Structuring a sales call

Structuring a sales call and an e-mail

When you make a sales call, you should structure your call as follows:

1. State your name and company: give your full name and company name so the client knows whom he is dealing with.

2. Ask if he (or she) has a moment to speak? In fact finding out if someone has time to speak to you is common courtesy. The client may be in the middle of working on a project and should not be expected to drop everything because you called. If he does not has time, ask for a specific time to call back. Make sure you do call back at this time, as this proves you are reliable.

3. Keep in mind elevator pitch. That’s give your pitch as succinctly as possible, speaking clearly so that the executive can follow each point (the term elevator pitch is used because it should be possible to describe it to a CEO whom you bump into in an elevator).

4. Make your value proposition – highlight the benefits of what you are selling. Many researches show that doing so you should mirror the speech patterns of the person to whom you are talking. So, if you call a trader at a bank and they speak slowly, you should also speak slowly. If a person speaks carefully, you should do the same. Support your value proposition with real references in order to gain competitive intelligence.

5. Try to get the executive to talk to you and the more the executive talks, the better. This will provide you with more information of what the company needs, while also building an affinity between both of you. From a practical point of view that means that they have invested their time and they are therefore more likely to continue that investment.

New York, New York. Photo by Elena.

6. Meeting in person enables us to build a strong personal relationship and therefore helps to complete a larger deal. Thus it’s always convenient to meet and discuss items.

Structuring an e-mail

The benefit of working remotely is that you can achieve a higher volume of interactions in less time.

Today’s technological advances mean that many of the aspects of a face-to-face meeting are now available remotely, and e-mail has become a primary form of communication in the modern world and one of the most powerful sales tools, as succinct, brief, coherent e-mail is an excellent vehicle for a sales pitch. Some ground rules exist though when structuring your e-mail:

– An e-mail you send must be personalized to be effective. The person you target must see that this is not a spam.

– Summarize your value proposition and pitch it in one sentence. A busy person should scan the first line of your letter and understand exactly what you want.

– Present the opportunity to the company, as presenting the opportunity to a company is less likely to be discharged.

– Elaborate on the one sentence pitch you gave in the first line. Add two or three clear sentences on the resource, process and time expectations of the client (the opportunity draws on resource… follows process… takes amount of time).

– Give two or three examples or recent projects you have done in the client industry.

– You may want to attach a comprehensive presentation

– Show courtesy and underline that you are willing to provide a professional service that will meet the professional needs of the client.

– Add all contact details.

– Add credibility to your signature by adding qualifications and awards. This helps your credibility and this is a free advertising for you and your project.