcome. It will direct your efforts during the sales call, and it demonstrates a level of professionalism. Planning helps you to prove that you are a value creator and not a time waster.
Questions to Identify Your Client’s Purpose
- At what stage in their buying cycle is your ideal client?
- What is it reasonable to expect that they would need from you now?
- How should you be prepared to deliver the outcomes that they need?
- What kind of proof or evidence might they need now?
- What do you need to do to create enough value to deserve to create or advance an opportunity?
Questions to Identify Your Purpose
- What do you need to achieve on this sales call?
- How does your client helping you achieve the outcomes you need help your client?
2. Identifying Stakeholders
Once you have identified the purpose of your sales call, you can start to make some decisions about whom you need in or on that sales call. Again, there are two groups of stakeholders to consider here.
Who do you put on the field?
You start by identifying the members of your team for two very important reasons.
First, you have to create value for your ideal client in order to have a successful sales call. You need to bring your team members that are — or may be — necessary to creating that value.
You might need people from your technical team or your information technology departments to understand the client’s needs and talk about what is possible in the way of a solution.
It could also be important to have members of your operations team join the sales call so they can speak to what they do for your existing clients (as well as being there to listen and understand the client’s needs).
Sometimes you need members of your management team on a sales call for different reasons. Maybe your client needs proof that you and your company are committed to helping them achieve the outcomes and management’s presence will prove it.
The people who do the work of executing for your clients can create value for your ideal clients during a sales call, and this is why it is important to include them.
Another reason you might want some members of your team to join you is that it enables a smooth handoff of the all of the tasks, duties, responsibilities, and outcomes. It is a tremendous benefit to have your team members attend sales calls to gain an understanding of the outcomes for which they will later be responsible.
Perhaps even more important is the buy-in that is created when you include your team in the sales process. This doesn’t only extend to your operation team, either. It’s amazing how much more your management team will own the opportunity when they have been included in the sales process. They’ll also help to ensure that you succeed for your client.
You need to execute later, and your team’s attendance on sales calls can help you understand your client’s needs, create value for them on the sales call, and later ensure that they understand and own the outcomes that you sold.
Sometimes, you alone are the value creator. That can often be enough.
Related: Two Rules to Follow That Add Value to Every Sales Call
Inviting Ideal Client Stakeholders
One of the ways you can improve your sales results and the outcomes of your sales calls is to make certain that you have the right people from your client’s company in attendance. It’s pretty easy to find your one receptive sponsor and go deep into the sales process before realising just how many people you actually need to win and succeed for your client.
There are all kinds of stakeholders to be considered, and you can read about them here: Gatekeepers, End-Users, Management, Professional Buyers, and Executive Management. You can also read about how to do a stakeholder analysis to understand your role in creating value for each stakeholder group and their expectation of you.
The first question is, “Who do I need at the table in order to be able to achieve the outcomes of this sales call?”
If you need an understanding of your client’s needs, then you may need to meet with all of the stakeholders that are going to be affected by your solution later. You might not need or want them all in the same sales calls, but you need to start by knowing whose needs you are trying to collect.
If you are trying to build consensus around a solution, you might need buying committee members and executive management in a sales call for a pre-proposal discussion of your ideas.
Your purpose, the outcome of your sales call, will determine whom you need from your client’s team.
None of this is easy, and none of it is written in stone. You will have to make decisions about whom you need at your sales call and when you involve them in the process. You have to be thoughtful, and you have to consider your longer-term strategy. Answering these questions will help:
Who From My Team?
- Who from my team do I need to attend this sales call?
- What value will I expect them to create for our ideal client?
- Are they prepared for the sales conversation, and do they know and understand their role?
- How should I prepare them?
- Do I need someone at an equal level of authority from my client’s team to make their attendance beneficial?
Who From My Client’s Team?
- Who needs to attend this meeting?
- Who will be affected by a decision to move forward?
- What needs will they have that I need to meet early in the sales process?
- Who has the ability to share the information with me that I need?
- Who do I need in order to advance this opportunity?
- What are the commitments I need to be prepared to ask for and obtain from these stakeholders?
- Can I do enough on this call to earn the right to ask for those commitments?
3. Knowledge Exchange & Questions
One of the primary outcomes of any sales call is the exchange of information. This exchange travels in both directions. You share information with your ideal client, and they share information with you. While there will always be surprises, being a high performing sales person requires that you plan for this exchange.
