The first call with a potential customer is one of the most important stages of the sales process, simply because it’s a unique opportunity to make a great first impression.Taking a few minutes to prepare my calls is one of the most important factors when it came to closing. I’ve learned that inbound prospects coming to the website are usually evaluating several other tools so I strived to stand out every time they picked up the phone with me.This process was a result of several iterations over several hundred calls by myself and my sales team nowadays. I tried to distill best practices and want to provide insights into what I have seen work and not work. The main thing I know that works is preparation & training, seriously.In my best sales calls, I was always fully prepared with this cheat sheet. (PS: You can also check the rest of the article for a more detailed explanation of each step in the process)Make sure you bring it to at least your first 100 calls.The first step is: PreparationIt’s crucial that you learn about the company and the prospect at the same time.For instance, when I’m learning about the company for my use case I try to understand:How big their teams areHow much money did the company raise (if they have raised it)What recent news are out there about the companyWhereas when I’m learning about the prospect I usually visit their LinkedIn profile and try to get insights from it. It’s valuable that you show your prospect that you have spent some time doing your research.Note: While checking the prospect’s LinkedIn, perhaps you will find connections or interests in common or even similar background education. This can make you two easily connect during the call.The second step: the CallThis is the time to actively listen to your prospect’s pain points, ask questions to get all the information you need about the prospect and the company.1- Start by building rapport. After setting a nice tone, make it all about them. The time you spend talking on a sales call has a significant impact on your chance to close the deal. In fact, top sales performers are known for consistently letting their prospects talk about 60% of the time, so it’s your prospect who should be talking the most. I often get surprised by the number of information prospects share when we ask open-ended questions.2- Make sure your research is well informed. Try to get answers to your questions and have your prospects verbalized their pain points before you start pitching.3- Give your pitch. Once both of you have acknowledged your prospect’s pain, you will now be better informed to give your prospect an adapted pitch about how your product solves their issue.💡 Insightful Note: If you’re not able to find any good arguments that could make your product useful to the company, maybe it’s because it doesn’t qualify as a potential user. You should acknowledge this and since it’s very unlikely that you would be getting a deal from here, avoid wasting your time trying to sell and focus rather on creating a connection they might be a buyer in their next company.The third step: Next stepsKeep your lead moving further along the sales funnel by making sure you have well defined next steps.For example, if you want a follow-up meeting to do a demo, make it so that you book it at the end of the call. Or if you want to involve other decision-makers, make sure you know who they are at the end of the call.When you see you only have 5 more minutes in your calendar, you should schedule the next meeting step before you finish the call and your prospect has to leave unexpectedly. It’s also important that you know if there are other people to be involved in the deal and your prospects know exactly what to do next.Note: If you fail to schedule the next steps, you may end up losing a client because the prospect couldn’t find it easy to schedule the next call with you, or your proposal lost relevance after they had a call with another competitor that already gave them a trial version they are enjoying.Wrapping Up…The main thing I know that works is preparation & training. Keep pushing it!-------I have helped 200+ clients optimizing their outbound sales strategy over the years to grow their business. I'm constantly testing new hypotheses to see what works and regularly share the insights with thousands of other entrepreneurs trying to scale up revenue here.Feel free to reach out if you need help with your cold outbound efforts, happy to help! see hubwealthy.com/wealthy
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