Know Why You're Meeting With Your Customer
In a perfect world, you (as a sales star) have got a clear portfolio plan with targets for each of your accounts, and a detailed account plan for each of the top 20% of your customers.
So we’re sure then that you’ll also have a clear call objective before you rock up to meet your customer right?
Call objective - the purpose of that customer engagement (be it a site visit, meeting, phone call, zoom, etc).
Even when the relationship is tight, there’s high trust and sales are growing, you still need a call objective. It’s that magic thing that focuses you and makes sure that not only was that lunch meeting super tasty and nourishing, but it also moved the dial in the right direction for you and your customer.
Whether you plan a week ahead, the night before or the morning of your sales calls, the fact that you have a plan will keep you in the star category and not in the ‘time to find a new job’ category.
Why Have a Call Objective?
Put simply, a call objective helps you make the most of the time you have with your customer and enables you to plan ahead to do one or more of the following:
1. Understand your customer better
2. Help them understand you, your product or service and it’s value better
3. Solve a problem
4. Uncover an opportunity
5. Progress an opportunity (such as presenting what they will likely perceive as valuable, work through concerns, objections, and other roadblocks, and/or gain agreement on next steps).
A call objective helps in a lot of other ways too. Such as, it’ll help you overcome any reluctance you may have for heading into the meeting as you’ll be clear on why you’re there, as will the customer. It also can mean you and they are prepared for the meeting too. Having a clear purpose, that’s tied with your sales goal can help tick the ‘achievement’ box too as you achieve the call objective and that adds momentum for your overall account plan. Sounds good right?
What Makes a Good Call Objective?
The best ones are simple and specific.
They are also outcome-focused, start with the end in mind and know what you need to understand/achieve from the call. And make it specific – details matter!
Once you know what you’re hoping to achieve, note down what questions you need to ask, what information is needed, what content needs to be shared etc so you know when you’ve achieved what you need to.
It’s also good to consider your prospect’s objectives: what outcome are they hoping for from this call and factor this in too. This will determine the purpose and length of the meeting, along with what’s needed in preparation too so you show up with your A-GAME!
Here’s a good example …
You provide IT solutions to small and medium businesses, you’re following up with a potential customer you’ve met twice already to look at changing them over to your services, and they have a copy of the proposal/quote you sent last week …
A clear objective might be to determine if they are ready to move forward on the proposal sent last week.
If yes, understand their priorities, timing and potential issues from their perspective and build an action plan.
If no, understand their concerns or barriers, understand their business and their individual take on it. Gather as much intel as possible.
The nerdy swats …
would also jot down the exact questions to ask to attain the information and would practise them so tone is neutral when you hit the curly ones.
That’s pretty much it. No major trade secrets here but it’s alarming how rarely this is done. We can guarantee though that the high performing sales professionals do this every time – if you ask them ‘what is the purpose of this call?’ and ‘what does success look like for you today’? They’ll know. It’ll be crystal clear.
Follow their lead and bag some of that clarity for yourself, and some bloomin’ beautiful sales growth to go with it!