zandax online course logo
zandax website search
zandax phone callback
Info, Blogs, Contact & Login
Courses
Tests

The 5 Best Tips on How to Prepare for a Sales Call

From the ZandaX Sales Blog

Articles to make you more effective in your sales career

Home  >  ZandaX Blogs  >  Business Blog  >  Sales Articles  > 
The 5 Best Tips on How to Prepare for a Sales Call

The 5 Best Tips on How to Prepare for a Sales Call

A post from our Sales blog

Article author: Ashley Andrews
      Written by Ashley Andrews
Congratulations! Getting past the gatekeeper and getting access to a decision maker is no mean feat.  However, you can't rest on your laurels just yet; your sales cycle has only just begun.

Did you know that most sales are closed before the meeting even starts? It's said that half the time (57%), a purchase decision is completed even before a sales person contacts a customer. With the amount of information available today, your buyers have probably researched their options and are only looking for the best fit for their business.

With the cold calls made and subsequent appointments agreed on, how come many salespeople never reach their full performance potential?

The truth is that too many people attempt to wing their way through their sales calls. But they soon find that without a logical call plan, their previously warm prospects soon start to grow cold. And because they don't realise what they're doing wrong, they tend to repeat these ineffective practices over and over again.

On the other hand, having a consistent game plan for your sales calls can boost overall performance by as much as 50%. This is because a good sales process will mirror the pattern your customers use to make buying decisions.

With no sales call system in place, salespeople can only see whether they won or lost a sale. And if you don't know what went wrong, or why, how can you improve your performance?

We can't escape making these sales calls; an estimated 90% of all customer interactions take place via the phone. So, instead of winging your way to a "no", here are five recommendations to help prepare for your next sales call.


1) Know your objectives

Always start with the end in mind: what's your desired objective for this call? Take the time to think about what you want to happen as the result of the call.

Depending on where the prospect is in the sales process, your objective may be to continue building rapport, establish credibility, or to secure agreement for a meeting. Identifying (and writing down) an objective may seem like an insignificant thing to do, but it can help you come up with the right questions that will lead to your desired outcome.

But, since sales is a numbers game, it's not prudent to want to write out the objective manually for every single call you're going to have to make. Rather, do this for the types of calls that you have to make eg. asking for confirmation of a meeting.

Working in the 21st century, it's likely that you have access to some kind of CRM system, which even exist for mobile now - as explained by Resco, who we've linked to here. Simply ensure that when you schedule the next call to a particular client, annotate what type of call, based on it's objectives, it needs to be.

If you're not working from a CRM system, and using manual tools, you should still come up with a system for yourself so you're able to see easily what type of call each needs to be.


2) Research your lead

Once you've identified your objectives, do some detailed research on your prospect, the company, and the industry or market they're in. Knowing your audience is generally thought to mean understanding the company itself, but it involves much more than that.

You'll find that when it comes to selling to senior executives, it's not enough to quote their company figures from last year's annual report. You need to do your due diligence and demonstrate some level of expertise in, or knowledge of, the buyer's industry.

Some great questions to ask at this point are:
  • What are the issues affecting the company? These may be on their own website, or found in other places.
  • Is their company/sector in the news?
  • Are there any recent challenges/issues in the industry?
Questions like this give you a better opportunity to tie your capabilities to a company's priorities, giving you a better chance of standing out from other salespeople.

Finally, spend some time learning more about the person who will be your contact at the company. It's always better to relate to your prospect on a personal level: we all suffer from information overload and any untargeted messages will fall on deaf ears.

Proper research will allow you to speak the prospect's language, engage in a conversation that adds value, while accentuating your credibility as an expert.

Most importantly with any research that you have done on a prospect, make sure it's easily at hand in any kind of follow up calls. Why wow the person on an initial call, only to seem a bit vacant in the second or third call, because that research is not available.




3) Compile qualifying questions

Now you understand your prospect and their industry more, put together a list of questions that will give you a feel for what their biggest problems are.

Unfortunately, many salespeople tend to go into a call with only a vague idea of what they want to know. Stand out by compiling the right questions and arrange them in a logical order.

Work out what's likely to be needed by avoiding "closed" questions -- those that can be answered with a simple "yes" or "no". Some open-ended questions that work well include:
  • What are the challenges and objectives you are facing at the moment?
  • How long have these challenges affected the company?
  • Who will be involved in the decision making process?
  • What do you need to know to make an informed choice between suppliers?
  • How has your organization invested in a similar solution in the past?
  • If there is an existing solution in place, when will that solution or contract expire?
Asking these types of questions in a sales call will cause the customer to open up more, while helping you to build rapport with them at the same time.




