Which of the following is considered the most important step for a salesperson in planning a sales call?

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It's always good to have a plan for your sales visits that can serve as a quick reminder of the essentials. You can use this checklist as a review before and after each sales call to make sure you cover all the bases. Leaving a sales call and wishing you had remembered to ask a specific question or show the prospect another product idea is a horrible feeling; using this checklist may help you avoid that. Edit this list based on the type of sales cycle you're involved in.

Sales Call Checklist

Did I:

  • Research the account prior to the call?
  • Learn something about the person and their business before the meeting?
  • Send an outline of the agenda to the client before the meeting?
  • Have three value-added points prepared?
  • Bring all materials, brochures, contracts, etc.?
  • Answer the three important pre-call questions:A. What is the goal of the call?B. What do I need to find out during the call?

    C. What's the next step after the call?

2. Greeting and Introduction

Did I:

  • Observe the prospect's office décor (e.g., trophies, awards, pictures and so on)?
  • Find out about the prospect's personal interests, hobbies, family and so on?
  • Find out the names of contacts in the account and write them down?
  • Bridge to the business topic smoothly?
  • Listen more than I spoke? (Ideally, you should spend 80 percent of your time listening and only 20 percent talking.)
  • Ask the customer about their business goals?
  • Ask the customer what challenges the company is facing?

3. Qualifying

Did I:

  • Find out who the decision-makers are by asking "Who else besides yourself might be involved in the decision-making process?"
  • Ask what process they normally go through when considering a new vendor?
  • Find out how and why they made the decision for their current product or service (assuming they are replacing a product or service)?
  • Find out what their time frame is?
  • Find out if funds have been allocated--and how much?
  • Find out their specific needs?
  • Ask if they could change something about their product or service, what would it be?

4. Surveying

Did I:

  • Ask open-ended questions (who, what, where, when, why, how, how much, tell me about it, describe for me)?
  • Ask about the corporate structure?
  • Ask about the prospect's role at the company?
  • Ask what's important to them?
  • Ask what's interesting to them and then focus on that?
  • Ask what risks they perceive?
  • Ask how we can help solve their problems?
  • Ask what they think about our company?
  • Ask what they like and dislike about their current vendor?
  • Ask how industry trends are affecting them?
  • Ask "what if?" questions?
  • Ask what they would like to see from a vendor and salesperson in the area of support after the sale?
  • Ask what their short-term and long-term goals are?
  • Ask how I can become their most valued vendor?
  • Ask what is our next step?
  • Establish a specific follow-up schedule?
  • Parrot the prospect to encourage him to expand, elaborate and go into detail about each answer?

5. Handling Objections

Did I:

  • Listen to the entire objection?
  • Pause for three seconds before responding?
  • Remain calm and not defensive?
  • Meet the objection with a question in order to find out more?
  • Restate the objection to make sure we agreed (communication)?
  • Answer the objection?
  • Complete the six-step process?1. Listen2. Define3. Rephrase4. Isolate5. Present solution

    6. Close (or next step)

6. Presentation

Did I:

  • Prioritize the prospect's needs?
  • Talk about benefits to the customer?
  • Use layman's terms?
  • Link the benefit to the prospect's needs?
  • Verify each need before moving on?
  • Present myself, company and product in a positive light?
  • Re-establish rapport?
  • Ask if anything changed since our last meeting?
  • Pre-commit the prospect?
  • Give a general overview of the product or service?
  • Keep the presentation focused on the customer's needs?
  • Involve the customer in the presentation?
  • Summarize the prospect's needs and how our product or service meets those needs?

7. Closing

Did I:

  • Get the customer to identify all possible problems that might be solved by my product or service?
  • Get the customer to identify the value of solving the identified problems?
  • Get agreement that the proposed solution provides the values identified?
  • Ask for the order ("Why don't we go ahead with this?")?

8. Customer Maintenance

Did I:

  • Write thank you letters for appointments, orders and so on?
  • Earn the right to ask for reference letters and referrals?
  • Establish a schedule for follow-up calls and customer visits?
  • Ask for referrals ("Do you know three people who could benefit from my product and service like you did?")?
  • Send thank you notes to lost accounts?
  • Ask what are three important things we can do as a vendor to keep our relationship strong?

This checklist will help you stay focused. Every time you schedule a sales call, run through this list before-hand to make sure you're prepared--and after the visit to see what you can do next time to make the call run more smoothly and increase your chances of success.

The average outside salesperson only spends about 25 – 30 percent of his/her work week actually face-to-face with the customer. Doesn’t it make sense to spend some time planning and preparing to make that 25 – 30 percent of the week the highest quality you can possibly make it?

Most salespeople love to be active—out in their territories, seeing people, solving problems, putting deals together. This activity orientation is one of the necessary characteristics of a sales personality. A day sitting behind a desk is their idea of purgatory.

Unfortunately, this activity orientation is both a strength and a weakness. Much of a salesperson’s ability to produce results finds its genesis in the energy generated by this activity orientation.

But it can be a major obstacle. Far too often, salespeople are guilty of going about their jobs directed by the credo of “Ready, shoot…aim.” The luxury of this kind of unfocused activity is a casualty of the Information Age.

In order to be effective, salespeople must be focused and thoughtful about everything they do.

Activity without forethought and planning is a needless waste of time and energy.

And the most important part of the job to think about is the time they spend in front of their prospects and customers.

