Pre-Call Planning

By Jim Hingst

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Sales opportunities don’t come easy. We can spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on direct mail, email campaigns or traditional advertising. Many of us also spend hours on the phone making prospecting calls. A high percentage of these phone calls end up in rejection and frustration.

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Having made hundreds of joint calls with salespeople, I can honestly say that a high percentage of these meetings were unprepared. While there is some truth to Woody Allen’s assertion that “80% of success is just showing up,” pre-call planning can improve your odds of success, when you are selling a custom product, such a fleet graphics or environmental graphics.

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With all the time, money and effort invested to uncover an opportunity and schedule an appointment, why do so many salespeople just “wing it” instead of preparing for the call? As the legendary UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden, cautioned his players, “failing to prepare is preparing to fail.”?Even if you are fast on your feet and have been improvising for years, I believe that pre-call planning can improve your sales call performance in the following ways:

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● Preparing for the sales call in advance can help relieve some of the natural stress of an initial meeting.?Having collected good background information will also give you more confidence in speaking with prospects.

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● The information gathered about the business will help in planning a sales call strategy.

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● In a face-to-face meeting, pre-call planning allows you to control the direction of the meeting. As a salesperson, you will be more thorough in the sales interview. What’s more, this reduces the chance that you will forget points that you wanted to cover or that you will stumble your way through the meeting.

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● Pre-call planning organizes the sales call, so you make better use of the prospect’s time. This shows the client that you respect his or her time.

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● By understanding the background of the prospect’s business, the products they make, their services, key contacts and their industry, you project a more professional image.

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Whether you are introducing yourself for the first time to a prospect or dropping into to see a longtime customer, you need a goal for every sales call you make. That takes preparation. Before any meeting ever starts, you need to ask yourself: “what am I trying to achieve in the sales call?” If you cannot answer that question, you are not prepared to do your job.

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Ultimately, you may need to do some soul searching to understand your role is in the sales process. If you view yourself as a sales consultant, your role includes assisting the client to articulate or identify their needs and problems as well as proposing solutions and guiding him or her in their buying decision. In the role of a consultant you must have the client’s best interest at heart. With that in mind, anyone can make a sale the first time, but a real salesperson makes a customer for life.

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Establishing Sales Call Goals

Pre-call planning should occur at every stage of the sales cycle.?This planning will vary depending on what stage you are in. Obviously, preparing for a sales call as you initially qualify a new prospect will be quite different from your preparation for a needs analysis meeting, a design appraisal, the presentation of artwork or your program proposal.

Regardless of what stage you are in in the sales cycle, general preparation for that meeting should follow the blueprint outlined below:

● Determine the objectives for the meeting. Your goals for the meeting will hinge on where you are in the sales process. In an introductory meeting, you may want to discover who are the key players in the decision-making process. You may want to probe for any dissatisfaction with their existing vendor. You may also want to learn about the company’s marketing plans related to corporate identity. You might also want to discover other opportunities. In addition, make a list of questions that the prospect could ask you along with your answers.

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