Call Goals

discovery call questions

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4 Steps to Asking Better Sales Discovery Call Questions

Prospecting discovery is drastically different from pipeline discovery. If you’re selling something new and you’re leading with the standard exploratory questions that everyone else already Googled, you’re probably not getting through #5 on your list of top ten questions. Stop getting shut down on your BDR, SDR, AE, ISR, Acquisition (really, any new prospect) calls!

The key is to stop focusing on the benefits of your solution and start thinking about what motivates human beings. Because nobody likes change for change’s sake. We NEED motivation!

If my cell phone provider called me right now with a better plan or phone that cost nothing more, I wouldn’t change. Why? Because changing phones or plans is a thorn in my side. Changing your grocery store sucks, new apps frustrate me, even changing lanes is a hassle. How often do you change the route you drive for fun? Bought Toyota for decades? On your third Labradoodle? Human beings resist change. It’s a fact. 

Just because you have something awesome, it doesn’t mean I’ll lift a finger to get it. That includes listening to you, learning more, attending a demo, or giving you five more minutes.

So what will motivate someone not expecting your call to consider giving you their most precious resource (time) to learn about something they haven’t thought once about in the past month? 

PAIN motivates change.

Only, not the pain everyone else is talking about. Discomfort or dissatisfaction is just one of four ways to get the meeting. And it isn’t the most successful. Let’s dig in.

  1. Problem: they have a challenge you can solve (normal pain)
  2. Avoiding disaster: there’s a challenge coming and you can prevent it (top motivator)
  3. Improve life: Your solution makes their life easier, better, or gives that appearance
  4. Newness: It’s all about the FOMO with these folks

Let’s take a look at each for a moment. Join me in thinking about PAIN in a whole new way! 

Problem: We all have business challenges and goals, but we don’t start actively looking for solutions until it really hurts or someone has given us a deadline. Sure, I could save on electricity costs with an AC tune-up, but it doesn’t HURT until the unit is broken, I get an outrageous bill, or my spouse tells me to get it fixed or sleep outside. So, the seller’s job when it comes to a problem is to:

  1. Make it hurt more
  2. Sell the relief
  3. Push a deadline
  4. Show pending disaster (check out A: Avoiding disaster)

We do this with smart discovery questions about costs, timelines, potential disasters, and a better life on the other side. Find the root and push on it a bit. For example, if I spend $200 / month on electricity and a new unit could save me 10%, I’m not terribly motivated by a mythical $20. But if you find out my highest bill, and make it an annual number, I am wasting over $600 a year! Maybe I’d love to not worry about cranking it down a few extra degrees this summer and not spending a dime more. What if my unit is already twelve years old and the average only lasts ten? What happens to my pets, my kids, my candles, and my marriage when we spend a week without AC in July? Find the right path and venture down it one question at a time.

Avoiding Disaster: Penalties, losses, or threats are widely cited as human beings’ biggest motivator. (Really, the threat of losing $1000 beats the chance of winning $1000 every time). So how can we do that in sales? Our questions uncover the plan for the future and help prospects see the very real threat of loss. Most units go out in July and August, what’s the high temp in my area? Have I had any experience with this in the past? Maybe a horror story or two? Any kids or pets to worry about? Surely a fifteen-minute appointment or other low-cost tune-up is worth avoiding the serious health threats and expense of a unit that quits during the Memorial Day BBQ…

Improve Life: This is my #1 winner. I’m a working mom desperate to save some time or make things easier. Maybe you can help me make more money? Help me look good to my boss? Enjoy my commute? Love coming to work? Sell it, sister, how do you make me happier? If you’re a student of Factor 8’s SWIIFT, nearly all the business values play here. Smart sellers ask questions about the current state, what I like, what I don’t, and how it could be better. They paint pictures of the future utopia and help me see an immediate and big benefit in exchange for a short meeting. 

Newness: These seekers are easy. They just can’t help but kick some tires on new technology. I think they’re looking for what’s newer while standing in line at the Apple store. So use your questions to find out if they’re a bleeding edger or late adopter and dangle some newness. It’s as easy as, “Have you seen the new ______?” You’ll know when they jump on the line.

