I’ve been warned that my sarcasm will get me in trouble. It might even get you in trouble. You should definitely not wing it. You should make a Call Plan.
This post is about preparation and planning for important sales conversations by creating a sales call plan. This, unfortunately, conjures fear or indifference from just about everyone out there. High-achieving, organized Type A personalities love to plan and to talk about planning, but really dislike the often messy world of sales. Type B personalities, on the other hand, loathe the idea of having a plan but occasionally close deals by just flying by the seat of their pants. As a result, neither one really excels at this.
I’m going to try to navigate the space between all of those things, because all personality types – and anybody who is ever going to have a sales call – can have more success with this simple process.
Defining the Sales Call Plan
The term “call” refers to any interaction like a telephone call, video meeting, face-to-face conversation, or other interaction with a prospective client. These “micro” interactions are often the most important, and most overlooked, part of finding and winning new business, particularly in the world of professional services where sales cycles are long, opportunities are complex, and the stakes are high. Creating a sales call plan is what sales professionals do to show up prepared and confident.
A Call Plan is a deliberate, 20-30 minute exercise completed, ideally, with a partner (two heads are always better than one) that addresses the following:
- Your objective for the conversation
- Important research and background information needed
- The agenda for the call
- Questions to ask during the conversation
- A brief Client Success Story to share
- Desired next steps after the call
- … and any other details like the names of all attendees, dates, etc.
Now let’s dig a bit deeper into those bullet points.
Your objective might not be what you think it is
When I complete a Call Plan with one of my clients, the first thing everyone lists as their call plan objective is… you guessed it…
Close. The. Deal.
While closing and contracting new business is our ultimate goal, there are typically many steps before we get there. Prospective clients won’t agree to “close” before they are ready, and most will react in an equal and opposite fashion if pushed. So closing actually happens when both parties are ready and when there is nothing else to do.
Most of the time, your objective is to complete the current step in your sales process and do so alongside your prospective client. If you are planning for an initial conversation, you are both seeking to Qualify each other, i.e. determine whether this is a good fit. That’s it. If this is a subsequent conversation – maybe a Discovery call – you are preparing detailed, open-ended questions to uncover needs, desires, dislikes, dreams, wishes, and more. And you’re prepared to reveal a bit more detail about how you help clients address those needs. Discovery calls are longer and more in depth, but they still aren’t closing.
So setting a realistic, incremental objective for your call is critical, as you want to achieve that goal and keep things moving forward.
Do your due diligence
Researching your prospective client is straightforward, but don’t gloss over the importance of being thorough. You’re not researching a college thesis, but you do want to understand more about the individuals and the company you meet with.
And let me take this opportunity to make an important point about the information people publish about themselves. Susan Jones (the person with whom you are meeting next week) might have a Twitter feed or a LinkedIn profile that lists her education, her work experience, and likely shows various articles she has written or at least shared. Susan didn’t do this for herself. She did it so people could and would get to know her and her point-of-view. Go look at Susan’s profile and make sure she knows you saw it. (BTW, I don’t know Susan Jones, but you’d better.)
Set an agenda and control the meeting
“Control” often comes off as heavy handed, but the reality is, if you don’t set the meeting topic, the pace of the conversation, and the goals, someone else will. Or even worse, nobody will.
We’ve all been in meetings where it’s pretty obvious that an agenda might not exist and if it does, nobody is following it. After 10 minutes you start looking at the clock and thinking of the 200 other, more important things you could be doing at that moment. Don’t let that happen.
Creating a sales call plan with a simple 3-4 point agenda is important. It should be presented prior to the meeting or at the outset to let everyone know where things are going and where you’d like to end up. This will flex around a bit, and your ability to work with small shifts in the conversation are important. But make sure you get through it. Your ability to run a great meeting is a powerful leading indicator of your skills as a consultant. Your prospect will like that.
I’ve never learned a darn thing while I was talking
Unfortunately, “good” salespeople are often associated with the gift of gab. While the ability to have a conversation is clearly important, people who just can’t stop talking are terrible at uncovering and discovering client needs and problems. People who know me personally will say that I talk a lot. But when I’m in a sales conversation with a clear objective, I know to keep my mouth shut and keep asking good questions.
