“Pitch us a sale on something. Tell us over the phone why we should buy your product.”
Did you get nervous? Maybe a momentary ‘deer in headlights’ occurred? It’s ok. No one is an outstanding sales call representative right away, even if you are friendly and can make people open up to you very quickly.
Being confident and effective with sales calls takes time and training, especially for specific target audiences and products. Don’t sweat it if making sales calls isn’t your strong point. We will be discussing some ideas and tricks that you can introduce to your team or even practice yourself to become better at sales calls.
Gain Confidence.
Sales calls can be one of the scariest things you will have to learn as a new business employee, and it is entirely natural to feel that way. The best thing you can do for yourself to get over that initial greeting is to go into a sales call with confidence and optimism. Let them hear a natural person through the phone and give them something to connect with.
If you get hung up on, don’t let it weigh on you, we know it’s hard, but it is to your benefit. Instead, turn that energy into breaking down why you were hung up on and use it as research for future sales calls. Just breathe. If you can’t remember anything else in the moment, just breathe.
Listen.
A sales call is a conversation, one party may be talking more than the other, but it is still incredibly important to listen to the customer. We mean really listen, not just acknowledging that you hear what they’re saying if they say “no” but to really let them feel like you are in the conversation with them.
Try to keep the customer in the sale as best you can, and if you feel them pulling away, then try to find something that the product or service you are offering can be beneficial to them and people they may know. No matter what, don’t get so lost in your script that the customer feels like they can’t get a word in.
Practice scenarios for a script change.
When making a sales call, you will start from a script and explain the product and what it can do for customers and quickly and thoroughly as possible. By the time the call is over, you will have probably abandoned that script altogether to adapt to each individual customer. That’s good. Your sales call reps should practice what to do if they need to go off-script to make a sale.
Organize sessions where your sales reps can role-play the caller and the customer and give them different scenarios you’ve experienced where a little improvisation became necessary. The representatives will feel more relaxed when they have to do it, and it will help the overall quality of your sales calls.
Being good at sales calls doesn’t mean you will make a sale every call. That just isn’t realistic for customer interaction. It means that you have the skills and practice to make more sales per call than you would have otherwise. See what strategies and ideas could benefit you and your sales rep team the next time they need to make sales calls.
