CHAPTER 11

Structuring Winning Sales Calls

We don’t go on sales calls. We conduct them. The professional salesperson isn’t riding along in the back of an airplane. She’s in the left seat, up in the cockpit, with her left hand on the yoke, right hand on the throttles, and feet on the rudder pedals. Think pilot-in-command. There’s nothing passive about it.

A flight has a proper and logical sequence of events. We check the weather, file a flight plan, and do a preflight inspection of the plane. We run through a checklist on the ground, start the engine, and scan the vital instruments. We decide when it’s time to taxi away and then request permission to take the runway. From there we execute the remaining segments of the flight: takeoff, climb out, cruise, descent, approach, and landing. A properly structured sales call has a similar flow and number of stages. And the order of the stages has a significant effect on the outcome of the call or flight.

Structuring the sales call properly greatly enhances our chances of winning. Because most salespeople do not structure their calls well, it’s a wonderful opportunity to differentiate ourselves. Well-structured calls help us begin the relationship with the prospect on the right foot and position ourselves exactly how we’d like to be seen. We’re also able to maintain control of the call because it’s clear to the buyer we have a plan. Once we share and get buy-in on the proposed agenda, most prospects gladly let us fly the plane because they’re relieved to be in the hands of a competent sales pilot. A solid plan also protects us from talking too much or selling too soon during the meeting.

The Phases of a Winning Sales Call

There are seven phases for the call with a prospect and eight for an existing customer.

1.  Build rapport and identify the buyer’s style.

2.  Share the agenda (get buy-in, seek input).

3.  Clean up their issues (only with existing customers).

4.  Deliver the power statement (three minutes maximum).

5.  Ask probing questions (also known as discovery).

6.  Sell.

7.  Determine the fit and seek out objections.

8.  Define and schedule the next steps.

Build Rapport and Identify the Buyer’s Style

This first important phase of the call is to help us connect with the buyer. There are many theories about when or if rapport building should be part of the sales call today. I think it’s critical. Some people suggest small talk is archaic; we should skip it completely and get on to business. Other gurus proclaim that we should definitely build rapport, but not until the end of the meeting.

I have two goals for this first phase of the call. First and foremost, I want to make the prospect comfortable. I want to connect relationally, if at all possible. I don’t mean pointing at the giant marlin mounted on the wall, asking if the buyer likes to fish, or commenting on the beautiful family picture on the credenza. That’s an old-school stereotype, and cheesy. I mean that you can potentially talk about the day’s news headline, or last night’s sports team victory, or you can mention something intriguing from the prospect’s LinkedIn profile.

Salespeople always ask how much time they should spend building rapport. There’s only one correct answer and you’ll agree it makes a lot of sense: Rapport building should last as long as the person you are meeting wants it to last! The sales call is not about us, and this is our first opportunity to demonstrate we understand that. If we’re visiting with a chatty relational type who keeps asking personal questions or wants to spend a half-hour reliving his night at the ballgame, go with it. But if you sense the contact is a hard-charging business driver who’s giving one-word answers to your friendly questions, move forward to the next phase of the call. Quickly.

The other objective of spending time to build rapport is to figure out who you have in front of you. Is this a reserved, quiet, analytical person who speaks at half my volume and one-fourth the speed I do? Or is this a happy-go-lucky executive whose passion is to experience life to the fullest and who just wants to feel good? Maybe you’re sitting across from a competitive, driven, conflict-loving, bottom-line executive. Whatever the case, we can learn a lot about the behavioral style of the buyer in a minute or two.

The key is to get a basic handle on the other person’s style so that you can prepare to adapt your style as the call progresses. My cheat sheet coaching on this topic is simple yet very helpful. Slightly adapt your approach to be more like the customer. Smile to make the happy buyer feel good. Speed up and push hard with the hard-charger. Slow down and be ready to provide details for the analytical type. Some trainers use the term “mirroring” to describe the methodology of copying the buyer’s style. I don’t like asking salespeople to “act,” so I’m not a fan of the term. However, the concept is on target. Adapting our approach allows the buyer to “hear” what we’re saying because we’re communicating in a behavioral language that makes the prospect comfortable.

When we feel the buyer is ready to move beyond rapport building, we transition to sharing our agenda and setting up the call.