Remember, the goal of a prospect call is to find one raised corner on an otherwise smooth surface. Just enough of an edge that you can use questions to pry up the corner a little and get the meeting. If you’re leading with your product benefits, you’re banking to close only the people literally searching for your product right now. Every few hundred calls and you’ll get one. Quadruple your chances by also looking for the rest of the PAIN with the folks avoiding disaster, seeking improvement, or loving newness. 

Want to improve your sales discovery calls?

Join one of our upcoming Virtual Sales Training Masterclasses! We offer 4 different classes for BDRs, SDRs, ISRs, account executives, and account managers all focused on areas like prospecting, objection handling, running virtual sales demos, closing, and more!

VIEW VIRTUAL SALES TRAINING MASTERCLASSES
20 Reasons to call your customers

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20 Reasons to Call Your Customers Now

Whether you’re an experienced virtual seller or just getting your “inside legs” after transitioning from face-to-face field selling, we all need more reasons to call our customers. This is because we don’t get to “bump into” customers in the hallways and because we tend to get less accomplished in sales phone calls (See this blog here on call goals).

So why do we need a reason to call? Because “touching base” is a mortal sin. Wait, too much? Nope, seriously not overstating that. Never ever, ever just call to check in. Your prospect’s time is valuable, and if you’ve nothing better to do than check in, don’t call at all. (You’ll notice I’m interchanging customer and prospect in this article. Treat them the same.)

And why do we need multiple calls? Because we’re fighting “out of sight, out of mind,” and because we have our own goals to accomplish. We may not have gotten all the information we needed in our previous calls, or we may just be trying to avoid the dreaded “gone dark” that happens more in virtual selling than face to face. Your goals for calling back are to get more information, get a status update, or just stay top of mind, but unfortunately, those aren’t great prospect-facing reasons to call. Doubt me? Try leaving a message like this and see if you get a call back:

“I’m just calling to get a status update and check in. Call me back…”

You’ll be waiting a long time.

So the goal instead is to call with a customer-value-add reason and then accomplish your goals. That brings us back to the topic at hand. 

Fill out the form below to download
“20 Value-Add Reasons To Call Your Customers”.

Plus an exclusive video interview with Judy Buchholz from IBM around the challenges for field sales teams working remotely.

How Do I Sell If I Can’t Meet My Customers?

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How Do I Sell If I Can’t Meet My Customers?

If you’ve been carrying a bag for a while, I’m going to be honest. The transition to “virtual” sales or inside sales can be rough. 

It feels like a wall has been placed between you and your customers.  You’ll miss the face time.  Deals seem stalled.  Relationships aren’t quite as robust.  And that’s not even talking about what’s happening to your airline status!

If any of this sounds familiar, sign up now to keep getting new blogs.  We’re writing a series to help you transition.

My name is Lauren Bailey and I’ve been teaching phone sales for over 20 years. I carried a bag myself and when I “went inside” I felt all of the above. Moreover, my young virtual sales team struggled with how to position what they’d learned over the phone (and they were hired for selling virtually!). I’ve traveled the world launching digital sales teams and written over 40 courses that help salespeople use the phones to sell. I hope this perspective can be of value.

Today’s insight is about setting call goals.

What you used to be able to cover in one on-site meeting will take you anywhere from 3-5 calls today (and about 10x that in dials).

No, it’s not always true, but if you plan for it to be this way, you’ll feel less frustrated and improve your forecast accuracy. Here’s why:

Our calls aren’t always scheduled.  You’re trying to “get in front” of your customer or prospect with a call and three out of five times they won’t pick up or won’t have a full hour.

We have to spend more time building rapport. Gone is the handshake and back pat with a quick peek around the office and quick reference to what happened last we met or a look at the kids on their phone. We do it all with words now. It takes longer to warm up and communicate (alas, a picture DOES take 1000 words)

Digging into needs and explaining solutions also takes more time.  Not only for the extra communication without the visual cues, but because we may not have everyone we need in the room, because we’re easier to blow off or stall when we’re not face to face, because we’re bound to miss a queue somewhere and lose our customer’s focus during the meeting.  There are probably ten more reasons, but that’s enough.

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So what do we do? Slow your Roll.

Set a goal for each call that are subsets of typical sales goals. In fact, make a list right now (I’ll wait 🙂 ). If it is a new prospect, it might look like:

  1. Get direct contact information (cell phone) for easier outreach next call and landscape of key contacts, influencers, decision-makers and other parties
  2. Learn how the company is pivoting during the pandemic
  3. Uncover key priorities and current situation including numbers, current software, challenges, contracts, and timelines
  4. Uncover key values, trigger events, goals
  5. Agree on potential fit and set a meeting to deep dive + include additional decision-makers
  6. Present solution tied to key needs, values, priorities (only!)

