No matter why you need to make calls – be it to generate leads, negotiate deals or find business partners – knowing how to make effective calls is vitally important.
Before beginning, establish your goals for the call. This will enable you to stay on track during the conversation.
Identify Your Goals
Before calling business, it is crucial to set out clear goals. This will enable you to prepare properly and ensure both parties feel at ease throughout their conversation.
When setting goals, it’s best to follow the SMART acronym: Specific Measurable Action-oriented Realistic and Time-bound. This will make your goal seem more attainable and ensure everyone in your team works towards one shared objective.
Setting goals not only ensures you meet your sales objectives, but it can also create accountability among call center agents and improve morale by giving them something tangible to work towards. Furthermore, being more focused on reaching their goals could result in higher conversion rates of sales conversion.
Know Your Interlocutor
Know Your Interlocutor When Calling Potential Customers, Business Partners or Investors Getting to know your interlocutor can make the call much simpler. Focusing on their pain points, interests and unmet needs will enable you to create more personalized communication approaches and demonstrate that you have put forth effort into understanding them better.
Small talk can be an excellent way to establish rapport with your interlocutor, but be sure to stay on topic – this will give both of you confidence to continue discussing without miscommunication issues arising.
Prepare for the Call
No matter if it is for an important business discussion or just casual chit chat, it is always good to prepare adequately for any phone call. This includes writing down key points to discuss as well as planning what questions to pose to them during your call.
Holding on to essential information before calling can help ensure that nothing important slips through during a conversation. In addition, creating an outline will ensure you cover all topics on which you wish to speak.
An effective way to gain more information about the person or company you are calling by perusing their LinkedIn account can help you better understand their interests, unmet needs and pain points while building rapport quickly and gaining their trust.
Follow Up
After every sales call, it’s crucial that you follow up with customers. Either email them or give them a phone call afterwards in order to ask how their experience went and thank them for coming by, maintaining strong relationships in the long run.
Your subject line should clearly communicate the purpose of the email and ensure correct grammar and spelling are used. Furthermore, double check all grammar and spelling before sending!
Make sure that when sending the email, any information or documents shared during your discussion are attached as attachments to make it easy for recipients to find relevant details quickly and efficiently. This will make for an efficient experience when receiving their mail.
Remind your customer of the key points you discussed during the discovery call to ensure accurate information in subsequent conversations.