Number 3 on our list of 10 tips for sales is to perform a soft takeaway. In order to explain this sales tip, let’s start by outlining what we mean by takeaway.

What is the Sales Takeaway?
The sales takeaway is a sales tactic where you takeaway or disqualify the prospect for what you are trying to sell. The way to use this type of is to only use it at a particular time and that would be when the prospect appears to be “on the fence”.

Here is an example of delivering a sales takeaway:

Maybe outsourcing your customer service department is not a fit with your long-term strategy.

The reason you would do this to trigger a response where the prospect gets “off the fence” and either swings in your direction or becomes fully disqualified.

Make the Takeaway a Soft Takeaway
Now that we have explained what a sales takeaway is, we want you to shift that a bit to make it a soft takeaway. To do this part of these tips for sales, you go from making a questioning statement to more of a statement of doubt. Here are some examples:

  • I am not sure if you fit well with what we provide.
  • I am not sure if we can help you in the same way that we have helped other businesses.
  • I am not sure if you are the right person to speak with or not.

Implementing in Your Sales Calls
The way to incorporate this into inside sales calls is to say something like this at the beginning of the call right after you deliver your elevator pitch. Here is an example of how to put all of this together.

We help inside sales managers to get all of their sales reps asking the right questions when prospecting.

I am not sure if you all fit well with what we provide so that is why I had a couple of questions.

How this Helps
This can have a powerful and immediate impact on your calls and the reason why is that it is extremely effective at decreasing the prospect’s guardedness.

As we have discussed in other tips for sales, when your prospects begin to feel like you are a salesperson that is trying to sell something, their guard will go up. Because of this, we want you to minimize how much you sound like a salesperson and try to sound more like a business person instead.

That is exactly what this soft takeaway accomplishes because it is the exact opposite of what most salespeople do. In many cases, a salesperson will tell a prospect that they need what they sell and that they are a perfect fit.

When you perform your soft takeaway at the beginning of the call, you are making the exact opposite impression and this is how these tips for sales help you to sound more like a business person and will help you to improve your sales results.