Get On the Same Page

Most salespeople agree that advance prep for important prospect meetings is a precursor for successful call outcomes. However, based on my observations from working with hundreds of salespeople over the years, many continue to just "wing it." Sales call after sales call, they leave the entire outcome to chance.

Yet, statistics are clear. Sellers can gain at least a 20% bump in productivity through consistent pre-call work. What does a 20% increase mean for you? It means 20% improvement in revenue and a huge boost in sales commissions.

The purpose of pre-call prep, used in all stages of the sales process, is to meet your prospect where they are and design a conversation flow that ensures advancement. It starts with a clear understanding of which stage of your sales process you're in and where the prospect is in their buying journey.

Advance planning ensures that you and all participants involved are on the same page prior to the meeting, thereby increasing the overall effectiveness of the meeting. At its core, pre-call prep allows meeting participants to truly listen and stay flexible and responsive, which is a game changer for advancing with your prospect.

Imagine prepping for your next big prospect meeting. You worked incredibly hard to secure this appointment and you’ve put in a lot of work hoping it will lead to a next meeting.

During the discussion you plan on sharing information about your company and showing a couple of features of your product.

But your prospect’s goal is to learn more about their problem so they can decide if it’s severe enough to allocate resources to solve.

Clearly, your meeting goals are out of alignment.

If you move forward with your current agenda, your prospect will be frustrated since they didn’t get what they hoped from the interaction.

And you’ll be discouraged since they won’t agree to a next step.

If you want to avoid being out of sync with your prospects, I’ve got two simple steps for you to follow as part of your pre-call prep:

First start with your prospect’s goals for the interaction.

And the best way to find out – ask them! Here are two critical questions:

⦁ What would make the meeting productive for them? And

⦁ What do they envision as possible next steps following the meeting? This second question is powerful as your prospect thinks about next steps in advance.

It’s also a good idea to send them the agenda or discussion points a few days in advance and ask them for input.

Now that you have that information, you have to align your goals for the meeting with their goals.

Be realistic. If your prospect is simply gathering information, then your goal should be to supply the right information in the right way, so they’ll agree to meet again.

Let me give you an example from my recent experience. Jaden, an account manager for a large insurance company, was prepping for a client meeting to discuss expanding their services.

The client’s goal for the meeting was to get Jaden’s ideas so they could finish their internal business case to justify adding the new services. Because Jaden was crystal clear on her client’s goal, she brought in an expert from her company who had all the data that their client was looking for.

The client was thrilled and shared their appreciation with Jaden recognizing her prep and willingness to secure an expert to help.

Jaden eventually walked away with a sizable contract for new services and deepened her relationship with her client.

The key to a successful prospect conversation; meet your prospects where they are.

Plan on "Ringing the Bell" much more frequently by committing to pre-call prep before every prospect meeting.

New LinkedIn Learning Course

Check out my new LinkedIn Learning course which follows the 100% Confidence Call Sheet for simple, yet powerful, pre-call prep.

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About Lisa Magnuson and Top Line Sales

Top Line Sales, founded by Lisa Magnuson in 2005, has a proven track record of helping companies overcome the barriers to winning TOP Line Account. Any sales consultant can claim they strategize and close large deals but not many sales consultants can prove it, especially in recent times. Businesses who engage with Top Line Sales get results.

⦁ We can point to more than 425m in new 5X deal revenue for our clients.

⦁ No wonder that 100% of our business comes from referrals!

⦁ Top Line Sales is also proud to report that 90% of our clients are repeat customers.

Consider the impact on your organization when you close 5X deals repeatedly.

Lisa is the author of two highly acclaimed books: The TOP Seller Advantage: Powerful Strategies to Build Long-Term Executive Relationships and most recently, The TOP Sales Leader Playbook: How to Win 5X Deals Repeatedly.

Lisa D. Magnuson, Mastermind Sales Strategist of 7-Figure Deals

To advance your enterprise sales efforts with free tools and resources, visit www.toplinesales.com