You know how the saying goes: you only get one chance at first impressions. With sales calls, this should be your mantra. You have to make it count. This is the ultimate of ALL sales techniques that needs to be addressed in sales training.
While you need to be ready to think on your feet, a good sales call will generally start gently and build momentum towards a close. Ideally, it will end with a yes and you’ll both go home happy.
These successful sales techniques will show you how a sales call should go. We will cover a rough timeline of events for successful calls, including how to start, how to close, and more importantly, when NOT to try and close. With everything going digital, we’ll introduce you to an online meeting software and show you how you can harness recordings to perfect the flow of your sales calls.
When a sales call is done right, you can rest easy that you’ve moved a prospect one step closer to a good decision for all those involved. But first, what is a sales call?
What Is a Sales Call?
To put it simply, a sales call is a conversation between a prospect and a salesperson: someone with a problem and someone with a solution.
It’s usually about a specific product or service that can solve the prospect’s problem. These calls are increasingly becoming more popular to conduct via video calls (and if you’re not doing that yet, there are plenty of reasons why you should!).
There are often several parts to a sales call, including:
- Introductions
- Agenda-setting
- Highlighting the problem
- Product pitch
- Demo
- Prospect objections
- Representative responses
- Negotiation
- Organizing the next steps
- Clear call to action
The salesperson is always aiming to get a clear verbal agreement by the end of the call.
What’s the Difference Between Hot and Cold Calls?
A cold call is reaching out to a prospect that has had no experience with your brand and it’s the first time they’re hearing from you.
A hot call is a prospect that has interacted with your brand in one way or another, through a free trial perhaps, but has not yet taken the plunge to become a paying customer.
While this post will focus mostly on hot leads, it’s worth noting that cold calling is not the dying art that most people claim it to be. In fact, organizations who believed that cold calling is no longer effective experienced 42% less growth than those who believed otherwise.
How Sales Techniques Help You Prepare For a Sales Call?
You can’t just start the call without a little preparation. Well, technically you can, but don’t expect it to end well.
There are a few key things you should do before ever picking up the phone.
Get Organized
We’re talking days or weeks before the call. You’ll want to gather all the information you can about your prospect. If possible, you’ll want to understand the prospect’s pain points and issues before you ever speak to them.
If your brand has had previous communication with the prospect, even if you weren’t there, it’s a good idea to dig up the old video calls so you can rewatch the highlights or check out the AI summary. What? You aren’t recording your video calls with tl;dv yet? If you start now, this won’t be an issue when you get a second meeting with a prospect in the future!
By understanding the prospect’s pain points in advance, particularly if you’re able to access earlier calls and re-use the prospect’s own language, you’ll gain a lot more trust a lot more quickly. They’ll feel remembered and respected and the whole call will feel more intimate and personal.
Tailor Your Presentation to Your Prospect
Nobody likes generic sales calls. Be specific. Be personal. Enter the heart of your prospect and show them you are empathetic to their situation through your presentation.
When you know your prospect’s needs like the back of your hand, you can create a presentation that drills into those needs and makes the prospect engage.
Remember: top sellers spend an average of 6 hours per week researching their prospects. Don’t be an average salesperson. Put in the research and respect your prospect.
Show Your Product in Action
While talking about your solution is great, it’s no comparison to showing them how it works. Prepare a demo that you can present to your prospect. Keep it under 10 minutes: the shorter the better.
If possible, try to use the demo to show how this specific prospect’s problem can be resolved with your product. They are far more likely to be emotionally invested if they can see themselves in the demo.
Prepare For Objections in Advance
Objections are inevitable. Even if the solution is an obvious choice, nobody likes getting locked into subscriptions or contracts when their circumstances may change. Buying = change. And change can be scary.
With this, prepare for potential objections in advance. Understand the prospect’s concerns and let them know you’re willing to work with them so that they get a good deal. It’s also crucial to remember not to react by defending your product. Keep the focus on the prospect and their concern. Understand it. Solve it.
By preparing for objections in advance, you won’t be left dumbfounded when you receive one.
So What Makes a Successful Sales Call?
