A sales manager could find it difficult to teach a salesperson how to make a sales call. This is because every call and every prospect is unique, making it difficult to teach someone exactly what to do.

We have a process that can help here. We have broken down a cold call and put together a methodology that works for just about any sales call. Here is the explanation of the process.

Step 1 – Focus on the Right Goal
The first step in how to make a sales call is to focus on the right goal. The reason we are putting this step out there is that at any point in a sales cycle, you will likely have two goals:

  • Ultimate Goal: Close the sale, sell the product, get a new client
  • Immediate Goal: Advance the prospect to the next stage in your sales process (schedule the appointment)

Ensure you maintain a laser focus on the immediate goal when prospecting.

Step 2 – Confirm Availability
Step 2 is to confirm that the prospect is available for your call. Many people will disagree, but we believe that if the prospect answers the call and is unavailable, it is not a good time to try to go through your pitch.

We also feel like this can be a tactic to disarm the prospect, buy a couple of minutes, and create a little rapport. We recommend you confirm availability by not asking if the prospect is “busy,” as we know they are. Instead, ask this:

Have I caught you in the middle of anything?

Step 3 – Elevator Pitch
The next step in how to make a sales call is to deliver some sort of elevator pitch. This should be one or two sentences that communicate how you help.

You can either share your value statement or value proposition, some common pain examples that you fix, or a quick example of how you helped another client.

Step 4 – Soft Disqualify
Right after you tell us how you help, we were hoping you could do a soft takeaway, which will help disarm the prospect and create a little intrigue. It can look something like this:

  • I actually don’t know if you need what our services provide.
  • I actually don’t know if you are a good fit for what we provide.
  • I don’t know if we can help you in the same way that we help other businesses.
  • I don’t know if you are the right person to speak.

Step 5 – Pre-Qualifying Questions
The next step in how to make a sales call is to ask a couple of questions to identify if the prospect has any of the pain points or concerns that you typically help with. This will help to make the call more conversational and make it more about them than about you.

Step 6 – Share Pain Examples
If you don’t uncover any pain when asking questions, you can share some pain examples you help fix.

Step 7 – Company and Product Info
The next step in how to make a sales call is to share some information about your company and product. You need to share enough information so that you build interest to a level where you can close the prospect on the next step in your sales process.

Step 8 – Close
The last step in the how to make a sales call process is to close the prospect on moving forward to the next step in the process.