Great, open-ended questions that uncover client needs and challenges beyond the obvious ones are your superpower, because they:
- Keep you from doing all the talking,
- Uncover implicit or “unstated” needs,
- Let the prospect talk about themselves, which they love, and
- Display your desire to gain a deep understanding of the client and to listen.
Preparing a list of good questions is the most important part creating a sales call plan. If you do nothing else, write down 5 great, open ended questions. Not questions about the obvious stuff, i.e. how big, how fast, how much (scope, schedule, budget), but questions that really reflect your curiosity and interest in your prospect.
Have a relevant Client Success Story in your back pocket
The time will come for you to talk about your work and how you help your clients achieve their objectives. That typically comes right after your prospective client is ready to hear it. And, ideally, that happens much later in the conversation. A brief story is the best way to provide this information.
I recommend that you keep this little story “in your back pocket” because it’s okay if you never get to it. Chances are you’ve got a nice one-page case study that you can fire off to your prospect in a well-crafted email after the conversation, so this is not a priority. In the event that it comes up, though, you should be ready.
The best Client Success Stories are very short, very relevant, and are all about the client you served. You should be able to relay this in 60-120 seconds. There are many experts out there who know how to put these together, and most follow this simple framework:
- The client situation
- The client problem/need/challenge
- The work you did together to address the problem/need/challenge
- The results the client achieved
That’s it. And notice that the work you did is only a small part of that story. The hardest part of crafting this story is coming up with the client results and ultimate outcomes. Sometimes you need to go back some time later and really understand what they did or did not achieve. And guess what? This is a great opportunity to have a conversation!
Set a Next Step or there won’t be one
If a list of great questions is your superpower, then failing to set a next step before you end your call is your kryptonite. That empty, hollow pain I feel in my stomach after the meeting ends with no clear next step is the same pain the Man of Steel must have felt when that kryptonite necklace kept him from saving Lois Lane. Brutal!
I don’t want to get too crazy and drone on about this one, but setting the next step is critical. And it should be done with plenty of time left, not in the last few seconds of the call. Be prepared to stop whatever is happening about 5 minutes prior to the end of the meeting and set a specific next step. The ultimate next step is a date and time set on everyone’s calendars. If you can’t get that done, set a specific date when the next conversation should occur. Anything short of that is, well, a failure. Focus on how relieved you’ll be to have a future meeting set on your calendar and not on how uncomfortable you might feel as you insist that it be scheduled.
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy
I’m not big on wartime quotes, but the sentiment is spot-on. Your tight and polished plan will likely start to fall apart in the first few moments of your meeting, but this is what I do to keep things on track:
- Complete the Call Plan. Yes, actually fill it in. Clean sheet of paper. Every time.
- Have it in front of you, either on screen or on paper, and use it for notes.
- Start your meeting on time.
- Be friendly and build rapport at the beginning of the call. But don’t waste time.
- State the agenda and clarify the value this conversation offers to both parties.
- Say something like “I know you’d like to know more about what I do (the services I offer, etc.) but first I’d like to ask some questions to tee up that conversation.”
- Then ask your questions. Let them hang in the air if needed. Silence is ok.
- Be curious and ask follow-on questions. Don’t make assumptions.
- If there is time, and particularly if you are asked, tell your client success story.
- Set a next step and end on time.
Want to see my template?
Just email me if you’d like to see the Call Plan template described above that I use with my clients, and for every single high-stakes, important call I have. It will help you if you are creating a sales call plan. Don’t be surprised if I want to schedule a call with you – so we can practice together!
**Note that your specific agenda will shift as your sales process advances, but this framework is a great place to start when planning most of your early conversations.
Wainwright Insight provides fractional sales management and consulting to organizations who want to take control of their pipeline and build future sales leaders—but could use a little, part-time expertise. I work with professional services firms, and the experts in those firms, who need to get better at chasing and winning big deals when the stakes are high.