It really boils down to this: sales calls are not about the salesperson and their solution. They’re about the prospect and their problem. Don’t force your product or service onto people. Let them state their needs and desires and then guide them towards the solution.
It’s also important to let your prospect do the talking. Never ever EVER interrupt them while they’re talking, either. Sit back and listen. More often than not, you only get one chance with a prospect, so pipe down with your sales pitches and let them speak up.
Scripts
While it’s a good idea to have a script, especially if you’re just getting started in sales, it’s always worth remembering that you have the freedom to improvise. The main thing you’re trying to uncover is whether the prospect is a good fit and whether your product or service can solve their problem. If following this path takes you off your script as you ask to clarify certain things here and there, that’s totally fine.
You can get a range of different sales scripts over at FitSmallBusiness. While they may not all work for you, they’re worth checking out.
As you become more experienced, you can do away with a template altogether as you’ll have a stronger intuitive sense of what to say and when. It will vary with each prospect.
11 Tips For Successful Sales Calls
1. Research, Research, Research
There are various different ways you can research your prospect before the meeting. Let’s take a look at some of them:
- Company website
It’s always a good idea to check out what your prospect’s company is doing so you can understand their needs on a deeper level. It will allow you to be more specific in your presentation and demo. You can also check out their media and news to see if they’ve recently received funding. If so, you know that budget will be less of an issue.
- Social profiles
LinkedIn and Twitter are great places to start. What are their hobbies? Do you share any of them? If so, that’s a great way to break the ice and bring them into the conversation in a way that makes them feel comfortable. - CRM software
Use your CRM software to check your prospect’s behavior on your emails, website, or product if they’ve already used it. It should help you understand their needs a little more so that you can enter the convo feeling fully prepared.
As for the last point, it’s worth noting that 32% of sales professionals who leverage a CRM identified “helping you keep track of your leads” as being one of a CRM’s biggest benefits. Use the software you’ve already got.
2. Record Your Calls
Make use of tl;dv, a powerful meeting recorder that will let you review your sales calls like never before.
You can create clips, edit transcripts, and check over your automatically generated AI summary to make sure you didn’t miss anything with your prospect. This is even more helpful when you’re about to talk to a prospect for the second time.
It’s also pertinent to mention that tl;dv directly integrates with your favorite CRM softwares so that you can streamline its use with your current workflow without any hiccups.
Most importantly, recording your sales calls allows you to continuously improve your entire team’s performance. It’s perfect for onboarding new members too, as they can catch up on your successful sales techniques and start implementing them right away.
3. Build a Bond
You need to build a rapport with your prospect. And you don’t have much time to do it. When you forge a connection, you increase trust and confidence tenfold.
Most prospects are unwilling to openly share their pain points with what they consider to be strangers. There are a few ways you can build a bond with your prospects.
Tone
Set a positive tone from the outset. Nobody wants to continue a conversation if the salesperson is moody or distracted. Give them your full attention and be positive.
Use Their Name
Grab their attention from the off by addressing them by their name. If you say something like, “Hello, I’m John from Astra. How are you doing today?”, the attention is immediately on you. You are showing the prospect that you don’t care about them, and they can tell.
Instead, look how much more inviting this is: “Hello Tom, this is John from Astra. How are you doing today?”
Speak in a Way That’s Familiar With Them
You want the prospect to feel comfortable. To do this, you’ll need to speak their language. Use their own words to clarify things, speak with jargon only if they do, and match their formality. You don’t want to overdo this as it can get real weird real fast, but by repeating your prospect’s language back to them, you can make them feel right at home.
Introduce Who You Are
Tell them briefly who you are and who you represent. If they’ve had any communication with your brand in the past, this will rejig their memories.
Break the Ice
If you’ve done your research in advance, you’ll be able to show it off as a way to break the ice. Share a mutual interest and your prospect will immediately feel more relaxed.
4. Set the Call Agenda
This one is a fairly simple sales technique. Let the prospect know what you’ll be covering and in roughly what order. They’ll appreciate the organization. Make it as straightforward as possible and then crack on.
