The First Sales Call: How to Set Yourself Up for Success

Finding a new potential customer or business to sell your company’s product to can be incredibly exciting. It does not matter if you are selling to businesses or individual customers, at some point in the sales cycle you’ll likely be hosting sales meetings for your company. There is a lot of potential in this call, and as we have mentioned in our past article on 15 ways to improve sales performance, you have to play the long run with most of your clients. Unfortunately, deals rarely happen in a day. In order to be successful, the kick-off sales call with a customer has to get them to book another meeting or cause a domino for a referral. 

In this blog post, we will break up how to prepare for a customer-oriented sales call that hits multiple goals. These goals include: being customer-oriented, thorough with research, and well structured. If you enjoy this blog post, you might also want to check out our post about what to do when you are in your first sales call and what to do after your first sales call. 

Sales Meeting Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash

Check-in on Past Call Reviews 

Before getting into the desk work, you should consider sitting in on current sales calls. Now you might be thinking that sitting in on calls might be something you only consider allocating to the new intern. Truth be told, no one is above proven ways of first-hand experience. Seeing a sales call from the outside, without the pressure of performance can be an invaluable learning opportunity. It will help you learn what’s working and realize the mistakes that steer off the conversation.

Maybe you ask your supervisor if you can try this for a day or two in between meetings if you want to re-evaluate your sales strategy. This is a refreshing way of seeing how other people in your company work their way around a sales meeting. Finding people on your team that you admire and sitting in on a few of their calls can give you good pointers on improving your workflow. Find people that are “known” for certain elements in their work. Ask them if you can sit in on that specific phase in their call to take notes. 

Watching initial sales calls with different team members can show you what works and what doesn’t in initial meetings. Make sure to follow up and see which customers stayed for a second or third meeting. Also in the end, who ended up closing a deal with the client. 

Always Prep Questions To Ask The Customer

When prepping for the initial call you will want to find questions to ask your new client. This is where the past call reviewing can be helpful. Make a list of what questions other people ask and what questions the clients ask consistently. Over time you will probably build a list of ones you like to ask or you can glance over this list of some questions that help you get to the root of your client. 

Some good initial questions you can always ask them are:

1. How can we help you?
2. What is your biggest challenge regarding moving forward with us?
3. Tell us why you were initially interested in our company or product?
4. What do you like about the current company you are doing business with?
5. What are your initial thoughts?

The list can go on, the truth is that sometimes as a sales rep, you might have to do some digging to find the piece of the puzzle that is holding back the client from sealing the deal with you. That is why it is good to come up with some questions already prepped. This backlog can help you best in getting to know the customer and their needs. 

Research the Customer before the First Sales Call

While forming the list, it is a great idea to do a little background research on the customer. This is especially important for selling high-tech equipment such as photonics, robotics, semiconductors, etc. This research can help you tailor the question list. If you do not have time for in-depth research, here are some initial questions you can use to learn more about the company or customer. 

1. What needs are not being met with your current supplier? 
2. Have you used a service/product like ours in the past? 
3. What do you know about our product already?
4. Why are you interested in our service/product?
5. Are there any past problems with services like ours you have had in the past?

Sales Prep Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Learn About First Sales Discovery Calls

A discovery call is another way to frame the initial conversation after emailing a potential client. Yes, this is a sales call, but it is more oriented to getting to know the customer and their needs, wants, and setbacks in working with you. Use this layout to learn the details of your client. 

The main goals of the call should be:

• The client will end the call knowing more about your business 
• Show how you care or are invested in the client 
• Guage their likelihood of success 

In order to make this discovery call successful, you will need to have a solid understanding of your product. This knowledge helps you naturally intertwine it through your call instead of through the basic web copy you might have memorized. To show how invested you are in the client, prove to them that your product will create more success for them. This shows you are not there just for money, but instead to genuinely improve their project. 

For discovery calls to actually be successful and help continue the sales process, using open-ended questions like the ones above is critical. Here are even more open-ended questions you can add to your repertoire. 

Create Your One-Pager First Sales Call Outline

Before the meeting, you can create a one-pager to help you organize the flow of the conversation. This way, you have created a checklist of action items you want to make sure you cover before ending the call. This list will help situate you to feel organized despite the conversation taking its individual path. 

A one-page structure could look something like this: 

• Mutual Intros and small talk 
• Deepen the understanding of the client
  • Learn about customer business and challenges that could arise 
• Pose possible solutions or an expected result 
• Questions (and answers) 
• Next steps

Within these sections, you can write notes from your research or keep them blank. Leaving them blank and simple can allow the conversation to flow naturally through these sections without any objections hindering the path the client’s questions take. Combining this with the discovery call template is a recipe to make a really great relationship with the customer.

Did you enjoy this article? If you did, please share. Also, what strategies do you employ for your first sales calls? Please share down below.