“Sell me this pen”.
You’ve probably heard it in interviews, or have had to do something on those lines face-to-face, or over the phone. Each pitch method has its own elements to optimize the customer experience with. Here’s the tricky part; how do you optimize your sales pitch in a conference call with multiple individuals? Considering this, 10 elements towards a better sales pitch in a conference call:
Do Your Homework
Preparing and taking notes for this might be of help towards a better delivery of the pitch. This also needs to be prepped in anticipation of the questions that the clients could pose; particularly Frequently Asked Questions. Discussion can be furthered by probing on issues that may be faced by customers with competitors. It also would allow curiosity over prospective clients, which could provide credibility, and lead to the customer replying, rather than ignoring the call.
Know Your Audience
One size does not fit all for a Sales Pitch. Different customers will wish to speak in different languages; hence the pitch’s presentation will have to be accordingly worded. They also will have different cultures, and habits too. In that same sense, they’ll have different personalities and needs too. In this day and age of information, some customers may be more familiar with the technical aspects of your product or service than others who prefer in layman’s terms. Hence, it’s crucial to know your audience; the pitch for the same product will need to be communicated in their ‘language’; it will need to oriented in their compatibility.
Set Call in Good Timing
Keeping the conference hour close to a pre-determined break in a day’s routine (such as lunch-hour) may cause the conference call to inadvertently result in one of three risky scenarios:- Selling Points may be omitted or condensed, and clients may not be nearly as attracted to the product as needed, discouraging them from considering you.
- Rushing may lead the clients to misunderstand that you’re not really interested in what they have to say, discouraging them from considering you.
- Calling near the break also means that the customer, pressed for time, may not want to speak due to the inconvenience your call would cause.
Get Their Interest
Water is one of the world’s most precious resources; Attention is the salesman’s. Like water, it’s a resource to be carefully harvested, treated, and filtered for use towards the necessary ends. And like water, the best way to harvest it is at the source; the customer, his/her prospects, and needs. Start queries about them to garner their attention. (e.g.: “How do you/does your company do X? When was the last time you used Y?”) Unlike other methods, the client has nothing and no one as a visual reference point in this form of pitch, so the ability to pitch is limited only to what you say to them. And in the context of a customer dealing with his/her own daily routine, calls and so on, a client only takes as much interest in you as:- How relevant you make yourself and your company known.
- How clearly you assert your purpose.
- How clear you make the timeframe you demand of them.
Create A Need
In follow up to knowing the customers; it’s essential to know their pain points too. This is complemented by understanding the product strengths that a customer will need or want. Once this is set, present the solution factoring this. A course of action to consider at this point would be asserting value-added services pertaining to their needs. Refocus on the problem by restating it and how great your solution will be in solving it.
Clarity in Communication
When contacting them:- State your name and position along with the company you work in, and its traction.
- Find out their current product/service provider, and re-orient pitch accordingly to that.
- Make it clear you co-compete and make known your experience too.
Don’t Talk All The Time
Wait and allow time for active listening to the client; the info they provide is crucial to accordingly adjusting the sales pitch. Speaking and commenting out of turn might discourage the clients from engaging further. Remember that they’re most likely unprepared for your call; so when you pose questions, give them room to think .
Read-Back
You can think of this as a verbal “minutes of the meeting”. It essentially comes down to the following steps:- Summarizing what the clients shared with you, and the product/service you had presented.
- Repeating back words and phrases that the prospect used throughout the call will also be useful; it helps to assure the clients you have been listening, and that you’ve tailored solutions for them accordingly.
- Decide together what the next phase of the relationship will look like – never assume you have their buy-in.
Record Your Conference Call
Catches Mistakes:
It is difficult to know what went wrong in a sales pitch without any material to go over; and going merely by memory may not be reliable enough. Recording will allow analysis word-for-word. MultiCall’s ability to record during calls would be a useful feature to consider for this.
Catches Opportunities too:
Like a game of cards where a player has a “tell”, the clients have a tell, too. Consider this scenario; a client may regularly confer or check with another partner in the call before responding. It’s a probable inference that the decision-making would be run by said partner; making him the choice for sending follow up communications. It also would help in getting to know the work culture of a company participating in said conference call; helping to optimize future interactions.
Platform for Training
Setting newer sales employees toward training for such conference calls would be facilitated with access to such recordings. Of course, in standard procedure like with customer care calls, clients need to be made aware of the recording and its reason.Maintain a Schedule
The first 30-40 seconds of the call are all you have to try and connect with your customers. What would you do in that timeframe? Keeping the call on a strict schedule is necessary; it helps to be clear about the tasks and know what you plan on presenting to the customer. The sales call is only as good as its clients being engaged in the course of action without digressing. Greater clarity means greater quality communication, and swifter action that can be taken.
“How you sell matters. What your process is matters. But how your customers feel when they engage with you matters more.” – Tiffani Bova
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