5. Reaffirm the Prospect’s Pain Points
By restating the prospect’s pain points, you’ll achieve two things:
- Making sure nothing has changed with the prospect.
- Showing them that you listened to what they said.
The first is simple. Things change at lightning speed in the world of business. They may have already found a solution, or perhaps they simply don’t need it anymore. Just double check that you’re still on the same page as that will save you both the entire meeting.
Secondly, by showing them you have done your research, or that you remember what they told you, you’re deepening the prospect’s confidence in you to provide a solution. They believe you are actually taking what they say on board. This is critical.
If you need any added clarity on their problem or needs, this is the time to ask. Make sure your questions are open-ended so the prospect is free to go on tangents and bring in everything that you need to know about the topic. This will help you adjust your pre-planned script slightly on the go.
6. Provide the Solution
Rather than talk about you and your product, instead focus on what the solution is to the prospect’s problem. You can do this by again using the prospect’s own words, then work in the solution which just so happens to be your product. Magic.
So this is where you show the prospect how your product will bring value to their business. This is what most newcomers to the sales world try to start with, and they get shut down fast because they haven’t built the rapport and they’re likely barging in without listening to what the prospect truly wants.
A good tip is to include keywords related to how your business benefits them, so that when they check out your website later, they’ll recognize the language and relate to what you said on a deeper level.
Demo
This is also where you can show off a demo, hopefully one that you catered to this specific prospect based on prior research. It’s all well and good to listen to why a product is good, but it’s a whole different ball game to have them see it. A visual aspect changes the game in a way that listing statistics can’t.
7. Why You?
So your solution fits their problem, sure. But why should the prospect choose you over all your competitors that seemingly offer the same solution?
Let the prospect in on your secret. Why is your business special? What differentiates it from the myriad of copycats in the niche? What’s your USP?
If possible, connect this to the prospect’s pain points. If your USP is directly related to the prospect’s problem, you’re onto a winner. You’ll be uniquely situated to solve the problem.
8. Use Uplifting and Empowering Language
Earn a prospect’s trust by picking your words wisely. Not only that, but by getting them to connect on an emotional level, the prospect will be far more engaged in the solution you offer.
Instead of talking about payment, talk about investment. The prospect will get something out of this. It’s not a one-sided transaction. It’s a value proposition that’s a win-win.
9. Turn Objections Into Deeper Understanding
As mentioned earlier, it’s poor practice to instantly dismiss objections. Instead, flip them into ways to secure this deal. Ask questions that allow the prospect to talk more about their concerns. From here, you can increase your empathy and understand them on a deeper level, offering a catered solution for them. Take it deep.
10. End the Call After a Firm Decision
You’re aiming for a “yes” and that shouldn’t need saying, but you don’t want to pester your prospects if they’ve given you a firm “no.” Respect their decision and move on.
However, if the prospect is on the fence, you can push a little harder for that “yes.” Remind the prospect of the cost of inaction. Time, money, and labor will all go down the drain unless this problem is solved, and you have the solution.
Remember as well that 60% of customers say “no” 4 times before saying “yes.”
11. Close With the Next Steps
Quickly summarize what was said in the meeting, using the prospect’s words as much as possible, to confirm you’re on the same page. If you’re using tl;dv, both parties will automatically receive an AI summary with action points as soon as the call ends, too.
Now it’s time to set up a timeline and set the wheels in motion. Suggest ways in which you can move forward together, or when you can connect again in the future. Don’t be vague here. Set a time and send them a calendar invite while you still have them on the call.
If you’re not sure whether the prospect you’re talking with is the decision maker, encourage them to add other members during the following meetings. This will speed up the process and allow decisions to be made faster in the future.
The key is to hold their hand through every step of the buying process.
Improve Your Sales Game Today
Hopefully implementing these tips for improving sales performance will pay off. Just remember, always record your calls as the benefits are compounded over time when you have repeat customers, more employees, and even in internal meetings.
Download tl;dv on Google Meet or Zoom today and get started with the free trial within moments! You’ll get unlimited recordings and transcripts without any need for bank details at all. Check out our plans here for more details.