4) Consider your positioning

With the research done and sales call plans laid out, now it's time to determine how you'll position yourself during the call. To an extent, this may depend on the size of your business, but being a small company doesn't mean you can't be a thought leader. After all, any current giant of an organization started out small too!

Using your research data, identify how your product or service can have a positive impact on your prospect's company. Make the effort to position yourself as a thought leader in the industry by taking advantage of tools like social media (LinkedIn is a great tool for this if you're selling to businesses) and blogging helps to brand yourself as an expert.

While you're on the call, you can refer the prospect to your social media or blog pages that display your knowledge of their industry. Nobody likes to be sold to, but everyone appreciates a helping hand. By positioning yourself or your team as trusted advisors, you'll all have more success than people who only push for a sale.

This part of your call is vital. In the property market, an expression is used: Location, location, location. You need to think the same way about how you position yourself, and throughout the call, build into your prospect's psyche where you are, and why you're valuable.


5) Deal with their objections

After all this research and creating elaborate sales call scenarios, you'll still run into objections. And although it's impossible to prepare for every objection, your research can help you identify the most frequent ones in the industry.

Some of the most common ones are:
  • You are more expensive than the competition
  • I can't authorise this
  • Let me think about it
Faced with objections, most salespeople try to deal with them "on the fly". But this is very risky, and should be avoided by going into the call well-prepared. Make a list of some of the most common objections you expect, and prepare your answers to each of them before making the call.

In sales, like in any endeavor, practise makes perfect. Practise your script over and over. You can even record a mock-sales call and play it back to hear how you come across to a prospect. The way you answer their objection must sound natural, and the client should not immediately think you're on the back foot.

We'll be the first to admit it, sales calls can be tricky; but they don't need to be. With some simple preparation and plenty of practise, you can fine-tune your sales call approach so it leads you closer to your desired outcome. And most importantly, always remember that a sales call is never about what you need, but what you can do for the prospective client.

Back to the Sales blog

Click the button for more Sales articles.

The ZandaX Business Skills blog

Click a panel for great articles on business skills

Write For Us

We pride ourselves on our busy, high-quality and helpful blog, and we're always looking for guest contributors to increase the variety and diversity of what we present.

Click to see how you can write for us with an original and well-written guest post.

ZandaX Blog Contents

Want to see them all? Click to view a full list of articles in our blogs.

Online courses to boost your skills
Click a button to see more about each course
Personal Development
Microsoft Software
 
 
Leadership & Management
Sales & Presentations
Service & Support
 
 
ZandaX online training course logo
ZandaX – Change Your Life ... Today
All content © ZandaX 2023
ZandaX LinkedIn logo
ZandaX LinkedIn logo
ZandaX LinkedIn logo
Close menu element
See how you score on a range of skills that are critical to your well-being and performance
Communication Skill test
Communication Skills
How Can You Communicate Better?
Would you like to see what kind of communicator you are? And how you can improve the effectiveness of your communications?
Likeability test
Likeability
How Much Do People Like You?
Do you sometimes wonder just how likeable you are? And wouldn't you like to see how you can (genuinely) become more likeable?


Time Management test
Time Management
How Can You Make More Use Of Your Time?
Are you frustrated by how easily time slips away? Do you get frustrated when things don't get done just because you run out of time?
Assertiveness test
Assertiveness
Are you Passive, Aggressive or Assertive?
Would you like to know where you fall on the behavior spectrum? Does your response to events sometimes surprise you?


Close menu element
Information & Resources
ZandaX information
Information
Read more about us, our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service
See how we want to help you, and how we make everything easy for everyone
Callback request
ZandaX Blogs
Articles to increase your knowledge and understanding in key areas of your life and career.
Read our blogs on Personal Development, Business Skills and Leadership & Management


Time Management test
Log In
Log in to your online dashboard
View your courses, review what you want and download your workbooks and certificates
Assertiveness test
Contact Us
An easy online form to get in touch
With options for More Information, Customer Service and Feedback


Close menu element
Develop Your Skills, Knowledge and Understanding with ZandaX
Click any subject in the listings for more information and a full list of courses

Personal Development
Personal Development training
Your soft skills affect everything you do, at work, at home and with friends ... they are truly life changing!
NEW COURSES
Online training courses
Hot Off the Press...
We're always adding to and upgrading our courses, so here are a few of our latest releases:
For a full listing of courses, please visit our Quick Course Finder to find exactly what you want.
Site Cookies
We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better.

You can change your cookie settings in your browser. Otherwise, we'll assume you're OK to continue.

I'm fine with this