By

Simon Hazeldine

Professional and successful salespeople understand the importance of planning and preparing. They live by the motto: “If you fail to plan you plan to fail.” A good quality of prior planning and preparing maximises your chances of sales success.

This process if mastered, will immediately catapult you to the top 10% of the selling profession. The sales call preparation and planning are the steps that are often overlooked far too often by many sales “professionals”. I would be so bold as to suggest that if they are overlooking this step then they are not all that professional!

A common objection (or rather excuse) that I am given is that people don’t have enough time. People will tell me that they don’t have the time to plan and prepare their sales calls. They just need to get on and do them.

It would appear however, that they do have the time to waste on making sales calls that are unproductive and unsuccessful. Calls that are not planned and prepared are far less likely to be successful. You can also waste a potential customer’s time as well as your own. Hardly a tactic that will build a strong commercial relationship, is it?

You must prepare and plan properly for both in-person customer meetings and virtual meetings. Some tips on both will be included.

Sales Call Preparation Checklist

In short, you need to prepare anything and everything that you may need when you will be conducting the call with the customer.
My own personal rule is to prepare anything that I may need when I am face to face with the customer. It is very professional to be able to answer the vast majority of questions your prospect or customer may have on the spot. This communicates a professional and business-like message to your customers.

Some suggestions for things to prepare are:

• Know your products and services in detail.
  
• Know your competitor’s products and services in detail.
  
• Know your pricing.
  
• Know your competitor’s pricing.
  
• Have a short and simple presentation on your product and service. It is very important that you practice any sales presentation that you may make to a prospect or customer. You must know the elements of your presentation inside out so that you can flex and adapt it to suit each individual customer. Practice, practice, practice.
  
• Have a range of sales aids to help your sales presentation (these could include case studies, testimonials, customer success stories etc).

Additionally, if you are meeting the customer in person please consider:

• If you need to use your laptop or tablet in a sales call, make sure it is clean and the battery is fully charged. Take your charger also, as you can plug it in if the customer is happy with you doing this.
  
• If you need to present to more than one person in a call you may need to take a projector with you.
  
• Make sure your mobile or cell ‘phone is fully charged before you start each day.
  
• If you are meeting in person, make sure you have checked out the journey to customer’s location and know how long it is going to take you to make the journey. Add on some extra time to allow for any hold ups on your journey. Turning up late looks very unprofessional!
  
• Have a smart briefcase or bag that contains all you may need.

And, if you are meeting the customer virtually, please consider the following:

• Make sure your computer it is of a sufficient specification to handle video calls. Research from Gong Labs analysed 12,282 sales opportunities and showed that win rates are 94% higher when salespeople have their video on when selling and by 96% when customers have their video on. To encourage customers to use their video, join the call a few minutes early so that when they join, they see that you are already on video and are more likely to switch their web cam on. You can also indicate that it is a video call in your meeting invitation.
  
• Webcam – make sure it is of a good quality as this will enhance the video image you display to the customer. Position your web cam at eye level so that you can make good eye contact with the customer. Look directly at the webcam when you are speaking with the customer and not at any of your screens. This will help to create a connection with the customer and demonstrate that you are focusing your full attention on them. When I need to look at, or refer to another screen, I mention that I am doing this so that the customer understands the reason for my break in eye contact.
  
• Your lighting – make sure you are well lit as this will also enhance the video image you display to the customer. If you sit with a light shining from behind (for example, from a window), the customer will see a dark silhouette and will be unable to see your face clearly.
  
• Your audio – make sure you have good quality audio. I tend to use a headset with a microphone that will minimise any background noise and make what the customer is saying very clear.
  
• An additional screen – a second, and perhaps even a third, screen will not only aid your overall productivity but will allow you greater flexibility and control during virtual calls. I typically share any PowerPoint presentations or documentation from my second screen, keeping my first screen free for the meeting controls and view of the customer’s video.
  
• Technical check – join the call a few minutes early, so that you can check that your audio and video is working. You can also check the quality of your video image.
  
• The environment you are making the call from. Research results from a survey that asked what factors made people appear to be authentic, an expert, innovative and trustworthy in virtual meetings was published in the Harvard Business Review. The survey showed that most people prefer to see the actual room that is behind you. The next preference was for a wall of a solid-colour and the least popular was a virtual scenic background. Since this research was conducted blurred backgrounds have become available and these can be a good choice as they minimise any background distractions and may help to keep customer’s attention. When you conduct the technical check before the customer joins the call also make sure that nothing that you do not want the customer to see is in the background.
  
• Distractions – Minimise all and any distractions. Neuroscience demonstrates that despite what we may think, the human brain cannot multi-task effectively. Instead, it switches between tasks rapidly giving the impression of multi-tasking. This is distracting and tiring on the brain. You will lose concentration and focus on your customer if you get distracted, so make sure you turn off distracting notifications from any apps, systems or voice activated devices and set them to “do not disturb” as part of your pre-call preparation. Put your phone onto silent mode. Only have in front of you what you need for the specific customer call you are currently engaged in.
  
• Personal appearance – Finally, prepare yourself personally. Make sure that your appearance is appropriate. People make judgements about people based on how they look. The survey into virtual meetings mentioned previously showed that the participants in the survey regarded people in business casual clothing (the exception being that more formal dress helped people’s perception of someone as an expert) more positively. Neutral colour clothing rather than bright colours or patterns was regarded the most favourably.

