My Strategy For Sales Calls
Recently I've had to get on calls with some clients to discuss potentially working with me.
In this post I'm going to share what I learnt from these calls about selling them on my services.
Step one: Mindset
Previously, I never thought of these calls as sales calls. I would automatically take the clients frame for the nature of the call.
They would normally call it something like "an introduction call" or "lets schedule a call to go over more details". To be clear, these were absolutely sales calls.
The goal was to get them (the client) to hire me (for scripting).
The first takeaway is to reframe introduction calls to sales calls.
Step Two: Outreach
I reach out to people by sending them a cold email.
Step Three: Preparation
My goal is to go into each call having done an astonishing level of the preparation. The prospect should feel like I care deeply about their needs and will function in their best interest.
This brings me to how I prepare.
Try to find some little known, obscure detail about them that most people won't know about.
This is the best way to impress them and to show them you're serious about working in their best interest.
For instance, I found a very small youtube channel that one of my now clients had. I watched their newest video that only 3 people watched. When I brought this up in the call I said:
- Me: Tell me about your new channel XXX, seems interesting. What led you to starting that channel?
- Them: [Lights up] Wow, I just posted that video, how do you know
- Me: Of course, you're looking for someone, to research and write scripts. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't know that!
- Them: Fair enough man.
In hindsight, I think there's a way to phrase point 3 to make it more persuasive. I'll have to refer to my notes on the excellent book Influence to learn about this.
I'm fairly certain that this alone bought me a lot of good will with them and helped me close the deal.
The point here is that the selling process starts even before the call starts. Preparation is how you show them that you care about them and their best interests.
Step Four: The call
Then there's the actual call. This is where you can let your personality shine through.
By far the most important thing for these calls is enthusiasm. You can convey enthusiasm by speaking through a smile, through your tonality and through your gestures.
To feel enthusiastic, I find it helpful to move and listen to upbeat music I like. Anime opening songs work well for me. But the most important thing I've learnt about enthusiasm is:
If you act enthusiastic, you will soon feel enthusiastic
I also found it helpful to create rapport with them. This is where research helps. I create rapport by bringing up a shared interest that I learnt about in the research process.
I view these calls as a process of education where I go over how I can help them.
Eventually, they will ask for price.
I like to ask them to state a number first, by positioning them as an expert of some kind. Although, it helps to have a range in mind before hand. A client once said, "I don't know anything about this field, so you'll have to give me a number", that's when having a range helps.
These days, once I state a range I don't fluctuate. I talk about why in my negotiation post.
Hope you found that helpful :-)