Many would agree that most successful salespeople are flexible during sales calls. But being nimble and responsive is different from being unprepared and simply quick on your feet. There is a certain level of improvisation that needs to occur on every sales call, but it is still critical for sellers to start every sales meeting with a well-crafted call plan.
To be clear, there is a difference between planning a meeting and having a formal sales call plan. Not every meeting requires a formally written plan. However, working through a consistent, effective planning process, even if it is entirely a mental exercise, is essential to maximizing the effectiveness of each prospect/client interaction.
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All business leaders go through a journey when making a complex purchasing decision. The modern prospect can also do a lot of their research online and move through a decision journey before getting involved with a salesperson. Knowing where the prospect is in their journey will enable you to ask better questions and share more relevant information.
Look at the notes in your CRM and review them to determine where the prospect is in their decision-making journey. If it’s your first meeting, give them a call or send them an email with some questions that will help gather information for a more targeted sales call plan.
Too often sellers ignore the importance of seeing each call in the context of what stage of a buying decision each decision-maker is in at the time of the call. Perhaps, careful examination of this issue may reveal that the upcoming meeting is with someone in the buyer’s company that is either not currently actively considering a new solution or perhaps is not a decision-maker. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the meeting is of no value but each of these two possibilities requires preparing a different approach. Unless the seller has already established that the individual(s) they are meeting with is/are (a) decision-maker(s), strategic task number one is to uncover who has such a role. If the meeting is with validated decision makers, but the seller is uncertain if the individual(s) are actively considering a new solution, then the primary strategic goal is to understand what is driving their hesitancy to consider changing the status quo. In this latter case, the seller needs to prepare questions to coach decision makers to reflect on the cost of inaction.
Planning a call with the desired meeting outcome in mind, should be step one in any planning process. The adage "if you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there…" is an apt thing to remember. As sales professionals, one of the main jobs is to ask thought provoking questions. But how will we know what ideas to provoke in our prospect’s mind if we don’t know what we want to accomplish in the meeting?
To set goals for the sales call, ask yourself questions such as:
The outcome you are seeking from the call will determine the questions you ask and the information you should be prepared to share.
Business leaders value their time. You shouldn’t have meetings just to "touch base". Or "have a quick chat." Why are you having that meeting? More importantly, why is your prospect attending the meeting? What’s in it for them?
Establish a customer-centric purpose for the meeting, it will help engineer an effective sales call plan. Sellers should be able to express why the meeting will be of value to the prospects/clients who have agreed to spend time with the seller. Sellers who begin with statements such as, "we are meeting today so I can better understand your needs" or "I am eager to share how we solve problems you may be suffering" are missing the point here. Those are simply statements of how the seller will get value from the meeting. In these cases, what’s in it for the prospect/client?
Two important points about the Purpose statement. First, after the meeting niceties are out of the way, state the call Purpose after which ensure that the stated purpose meets the client expectation. When the Purpose has been confirmed, transition to the Agenda (below) by stating something like, "to accomplish that, I am suggesting the following Agenda items" and list them off without explanation. Second, the Purpose statement will be useful if someone joins the meeting late. Take a moment to re-state the Purpose and identify which Agenda item currently being discussed. Also, the Purpose statement you have prepared is perfect to be included in the meeting invitation.
Constructing a Purpose as part of your call planning process will ensure you keep the prospect’s priorities at the forefront.
An Agenda is something that can be adjusted as the call proceeds. After all, no sales call goes exactly as planned. However, it is important to think about an Agenda ahead of time and know exactly what steps you will take at what point in the call. Your prospect will also appreciate the fact that there is a sense of structure to the meeting. After listing the items you have prepared, be sure to check if anyone in the meeting has anything to add, amend or delete.
As the meeting proceeds through each item on the Agenda, be sure to summarize what the discussion has involved as a moment of transition into the next item.
As mentioned above, no sales call ever goes perfectly and may need to be modified as the meeting goes on. If the prospect shares information that was previously unknown, you need to respond with new questions that incorporate this new information, which may be difficult. This is why it can be useful to plan a few back-up questions ahead of time. Preparing for this eventuality requires pre-call research. Read the latest company news. Find your prospects on LinkedIn and learn about their background. There are plenty of situations where we a seller can get stuck. This is when the prepared questions come in handy. Planning questions ahead of time, allows the seller to seamlessly keep the discussion moving.
One extremely important skill is to be prepared to ask clarifying questions. Often, a buyer will share something valuable that is ripe for further exploration. Be prepared to encourage the buyer to "say more about that". Doing so will often elicit additional information that would otherwise not be forthcoming.
Value-based selling (also called value-added selling) is an approach which focuses the seller’s efforts on creating insights for prospects and customers to ensure both buyer and seller get the greatest value possible from each interaction. Many sellers have heard that successful selling is about how you sell more than it is about what you sell. This mantra has been around since early 2003. Unfortunately, developing the skills to exercise this guideline require a greater level of expertise than most companies enable their sellers to master.
Having a quality, differentiated offering is now a "ticket to the dance" and is no longer sufficient for maximizing growth. Competitive offerings are only enough for most customers to put the seller on the "short list". Buyers now expect sellers to be decision coaches capable of helping them navigate the buying landscape. Sellers need to have the skill to employ the two most important rules of selling:
Rule 1: Customers put a higher value on what they conclude and on what they tell the seller than they assign to what the seller tells them.
Rule 2: Customers put a higher value on what they ask for then they assign to what a seller freely offers.
For most, these two principles are challenging enough. But to be able to help customers conclude with clarity how they will make a choice, how they define the outcome that will provide the greatest long-term benefit, how they will uncover the most important elements of a solution, etc. requires a skill that most sellers don’t have and most organizations don’t train for. This is sadly short-sighted. Multiple studies have shown that value-based selling outperforms all other approaches by a wide margin.
What’s the message here? Sellers who plan sales calls as a platform to speak about their solution, company, etc., and are not prepared to facilitate buyer’s arriving at a better, deeper understanding of the outcome they are seeking and/or the problem they are addressing are going to be left behind. Perhaps the single most important part of sales call planning to giving thought to how the seller will recognize and seize the opportunity to create value.
Is there any seller who has not been bombarded with information about AI and LLM’s? At this point, great care should be taken when using these platforms. AI is a tremendous research tool. But as of this writing, under no circumstances should sellers use these platforms to provide final drafts or to develop finished sales call plans. This caveat will change soon as these tools continue to learn.
Where these platforms do an excellent job is in quickly identifying issues and trends that could be great sources of material allowing sellers to create value for buyers during sales calls. One thing to realize is that how inquiries are worded can produce very different results. Therefore, it is wise to use more than one platform and to try different ways of asking the same question. For example, the query may be provided to both ChatGPT and to Gemini. In each case, try phrasing questions in different ways as well as asking qualifying questions regarding each answer. In some cases, it is advisable to review the list of resources that the platform utilized. Don’t spend too much time on this review but look for resources that are consistently utilized when AI produces the answer.
Tyler Vance works closely with the participants and managers of Funnel Clarity’s training programs to ensure they achieve their expected results. Throughout Tyler’s career, he has experienced both a seller’s and buyer’s point of view bringing a unique perspective when working closely with Funnel Clarity clients. Whether Tyler is answering questions from participants, running a coaching session, webinar series, or working with managers to develop a reinforcement plan, he brings a unique and fun element into every part of his role.