You get the idea…

Frankly, you may have achieved all of these in a face to face meeting in the past. It will be key to have established call goals and notes from each call so you keep moving the sale forward.  (Wait! THIS is why most sellers are notoriously bad for updating CRM!).

It also makes call bridging a key skill (tune in later for more on this skill)

Feeling a bit impatient? Here’s the good news. Using the phone may net you less on each call, but you can have more connects each day. The technology and SaaS industries have moved nearly 100% inside due to the efficiencies and speed to market. Combine smart call-by-call goals with dedicated call blasts and you’ll find yourself having equal selling time with MORE contacts each day.

Looking for more phone sales skills with actual training, examples, and even recorded samples?  Join us at The Sales Bar – we have learning on tap!  
How the hell do I prospect right now-01

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How the Hell Do I Prospect Right Now? Part 1

I can smell fear.  You can too. And if we’re being pressured to produce pre-pandemic numbers I can smell the source. But if it’s leading to mass cold outreach and a  tireless blast of pitch pitch pitch, these days it smells not just like sales C-list, it smells like sales Death.  

So let’s get intentional about how we sell during the pandemic and let’s pray these best practices stick to all of us afterward (and that I never have to type that phrase again).

A few best practices from our team at Factor 8:

Planning

Take five to ensure that when you do get someone you’re prepared. They may actually be the most important part.

Ruthlessly Segment

Start by segmenting your list into companies or people who might need your services even more right now.  Then the folks who still could need your services.  Hard-hit industries and companies go to the bottom.  Be selective and force yourself to put your list into these three categories as evenly as possible.  Resist the urge to say, “Everyone needs XYZ right now…” that’s as fool hearty as, “I have no competition.”  Be a critic and be ruthless with yourself.

Value Prop

Now reframe your value proposition.  Why do these companies need you more or still need you now?  Carve your typical features and benefits to only benefits and those influenced by our current times.  It’s always best practice to tie your product to an industry trend, and boy do we have a biggy right now.  Start by asking how this global trend would affect your prospect and develop 1-3 key benefits for them right now (not features, benefits).

For example, prior to COVID, I could say any company with an inside sales team needs phone skills training for reps and management skills for new leaders to improve call quality, sales results and employee engagement.  Now the very top of our prospect list are companies who traditionally sell face to face and who have no idea how to engage digitally. Companies with years of inside sales experience and enablement departments with robust virtual offerings are bottom of my list.  I don’t lead with the amazing results we get in live workshops, I talk about our virtual offering, executive forums, referral programs, and dedicated manager coaching. (In other words, leave some of your tricks in the bag.) The benefits we emphasize are improved call quality vs. quantity, protecting them from lost opportunities, making it easier on their leaders, keeping morale high, and the long-term payoff of a team ready to crush it when things are back to normal. 

Image

I’d be remiss in not also advising y’all to get intentional about your background.  Video calls are king, and I’ve seen open closets, unmade beds, and piles of laundry in backgrounds.  On the same note, use your prospect’s visual clues to build rapport. Family pictures? Golf trophies? The weather out a window?  If you show it, you want to talk about it – both directions.

Reframe Goals

Finally, I urge you to create some baby call goals. If your usual goal is to get a meeting, send a quote, or close a sale; your new goals could be to get their interest, develop a relationship, or qualify the account.  We need small wins here and although budgets may be frozen, now is an amazing time to set up your future self for some fast sales. Right now people are:

  • Taking more calls
  • Attending more scheduled meetings
  • Attending more webinars
  • Getting real

(Thanks to my friend Chris Beall at ConnectAndSell for feeding me that data based on thousands of calls, connects, and shows).

So what if we went into calls with the goal of having a good conversation, learning about their situation, identifying future needs, and connecting with people at a human level?  That’s a sales call I’m more willing to make and one I’m more willing to take. It also helps me start my day with an achievable (dare-say benevolent?) goal rather than a waft of desperation.  If we open up a few opportunities during this, awesome. If we pave the way for future success, let’s take it.

Tune in to part 2 to learn more tips on the email, social, and phone call outreach.

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