Chapter 7: The Pre-Approach — Planning Your Sales Call and Presentation

Main Topics

  • The Core Principles: Planning
  • Strategic Customer Sales Planning—The Pre-approach
  • The Customer Relationship Model
  • The Prospect’s Mental Steps
  • Call Reluctance

Learning Objectives (LOs)

After studying this chapter, students should be able to:

  • Explain the importance of sales call planning.
  • List the four planning steps in order and understand them.
  • Develop a customer benefit plan.
  • Describe the prospect’s five mental steps in buying.

LO1 - The Core Principles: Planning

  • Begin your plan with purpose which:
    • Is broad in scope.
    • Is not a list of plans, goals, or objectives that differ from one sales call to another.
    • Is a constant truth that guides your business life.
    • Directs how you approach each sales call.
    • Classifies your relationships.
  • Sales call purpose: To contribute to the welfare of the person or organization.

Planning to Achieve Your Purpose

  • A plan is a method of achieving an end:
    • Defines what you accomplish and how you will do it.
  • Ethical Service: Planning leads to building a relationship with the customer.
    • Based on trust and honesty (integrity).
    • Forms your character.

What Is Success?

  • Success means setting a goal and accomplishing it.
  • Individuals who set and write down their goals achieve them 33% more effectively.
  • Success can occur without making a sale; the focus is on helping through the meeting.
    • Important traits of successful people:
    • Plan
    • Implement
    • Evaluate

Building Trust as a Salesperson

  • Specific actions to build trust include:
    • Effective communication
    • Similarity and compatibility with the customer
    • Demonstrating expertise
    • Investing time and effort into the relationship
    • Providing tangible benefits
    • Reducing conflict opportunities.

Strategic Customer Sales Planning —The Pre-approach

  • Planning Stage: Being a strategic problem solver involves:
    • Understanding customer’s strategic needs.
    • Possessing the necessary knowledge.
    • Creating creative, mutually beneficial solutions.
    • Generating value as perceived by the customer.

Strategic Needs

  • Understanding the full range of customer needs allows for optimal product solutions:
    • Business-to-business and personal buyer needs.
    • Business-to-consumer needs.

Creative Solutions

  • Follow a three-stage creative problem-solving process:
    1. Identify the problem
    2. Devise a solution (customized or a mix of goods/services)
    3. Implement the solution.

Mutually Beneficial Agreements

  • Expectation shifts in agreements towards collaborative win-win arrangements.

The Customer Relationship Model

  • Establishes connections between:
    • Customer’s strategic needs and salespersons' creative solutions.
    • The performance goals of productivity, sales, profits, and responsiveness.

Importance of Preparation

Reasons for planning a sales call:

  • Builds self-confidence.
  • Develops goodwill atmosphere.
  • Establishes professionalism and credibility.
  • Increases sales effectiveness.

Elements of Sales Call Planning

  1. Determine sales call objective.
  2. Develop customer profile.
  3. Develop/review customer benefits.
  4. Plan the sales presentation.

Sales Call Objective

  • Sales Call Objective: Main purpose for contacting a prospect/customer.
    • Specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed (SMART).
  • A well-written pre-call objective increases focus and flexibility in planning.

Customer Profile Insights

  • The profile includes:
    • Decision maker identification.
    • Buyer’s background and needs.
    • Desired business terms.
    • Competitor analysis.
    • Purchasing policies and historical account insights.

Customer Benefit Plan

  • Contains essential information for sales presentations:
    1. Select features, advantages, and benefits (FAB) to present.
    2. Develop a marketing plan.
    3. Formulate a business proposition.
    4. Suggest a purchase order.

Prospect’s Mental Steps

  • Understanding these steps enhances the effectiveness of presentations:
    • Capture and maintain attention quickly.
    • Identify important buying motives before meetings.
    • Link product benefits directly to prospects’ needs using the FAB formula.
    • Establish conviction that your product is the best fit.
    • Plan to effectively ask for a purchase.

Call Reluctance

  • Refers to the fear of contacting a prospect/customer, hindering success:
    • Affects around 40% of salespeople.
    • Overcoming reluctance is critical for success.

Effective Voice Mail Techniques

  • Tips for impactful voice mail messages:
    • Be prepared with notes.
    • Sound enthusiastic and concise (25-40 seconds).
    • Highlight benefits and share success stories if time allows.
    • Clearly state your contact information and include a call to action.

Summary

  • Careful planning of sales calls is essential for success, providing self-confidence, goodwill, professionalism, and increasing sales. The four key elements of sales call planning are:
    1. Establish a sales call objective.
    2. Develop or review the customer profile.
    3. Create a customer benefit plan.
    4. Plan the complete sales presentation.