What is an opening? It is a starting place, you are planting seeds to grow the relationship.

There are many benefits of preparing for opening a sales call. Above all, it improves your chances of closing the deal. Through this practice, you become better prepared to deal with objections, answer questions and ensure you cover key points during your opening sales call. As much as you should take the time to ask questions and learn about the consumer, take as much time to listen to what they are saying. Listening allows you to fully understand their needs and company goals. This preparation also helps you formulate your own questions about their company that relate to your product or service. By preparing, you are learning more about your customer/prospect and this will help you offer a sincere and engaging solution to their problem. All of this helps to improve your confidence. Successful salespeople prepare for their opening sales calls and almost all other sales meetings and demonstrate the above traits.

You have to “let go” of the pressure you face from yourself and from your management for making the sale and you must focus on possibilities and solving clients problems, rather than meeting a quota.

Benefits of a Positive Opening Sales Call

• Forces you to be prepared
• Positions you as a credible expert; someone prospects want to do business with!
• You are now focused on possibilities rather than pushing to meet a quota
• This also sets the tone for enabling you to discuss your “biggest competitor,” which is aversion to change.

Related Article:

Stop Pitching and Start Solving Clients’ Business Problems

“If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.”

– Will Rogers

 

You will often find yourself opening the initial sales call and having follow-up meetings. In both types of meetings, you will open the call in a similar fashion.

You will follow the Opening the Call model, which shows the steps for an initial call.

In follow-up meetings, you will simply summarize what happened in the prior meeting, instead of making introductions.

However, in some cases, there will be new decision makers who attend the meeting. In that case, you will summarize as well as make introductions.

Opening The Sales Call Model

This is the model you will follow when you open a call.

 

Make Introductions

• Make sure you know the names and roles of everyone in the meeting
• (No time for small talk for today’s busy customers!)

 

Tips for Introductions

• Keep them brief
• Know everyone’s name; take notes
• Thank them for their time beforehand
• Plan a transition to next step, “Confirm Agenda”

 

Confirm agenda

• Bridge from how you got the meeting (referral, idea, etc.)
• Confirm purpose of meeting and timing

 

Provide an Overview of Your Company and Your Products/Services.

Summarize what your company does and present a mini case study (explain a challenge a customer faced, how you helped them, and the results the customer achieved).

 

Shift to focusing on the Customer

 
Listening and Questioning

• Business discussion
• Summarize
• Advance to next step

 

Tips for Opening The Sales Call

• Remember that sales is a long-term process; success doesn’t happen overnight
• Prepare to be an insightful outsider. You can offer a fresh perspective to your prospects and “see the forest through the trees.”
• Connect with prospects. Relate your communication to their vision, values and core competencies.
• Conduct extensive company research and plan effectively before making your initial sales call.
• Commit to continued self-improvement.
• Above all, always be yourself!

 

Successful Traits for Opening the Sales Call

The sales process helps us stay on track. That’s one way to ensure success. Another way to ensure success is to demonstrate certain traits.

Successful salespeople are:

• Confident
• Sincere
• Engaging

Happy Selling!

The Sales Coaching Institute

Sprint Selling – How To Quickly Develop & Prototype New Revenue-Producing Strategies That Deliver Results!

Primarily, the two most popular business models are now defunct. The first one, centralization by function, just means that almost all of the functions of daily running were in-house. While this business model still works to some degree, new revenue-producing strategies must be implemented to ensure that you keep a competitive edge and hit your monthly sales objectives.

The second model used decentralization by region or product, which just means that there were various branches of the store in different states, cities, regions, etc., all selling the same products/services. Likewise, the products/services could be based in particular areas, such as Indian-style dresses in India and Midwestern styles in the US. Both of these models worked well for the last 25 years and still can work today, as long as you can develop and prototype new strategies to help deliver the results you want.

The Virtual And Velcro Models

Now, more and more corporations are focusing on two new models of sprint selling, called Virtual and Velcro.

Virtual Model

With the virtual business model, almost everything is done online (and some companies only work online). Keeping up with consumer culture is an important way to understand the interests of clients. With everyone focused so much on technology and what it can do, it makes sense that almost every company in the US would have a website, if not a virtual store. A recent Fortune 500 Survey of CEO’s asked, “What is your # 1 concern in 2016.” The answer – “The rapid pace of technological change.” That’s why it’s critical to have a strong grasp on those emerging technologies that can help to make your business more competitive.

Velcro Model

Likewise, the Velcro model works by completely pulling apart the company and reassembling it in a new way or a new location. More and more companies are focused on implementing the Velcro business model because that means they’re always ready to start over and create something new that will offer the results they want.

The best way to develop and implement new revenue-producing strategies is to focus on what the customer wants/needs, what your team can do to help them, and keeping costs as low as possible while still delivering great results.

Happy Selling!

The Sales Coaching Institute