Known Unknowns
There is information that you know that you need to know in order to help your ideal client but that you don’t yet possess. Your ideal client can provide the information for the known unknowns. One of the outcomes of your sales call is to acquire this information.
Planning effective sales calls means planning to acquire this information. You should go into your sales call with a list of questions that you need answered. You can improve the list of questions by working with your team and brainstorming to come up with a list of questions.
Even if you have made countless sales calls effectively doesn’t mean that you are more effective winging it. Preparing a list of questions demonstrates that you are professional enough to prepare, that you know what you need to know, and that you have spent time thinking about how to be valuable to your ideal client. You may need more answers later, but you should work to ensure you use your ideal client’s time effectively and ask the questions that you need answered while you have their time.
Your ideal client needs to know about you, too. They will have questions that they need you to answer. This is their own list of known unknowns. Good sales call preparation includes making a list of questions that you can expect to be asked and ensuring that you are prepared to answer them.
A few minutes of pre-call planning can make a big difference in the outcome of your sales call, especially when it comes to deepening your understanding. Make a good list of questions to address the known unknowns.
Related: Don’t Turn Your Sales Team Loose Without A Strategy
Unknown Unknowns
I have loved the term since I first heard it uttered. There are things that we don’t know that we don’t know. How do your prepare to address what you don’t even know you don’t know?
First, you have to go into sales calls knowing that there are things that you don’t know that you need to know. This is a mindset shift: We know what we want to know, but there is knowledge that we need that we don’t know exists.
Making the assumption that there is information that you don’t know you need allows you to plan to ask for that information.
Second, you can prepare questions to address the unknown unknowns: ‘What else should we know about your needs that we didn’t ask?’ Or, ‘Are there areas that we should spend time discussing that we haven’t touched on yet?’ Your ideal clients will educate you, if you let them. They want you to be a good partner, and they want you to succeed for and with them.
It’s important to note that even after asking your questions and learning from your clients that there will still exist unknown unknowns that you and your ideal client may need to confront together. The more information you exchange, the more prepared you are to tackle the unknown unknowns together.
Questions for Known Unknowns
- What do you need to learn from your ideal client?
- What information will help you understand their business well enough to help them?
- What questions will help you to elicit the information you need?
- What questions should you expect from your ideal client?
Question for Unknown Unknowns
- What questions will allow you to elicit the information that you don’t know that you need?
- How do you create a relationship that allows you and your ideal client to tackle unknown unknowns together?
4. Providing Proof
It is a mistake to prescribe before you diagnose, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t sometimes have to provide some proof and evidence to open or advance an opportunity. Providing proof can demonstrate that you are worth moving forward with and that you can make a difference.
What Will They Need to See and Believe?
It never hurts to view your sales call through the eyes of your ideal client. If you know where your ideal client is in the buying cycle, if you have determined your purpose, you have the right stakeholders at the table, and you have prepared to exchange information, it isn’t hard to imagine what you might want to have available as proof.
Considering your client’s view can help you determine what proof to provide. If they are just recognising their needs, you may have to provide some evidence that you know enough to help them think about their needs. If they have moved on to exploring their options, you may have to provide some proof of your capabilities and what makes you different in a way that makes a difference. Late in the game, you may have to provide evidence that you can deliver on the promises you have made and that you can get results.
Some Ideas About Proof
One of the reasons I am a zealous advocate for improving your business acumen is that there is no better proof than having the right set of questions. Your questions are what demonstrate how you think, and as a tool for helping your client think about and decide how to move forward, there is nothing better. It’s proof of what it might be like to work on problems with you.
But, the runner up by millimetres has to be stories. These don’t have to be written case studies that the marketing folk prepared. They can be stories about where and how you found clients with similar issues and challenges and how you helped them step into a better future.
Stories and anecdotes can paint a picture of how you have helped others achieve outcomes, as well as demonstrating your business acumen and situational knowledge.
You might also need to provide some tangible proof. You may need to demonstrate your results and show your ideal client what is possible before they even know that they need to change. It could be reports, third party validation, case studies, white papers or some other proof.
These aren’t full blown presentations; that comes later. This is proof that creates value for your ideal clients and allows you to move the opportunity forward.