Just because you are participating in a virtual meeting is no excuse for looking unprofessional. Treat your customers with respect, and make sure that your virtual appearance is very similar to what your appearance would be in a face-to-face meeting.

Sales Call Planning Checklist

Once you are well prepared you can then make sure that the call or meeting you are going to have with your customer is well planned.

Some suggested areas to include in your call planning are:

• Notes from the research you have conducted on your customer that you may wish to mention or refer to during the call. The topic of research will be addressed below.
  
• Your objectives for the meeting. Extensive psychological research demonstrates that setting clear objectives improves performance. So, if you want to excel at selling then you must have a very clear goal or outcome for every customer call or meeting.

Ask yourself: “At the end of this call / meeting what do I want the customer to think, feel and do?” This then gives you a very clear focus for the call / meeting and you can use the following S.M.A.SH. process to ensure you have absolute clarity.

The acronym S.M.A.S.H. stands for:

Specific: This defines the result you want in a clear and unambiguous way. For example, you want the customer to place an order, to agree to the next meeting or to introduce you to another contact inside their organisation.

Measurable: This defines the criteria that will tell you if you have achieved your objective. For example, how large an order you want the customer to agree to. The measurable step provides clear success criteria.

Achievable: Is the achievement of your selling objective realistic for the stage of the sales process you are in? If you are making your very first call to a customer and have not yet been able to identify if the customer has a need for your product or service, then it would not make sense to set an objective to sell this customer a specific volume of your product on this call. Instead set an objective to gather the specific information that will allow you to qualify if the customer is a viable prospect and then if they are to gain agreement to discuss how your product or service can help them.

Stretching: Is your selling objective challenging enough? Research demonstrates that setting specific and challenging goals leads to a higher level of performance than easy goals. The more difficult a goal, the better the performance. So, whilst care should be taken to ensure that your selling objectives are challenging and not unrealistic, this step provides the inspiration to become bolder and more ambitious in your selling.

Holistic: Will the achievement of your selling objective be good for your customer and for you?
It is very important that your selling objective has consideration for the potential needs of the customer as well as the benefit to you. Far too may salespeople have only got their own commission in mind when selling. If the achievement of your selling objective will benefit the customer, then you stand the greatest chance of achieving it. It needs to be holistic for both parties concerned. This step provides a good win-win goal for your selling efforts.

• Who is attending from the customer?

It is important to know the names and job roles of the people attending the meeting from the customer. In business-to-business sales there will often be multiple people involved in any significant buying decision and knowing who they are is vitally important. People’s job roles will also give an indication of what their professional responsibilities may be, which will influence what they are going to be most interested in. In a business to consumer meeting, it is still important to know who will be attending.

• What information do you need to gather?

Considering the information that you need to get from the customer in the meeting will inform the questions that you need to ask.

• What information does the customer want from you?

Make sure you understand what the customer expects from the meeting so that you can make sure it is valuable for them and that you are ready answer any questions they want to ask.

• What agenda will you follow?

Have clarity over what topics you want to cover and approximately how much time you will spend on each area. It can be helpful to pre-condition your proposed agenda with the customer to ensure it meets their needs and expectations.

• Research the customer

You need to research the companies you want as customers. The level of detail will depend upon the level of contact and the potential size or value of the customer to you. It would not be practical to spend hours researching a long list of companies to which you are making an initial cold approach to. However, it is necessary if you want to secure significant business from a large company or organisation.

With the internet at our fingertips, it is a quick and easy process to research our customers. There is no excuse for not having conducted, at the very least, some quick research on your customer before you speak with them.

Your aim is to develop an understanding of them, what they do, what may be important to them, what they want to achieve, who their key people are and to get a feel for their company culture as this may influence how they operate with suppliers.
Some of the specific information you may wish to research includes:

• The industry they are in
  
• The sorts of customers they serve
  
• Details of their brands, products, and services
  
• Their company mission statement
  
• Their company values and culture
  
• Number of offices / locations and where they are
  
• Key financial information
  
• Key personnel such as board of directors, senior management
  
• Number of employees

This sort of research will often give you an insight into how your products and services may be helpful to the customer. It will also demonstrate that you are professional, well-prepared and customer orientated.

Things to consider looking at as part of your research include any information you already have on the customer, for example, information contained in your company CRM system. In addition, look at the customer’s website, their social media content, and their entry on Wikipedia if they have one. Conduct an internet search to identify other useful information about them.

Look at their company page in LinkedIn and at some of the LinkedIn profiles for their key employees – in particular the LinkedIn profiles of the people you will be having the meeting with. This will build your knowledge of their background and profile.

If you follow these simple preparation and planning steps with discipline, you will enjoy far higher levels of sales success.

If I can be of any help or assistance to you then please contact me.

Good luck and good selling!

About the author

Simon Hazeldine works internationally as a revenue growth and sales performance speaker, consultant, and coach. He empowers his clients to get more sales, more often with more margin.

He has spoken in over thirty countries and his client list includes some of the world’s largest and most successful companies.

Simon has a master’s degree in psychology, is the bestselling author of ten books that have been endorsed by a host of business leaders including multi-billionaire business legend Michael Dell and is co-founder of leading sales podcast “The Sales Chat Show”.