The Core Value Salespeople Bring To Their Company

Of all the different parts of their job, there is nothing more important to think about—nothing more important to plan—than face time with prospects and customers.

For most salespeople, if they were to make a list of everything they do in the course of a day, and then considered each of the items on the list, they’d likely discover that almost everything they do can be done cheaper or better by someone else within their company.

Someone else can call for appointments cheaper or better than a salesperson. They can more easily check on back orders. Someone else can fill out a price quote, write a letter, or deliver a sample, cheaper or better than most salespeople.

In fact, it’s likely that the only thing a salesperson can do that no one else in the company can do cheaper or better is interact with the customers.

It’s the face-to-face interactions with customers that define the value they typically bring to the company. If it weren’t for that, your company would have little use for salespeople.

So, the face-to-face interaction with the customer is the core value salespeople bring to the company.

Yet, most studies indicate that the average outside salesperson only spends about 25 – 30 percent of his/her work week actually face-to-face with the customer.

In the light of that, doesn’t it make sense to spend some time planning and preparing to make that 25 – 30 percent of the week the highest quality you can possibly make it? Of course it does.

What Building a Home and Building the Perfect Sales Day Have In Common

Mastery of this practice is built upon several powerful principles.

It’s the Information Age, remember. And that means, if you’re going to be an effective professional salesperson, you must collect, store, and use good information. You can’t make effective plans if the information on which you build those plans is faulty or sketchy.

If you were going to build a home, for example, you’d want to know about the nature of the ground on which the home was to be built.

You’d need to have a good idea about what kind of weather conditions the home would be enduring, what the building codes were, what materials were available and what they cost, and what kind of skilled workmen were required.

The list could go on and on. The point is that you wouldn’t be able to build a home very effectively if you didn’t have good information on which to base those plans.

Good Planning Requires Good Information

The same principles that apply to building a home, also apply to maintaining effective sales performance. In both cases, good planning requires good information.

It may be that your company provides you with all the information you need. But, it’s more likely they don’t.

If you’re going to work with good information, you must be the one who collects that information.

That means that you must create systems to collect, store, and use the information that will be most helpful to you.

Since our world is constantly producing new information, the system you create isn’t something you can set and forget. Rather, it must be a dynamic system that is constantly processing, storing, and using new information.

5 Steps For Effective Sales Call Planning

The Information-Collecting Process of creating and maintaining your system requires you to follow several specific steps.

Here’s the Process:

  1. Create a list of the categories of information you’d like to have.
  2. Working with one category at a time, brainstorm a list of all the pieces of information you’d like to have within that category.
  3. Develop a system and some tools to help you collect that information.
  4. Store it efficiently.
  5. Use it regularly.

Step One: List Useful Information

Start by listing the kinds of information you think will be most useful to you.

Think about your job and determine what kinds of information you’d like to have to help you deal effectively with your customers.

Here’s a partial list of information that would fit most people:

  • Your customers and prospects
  • Your competitors
  • The products, programs, and services you sell

You may have a number of other categories, but this is a basic list with which you can begin.

Step Two: Categorize

Once you’ve categorized the kind of information you’d like, you can then think about what information would be ideal to have in each category.

Start at the top and work down. Look at customers and prospects first. What, ideally, would you like to know about them?

Some typical pieces of information would include information about the account’s total volume of the kind of products you sell, the dates of contracts that are coming up, the people from whom they are currently buying, and so forth. All of that seems pretty basic.

However, most people have no systematic way of collecting and storing that information. So, while you may occasionally ask a certain customer for parts of it, you probably aren’t asking every customer for all the information.

And, you’re probably not collecting it, storing it, and referring to it in a systematic, disciplined way.

Do you think your competitors know exactly how much potential is in each of their accounts?

Do you think they know other pieces of useful information, for example, how many pieces of production equipment each customer has, and the manufacturer and year of purchase of each?

Probably not.

If you collect good quantitative marketing information, you’ll be better equipped to make strategic decisions and create effective plans.

For example, you’ll know exactly who to talk to when the new piece of equipment from ABC manufacturer is finally introduced.

And, you’ll know who is really ripe for some new cost-saving product that’s coming, or the new program your company is putting together.

You may currently be doing a so-so job of collecting information. It’s like golf. Anyone can hit a golf ball. But few can do it well. Anyone can get some information. Few people do it well.

Step Three: Develop a system and some tools.

The single most effective tool is an account profile form. It’s an incredibly effective tool that generates and organizes some of the most powerful processes.

Step Four: Store it efficiently.

You may have done a great job of collecting information, but if you’ve stored it on old matchbook covers, coffee-stained post-its, and the backs of old business cards somewhere in the backseat of your car, it’s probably not going to do you much good.

If you are into digital filing, then your computer can be the super tool that allows you to efficiently store the information. If not, you’re going to need to create a set of files (yes, manila folders!) in which to store your information.

Step Five: Use it regularly.

Before every sales call, review the information you have stored. That review will help you make good decisions about each aspect of the sales call.

Likewise, review the information as you create your annual goals and sales plans, when you create account strategies, and when you organize and plan your territories.

As you can tell, an account profile form is a master tool that holds all of this together.

This free guide on prospecting sequences will teach you how to develop a series of prospecting touches, arranged in an intentional sequence, to improve the probability that you engage your prospect. Download the FREE Seven Steps to Building Effective Prospecting Sequences ebook here.

Which of the following is considered the most important step for a salesperson in planning a sales call?