4 simple steps to perfect your sales phone call technique

We know we have to get in touch with our potential clients and existing partners.   Whilst email is our best friend (just FYI only 24% of sales emails ever get opened), phone calling our prospects, cultivating sales conversations and creating real-life interactions lead to a better rapport.  Better rapport leads to more sales, after all, people buy from people. So when we call our prospects and our existing clients, let’s make sure we are purposeful.

So here are my 4 very simple steps that are going to help you get those sales conversations started without breaking into a sweat.

Technique Tweak:

1. Plan your sales telephone calls.
   
   

    

   Don’t put them off,  do some every single day. Even if it’s just half an hour in busy times. As a result, your sales pipeline will stay healthy, or at least ticking over. 

   
   
   
2. Group your calls.
   

   Where possible, group the type of calls together. For example, your cold leads in one session; your existing clients in another. It stops the mind ping-ponging between outcomes which will make you more effective. 

   
   
   
3. Ask yourself 4 questions before each call:
   

   1 – what do I know already?
   (about the contact, their situation etc)

   
   2 – what do I want to know?
   (more information before you can match to your service/product? Who the stakeholders are in the decision? When budgets are set? Who they already work with?

   3 – what is the objective of the call?
   (are you establishing a relationship, finding key facts out, introducing them to your service, upselling, closing?)

   
   4 – what is your targeted next step?
   (what do you want the next step to be? How will you get there? How will you bring this up with the contact?)

   
   
   

4. Keep notes of all your sales calls on your CRM. Keep a tally of the number, and types of calls. It will help if you run out of leads or are doing well – you can see what activity led to those results and adapt if you need to.

   Some questions you should be asking:

   • How many prospects are you calling to start a sales conversation?
   • What sectors/groupings are they in?
   • How many warm leads are you calling to see if you progress them down your sales funnel?
   • Are you calling any existing clients are you calling in order to upsell?
   • How many existing clients are you calling to see if they need support or want to give feedback?

   Be purposeful in your day. If you have to make sales, you need to schedule the sales conversations, or it won’t get done.

   Need some help getting started?  At No Fluff we are experts on on-call planning, activity targets, telephone sales  calls techniques etc, just book a call with us here