Related: What Sales Teams Need To Know About The New B2B Landscape
Questions to Answer
- What proof should you be prepared to provide your ideal client during your sales call?
- What proof will be necessary to create value for them where they are in the sales process?
- How do you provide proof without going into a full blown presentation?
- What format of proof will work best for the purpose of proving you have the capacity to help your ideal client?
5. Setting the Table, Opening & Closing
Once you have asked and answered the questions from the posts above, you can start to plan some of the more technical aspects of the sales call. This is important even if you are making a call alone, but it is critical if there are other people from your team joining you on the sales call.
It’s starts with your opening.
Planning the Opening
I have written about how to open a sales call here. I like this formula for opening the sales call. It starts with thanking your ideal client for their time, and then you establish your agenda, build in your advance and invite your client’s collaboration. Here’s a bit more to consider.
First, when planning your opening, you should write a script. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just some notes on what you want to say to set the table. You demonstrate your professionalism by sharing your agenda and telling your ideal client what you hope the next steps will be. Your ideal client expects you to know what you want to accomplish with their time.
Second, if you have some of your team members joining you on a call, then it is important that they know what role they are playing. A few minutes of discussion or rehearsal makes a world of difference to how you come off in front of your prospective client. It’s important that you decide who will open the call and who will take each part of the sales call. Planning this ahead of time makes the transition from one person to the next smooth and professional.
Finally, it is important to consider your ideal client’s needs. Asking them for input on the agenda at the opening of the call can allow you to make changes to your agenda to meet their needs. You may get an answer like: ‘We were hoping you would be able to talk about how you handle these two issues.’ Knowing what they are interested in, you can reply: ‘We’d be happy to share some of our experiences around those areas. Would it be okay if we asked you some questions first so that we can understand your needs and concerns around this area?’ Or maybe, if it’s something really important to your prospective client, you say: ‘Would you like us to address those two areas first?’
A solid, planned opening sets the table for a productive and successful sales call.
Closing the Sales Call
The formula here is to thank them for their time, review the outcomes that you achieved together during that time, confirm any commitments that you made, and confirm your client’s future commitments.
The thank you part is easy. But once you have said thank you it is important to review what you accomplished during your time together. You can start by confirming that you achieved the outcomes that you described in your opening. You might say something like: ‘We have learned a lot about your business and your challenges, and we have enough information to start working on some ideas.’
From there you can move to your commitments: ‘We will email you some information regarding your questions about the two areas you described tomorrow.’ And then you have to ensure that you receive the commitments that you need.
It’s far easier to get agreement on next steps when you are sitting face-to-face with your client. This is true even if your sales call is done over the telephone or using some web conference solution. It’s a mistake to leave a sales call without gaining the commitment you need to move forward (this is responsible for many a stalled deal in many a pipeline, and it explains in part why so many sales people struggle to get their client on the phone for their next appointment).
It’s important that you begin by knowing what commitments you need in order to advance an opportunity. You decide in advance what are the best next steps to advance an opportunity. If you explain during your opening what you hope to accomplish during the sales call and what the next steps should be, you can get an early agreement to taking those steps.
This isn’t all about you. Your ideal client expects you to know how to help them, and they expect you to know what that process should look like. They expect you to know what you need from them in order to get them to their desired future.
You have to tell them what the next step is and how it will help you to help them. You have to ask for, and obtain, the commitment you need: ‘We believe the next step would be for us to meet with some of your team to get a greater understanding of their needs and how they might need us to work with them. We can do that next Thursday. Does that make sense to you, or does it make more sense to do something else first?’
If you are making a call with a team, you need to decide who is going to close the sales call. Someone has to be responsible for asking for, and obtaining, the commitment to take the next step.
Planning the closing of the meeting and asking for the next meeting is, like most things, far more effective than winging it.
Questions to Answer
- What is the most effective way to open a sales call?
- How do you set the table to accomplish the goals and objectives of your sales call?
- What do you do to ensure that you capture your prospective client’s agenda?
- If you are making a team call, how do you divide the sales call responsibilities?
- How do you set up the goal with your ideal client in order to agree on what needs to be accomplished before taking the next step?
- What do you need to do to professionally close a sales call?
- How do you plan to ask for, and obtain, the commitments that advance your opportunity?
