In this video, we outline an example of a first sales call appointment. This is actually a sales appointment that was scheduled from a cold call that we also provided a review of.

We don’t have a recording of this meeting, but we can easily divide the meeting into four sections:

  • Open
  • About Us
  • About You
  • Close

And it was a fairly short call only lasting about 10 minutes so it is very easy for us to summarize what happened in each of these sections and provide very easy-to-implement tips that just about every salesperson can relate to.

 

Meeting Structure

Before we go through each section of this example of a first sales call appointment, the first tip to discuss, and maybe one of the most impactful would be for the salesperson to simply change the order of these sections by swapping the About Us and the About You steps to organize the meeting so that the salesperson talks first about the prospect and after talking about the product or services that he sells.

 

Opening the Meeting

In this example of a first sales call appointment, the salesperson just opened that call by saying that this was more of a networking meeting. I personally think that it is good to open the meeting by warming up the prospect with a few questions that are a little less salesy and more casual and conversational. Here are some of the questions I like to ask when opening my meetings with prospects.

How is your day going so far?

Where are you based? (if virtual appointment)

[Ask a question regarding the weather, sports, recent current event, etc.]

What is your role?

How long have you been working here?

What did you do before this?

Where are you from?

What do you like most about what you do?

I know why I wanted to meet with you. Is there anything that motivated you to want to meet with me?

[Share agenda for meeting] Does that match up with your expectations for this meeting?

Is there anything in particular that you are hoping to get out of this meeting?

Do you have a hard stop for this meeting?

 

About Us

The salesperson then moved quickly to talk about him and his stuff. This basically involved him sharing two slides. Slide one was a standard products and services menu list, and he read across the slide stating all of the different services that they provided. Slide two was a client list with about two dozen client names and he showed this slide but did not really share any details of what was provided to any of the clients or any details on how they helped them.

What the salesperson did in this section was not horrible and is probably what most salespeople do. But with that, we can make some small changes that can help us to create more interest.

Our products and services
Of course, at some point, you need to explain the products and services that you provide. What can be great here is that if you talk about the prospect’s needs and ask probing questions first, you can then introduce your products and services by connecting their needs with the products and services that you offer and tailor what you discuss to the prospect’s situation.

Improvements we can make (Benefits)
After you outline what you sell, go one step further to discuss how those products and services help in terms of outlining the benefits and improvements they can create.

How we differ (Differentiation)
If what you sell differs from the competition in some way or another, share that with the prospect, and this is the place to do that.

Some details about us (Interesting company facts)
Is there anything interesting or noteworthy about your company? This would be a good place to share that.

Impacts of doing nothing (Pain Points)
One of your biggest competitors is the status quo and the prospect’s option to not do anything and not purchase anything. With that, it can help to discuss what that looks like for the prospect and what the impacts are of doing nothing. It can be good if you can get the prospect to share what these are in your first sales call appointments, but if you don’t know what the impact of doing nothing is for the prospect, you could speak to this by discussing the pain points that your product helps to make go away.

Customer examples (Name Drop)
In this example of a first sales call appointment, the salesperson shared a client list, and this is a good example where “less is more,” in that, I believe that it could have been more powerful to just share a couple of client examples and go into more detail around what was provided to those clients and what improvements were able to be seen.

 

We hope this example of a first sales call appointment gives you some ideas for how you can improve your sales meetings!