alyzen

Account Manager

Contributor

Good Citizen

Fire Starter

How do you start your sales calls? What is your first/initial step?

Would love to see other tactics, skills and opinions in the comments

What should you do on a first in your initial call/meeting/interaction?

Attached poll

Explain Product Listen and Understand Customer's Needs

*Voting in this poll no longer yields commission.

😎 Sales Skills

19 comments

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pief

Politicker

Account Executive

Every true sales pro knows the beginning of a sales call is reserved for freestyle riffing about the weather.

Hot outside? “Sure is hot out today.” Raining? “How ‘bout this rain, am I right?” After about 20 minutes of this you can then transition into telling them your name and company name, then hard close them to set up a demo.

rekled

Opinionated

Strategic Account Executive

100%. the initial part of the conversation has to be free style - even if you're forced right into introductions.

AutoSmiler

Arsonist

Account Executive

Always find the need/s before explaining your product, otherwise your not only wasting time - if there is not a need, you lost the interest of the prospect as well. Get them talking in the beginning, then you close it off with next steps if it makes sense to do so.

SADNES5

Politicker

down voters are marketing spies

Yep. Listen and let them talk

funcoupons

WR Officer

👑

This. I learn as much as I can about the prospect's situation before I give even 30 seconds of info about us.

softwaresails

Politicker

Sales Manager

Always do your discovery first! Pains, interests, timeline, authority. Need to understand these things (and orhers) before you can be successful.

stratman

Politicker

Sales Engineer

So much time and energy is wasted due to the lack of discovery it drives me batty.

softwaresails

Politicker

Sales Manager

I definitely annoy my reps with my constant preaching about discovery discovery discovery! But it’s the number 1 key to success in my opinion.

poweredbycaffeine

WR Lieutenant

☕️

Y'all are missing maybe the most important part of a sales call: a clear agenda.

Set it up top, leverage mutually agreed upon goals and outcomes, and then start into your discovery.

Beans

Big Shot

Enterprise Account Executive

Pain before product, always.

Incognito

WR Officer

Master of Disaster

Ask what they are doing to address “x” pain point (that you know you can solve), listen, and ask if you could do “y”, how would that effect their bottom line? (Give examples of how - ex: have one less salary to pay, increase equity, etc)

alyzen

Contributor

Account Manager

this is one of the answers I was looking for, and this is a great tactic to create needs for your clients that they might not even be aware of. This is how you know that your product solves problems that your customer might not even be aware of

rekled

Opinionated

Strategic Account Executive

you are vetting them as much as they are vetting you. without truly understanding their motivations, challenges/problems - you'll be left to dry in the spin cycle.

at a high level... this is what i try to establish in the first discovery call:

1. identify problems / challenges. (asking open ended discovery type questions about their current state).

2. be sure to understand "what if they choose to do nothing".

3. is there trigger event (e.g. strategic direction by the company / leadership to invest in a product like yours, or a recent incident resulted in looking to solve a problem/challenge)?

4. what do they know about my company, if anything? often times they don't, so i have a 30 second elevator pitch using a story or analogy to explain my product.

5. assess if you have enough information and whether it makes sense to move forward. be bold if you don't think they are a good fit. otherwise, schedule the demo and ensure the demo ONLY addresses items in 1 above. during the demo, you can ask additional open-ended questions for further engagement that may lead to other product features / functionality. it's the whole "don't answer a question that was not asked" approach.

MMMGood

Celebrated Contributor

Senior Account Executive

Always best to start by listening. The customer knows you have a product you want to talk about...but more importantly wants to know that you care about the issues they are having that prompt a need for that product.

Chep

WR Officer

Bitcoin Adoption Specialist

Exactly. Once a prospect really starts chatting my ear off that's the moment I feel like I have a good chance of scheduling the meeting!

Soldmysoultoselltech

Praised Answer

Account Executive

I was assuming this is for a cold sales call...Agreed with you all

ARRisLife

Politicker

Account Executive

Agreed with many of the other responses but emphasizing agenda. In my mind it's sometimes salesy 101 but think of it more as expectation setting. Best practice is send an outline prior to solicit feedback on any particular topics. Great pulse check too prior to call- are they engaged and give feedback or ask for certain topics? That tells me okay there's real interest. Does it garner no response.. okay, pressures on- I need to be methodical and get my hooks in early.

Lastly- can't tell you how many times I've gotten a call set up via bdr or something and prospects under the assumption we're doing a demo which is a huge no before we get more discovery and context.

alyzen

Contributor

Account Manager

100% agreed here, discovery or qualification call is very important to see what's going on before the demo or anything about the product comes in. You need a quality starting line before which is truly not a demo ever. I've noticed that starting with a demo first makes the customer lose interest fast.

sellingsellssold

Politicker

SDR

Briefly explain the product and ask questions to discover the customers need, this is the most important part. Once you discover this need you can go in for the close and explain the product.

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alyzen

How do you start your sales calls? What is your first/initial step?

What should you do on a first in your initial call/meeting/interaction?

19 comments

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