3 Not-so-Obvious Things You Must Do Before Your Next Sales Call

Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash

You’ve spent days or even weeks tracking down the right prospect, deploying that great new email sequence you created or maybe you even went as far as scripting out a very personalized outreach email.

Then it happened. They responded.

They just set up a time to speak with you this Friday. You have your sales script, maybe a personalized pitch deck and a time penciled in your calendar. You’re all set, right?

Wrong.

Your prospect has received hundreds of cold outreach emails, sat in dozens of sales calls, talked to handfuls of salespeople and listened to the script, just different product. The easiest way increase your odds of having a successful sales call is preparation. Here are 3 not so obvious but easy things to do to do to make your next sales call a success.

Find a Place to Stand Up During Your Sales Call. Confidence and energy can easily be readable via the phone, and the best way to give yourself a boost of both is to stand up during your sales call. Physically, you’re not slouched over the phone or computer, allowing yourself to breath easier. Mentally, this helps promote a more natural conversational flow. According to JustStand.org, “Standing is a simple but underrated remedy to increase alertness and receive a natural jolt of energy.”

Advanced Strategy: Start standing up about 2 minutes before your phone call and then throughout. Be natural and let your hands gesture if you do so naturally in conversations.

Prep Your Conversation Starter And Avoid “How’s the Weather Down There” Convo. This call is about the prospect, not about you. You’re already doing the obvious and researching your prospect and your prospect’s company, but so is probably any other even a slightly experienced sales person. Any successful salesperson needs to take that research to the next level and use it to cultivate a conversation starter to use on the call. Simple conversation starters that show you did more than find out than geographic location makes a big difference. “I noticed that you used to work on Long Island; I plan on visiting this summer, what’s the best beach I should visit with my family?” This accomplishes one main goal: helping your prospect humanize the voice on the other line.

Advanced Strategy: Jot down 3 questions with a positive sentiment. This puts potential buyers more into the “yes” mindset.

Send Your Prospect an Agenda. Time is precious, for both you and your prospect. Not knowing what to expect or how long it will take leads to impatience and distraction. Sometimes there is nothing more unnerving than thinking you’re doing great on a sales call and then hearing your prospect type away at their keyboard or tap their pencil. About a day before the actual call, reach out with a short 3–5 point agenda about topics you plan on covering during the call.

Advanced Strategy: Send your pitch deck as an attachment before the call, but don’t expect the prospect to go through the deck on her/his own. You can estimate and predict interest but how the prospect prepares themselves for this call as well.

Taking these simple 3 steps will make you stand out from the crowd while making your sales calls more comfortable, easier and most importantly, more successful.