{"id":825,"date":"2007-04-17T08:52:58","date_gmt":"2007-04-17T13:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/04\/top-tactics-for-every-sales-call\/"},"modified":"2007-04-17T08:52:59","modified_gmt":"2007-04-17T13:52:59","slug":"top-tactics-for-every-sales-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/04\/top-tactics-for-every-sales-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Tactics For Every Sales Call"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The stereotypical description of a &#8220;good&#8221; salesperson is his or her ability to talk.&nbsp; Granted, good communication skills are extremely important in successful selling, but there is far more to it than just that ability.&nbsp; Salesopedia.com posts <a href=\"http:\/\/www.salesopedia.com\/content\/view\/598\/9999\/\" target=\"_blank\">What to Know Before Every Sales Call<\/a>&nbsp;which details common sense goals for each sales call.<\/p>\n<p>A dramatic shift in selling today involves prospect expectations.&nbsp; A salesperson is expected to understand general market conditions for a prospective company <em>before<\/em> contacting them.&nbsp; The salesperson also needs to have a general qualifying system to discover the information needed to either move forward or move on.&nbsp; What doesn&#8217;t work is the salesperson who believes they can simply talk their way through a sales call.<\/p>\n<p>So here are the 6 questions each salesperson should ask before each sales call:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>1. <strong>What is the prospect&#8217;s current situation?<\/strong><br \/>2. <strong>What are my business development goals for this client or prospective client?<\/strong><br \/>3. <strong>What is my desired next outcome?<\/strong><br \/>4. <strong>What are my relative strengths?<\/strong><br \/>5. <strong>What are my relative vulnerabilities?<\/strong><br \/>6. <strong>What actions do I need to take before the next call?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The author elaborates on each question in more detail within the article.&nbsp; The one I want to call out is number 3 because it is often overlooked or assumed.&nbsp; From the article:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Sounds simple enough, but this question is so often overlooked by professionals before they meet with clients or prospects. Our advice: if you don&#8217;t know what you want to get out of your meeting with them, don&#8217;t get out of the (proverbial) car (credit to Mack Hannan and his book <em>If You Don&#8217;t Have a Plan, Stay in the Car<\/em>).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>That topic is difficult to comprehend since most salespeople will oversimplify their goal &#8211; I want to close them, I want to provide a quote, etc.&nbsp; Wrong.&nbsp; Each meeting needs a goal beforehand.&nbsp; A lack of a goal often leads to rambling salespeople trying to talk their way to a conclusion.&nbsp; Have a plan.&nbsp; Have a selling system.&nbsp; Work your plan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The stereotypical description of a &#8220;good&#8221; salesperson is his or her ability to talk.&nbsp; Granted, good communication skills are extremely important in successful selling, but there is far more to it than just that ability.&nbsp; Salesopedia.com posts What to Know Before Every Sales Call&nbsp;which details common sense goals for each sales call. A dramatic shift in selling today involves prospect expectations.&nbsp; A salesperson is expected to understand general market conditions for a prospective company before contacting them.&nbsp; The salesperson also needs to have a general qualifying system to discover the information needed to either move forward or move on.&nbsp; What doesn&#8217;t work is the salesperson who believes they can simply&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/04\/top-tactics-for-every-sales-call\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-dj","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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