Share the Agenda and Set up the Call

This is the most important phase of the sales call. Sharing your agenda and setting up the call is your best opportunity to set the tone for the meeting and demonstrate the meeting will be a valuable and different experience for your contact. Letting the prospect in on your plan produces three meaningful benefits:

1.  It is a big differentiator. Almost no one in sales does this. Certainly not well. Letting your prospect in on your plan communicates that you aren’t an amateur, that you’ve done this before and you respect the time the prospect has allotted to you. After laying out your plan for the meeting, you can also reinforce once again that this meeting isn’t about you but about the prospect. You do that by asking a smart question: “That is what I was looking to do in our time together. What would you like to get from this meeting; what were you hoping to accomplish today?” Depending on the person and how difficult it was to secure the meeting, I sometimes add a bold twist: “Why did you invite me in?” Or, “I was just curious. How come you agreed to visit with me?” Try it. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by the effect.

2.  It informs the buyer where you are headed. No one wants to be taken on a ride. I can’t stand not knowing where I’m going. Whether it’s a road trip or meeting conducted by someone else, I get real antsy when I don’t know where things are headed. Sharing your agenda provides the buyer with a road map for the meeting. It is a professional courtesy that, in most cases, makes the person you’re meeting feel more comfortable.

3.  It lets the buyer know you expect a dialogue. Your prospect fully expects you to pull the usual “show up and throw up” act that he has become accustomed to. He’s thinking, “I don’t need to play close attention because you are about to verbally puke on me for the next hour.” In many cases, as soon as the salesperson opens her mouth the buyer lapses into selective listening mode, fully expecting the call to be a monologue. Powerfully sharing your agenda actually shakes things up for the buyer. Your goal here is to shock the prospect by surprising him with your solid plan, and that you are expecting to engage in a dialogue.

Since so few salespeople properly set up the call, most haven’t benefited from observing it done well. My clients appreciate when it is spelled out with an example. When running my own sales calls, here is how I transition from rapport building to sharing the agenda:

Ron, thanks for inviting me in. I believe we set up this meeting for thirty minutes. How are you on time? [Pause for an answer.] Great. I will make sure we are done before 11:30.

Here’s what I would like to do. Let me kick us off and take just two or three minutes to share a bit about ABC Spellbinders, the issues we solve for HR professionals, and why they tend to bring us in for help. I will also touch briefly on how we are different and why we have been so successful in this space. Then I’d like to turn the tables and ask you questions to understand more about your situation and what you are doing in regards to QRS, or how you are approaching the XYZ opportunity. Depending on what I hear from you, I can share a few relevant case studies or show you options for how we provide Spellbinding for clients. After that, we can discuss if it looks like we might be a fit to help you or if there is a logical next step [such as whether it makes sense to have a follow-up meeting or get our teams together].

That is what I was hoping to do, Ron. Tell me what you were hoping for and what you would like to walk away with today.

Every single phrase in this sample opening is intentional. If this is a completely new concept for you, my challenge is to take the time and dissect this example piece by piece. Think about how you have been (or haven’t been) setting up your own sales calls and what that communicates to your prospects.

Sharing your agenda to set up the call is an incredible opportunity to position yourself and your company. I strongly encourage you to invest the time and energy to master this technique.

Clean Up Their Issues

Obviously, this phase of the call only applies when meeting with an existing customer. (We would certainly hope that a company we have yet to do business with doesn’t have complaints or issues with us!) I shared this concept with the designer who helps put together my coaching content and presentation materials. He calls this important step “dealing with the junk up front.” That pretty much says it all.

If my lovely wife is frustrated from a bad interaction with me earlier in the day, it’s safe to say she isn’t too interested in hearing about my exciting news or the great progress I made for a client. It doesn’t matter what I want to talk about because her mind is still processing the displeasure I created previously.

It’s the same with customers. If we want to accomplish something productive on a sales call, it’s imperative that we clean up their issues before moving ahead with what we want to achieve. Clear the air. Attempting to show your preoccupied customers great new products while they’re still seething about a missed shipment, unfulfilled promise, or poor service experience is fruitless. They can’t hear you until you deal with what’s on their mind.

Deliver the Power Statement

For all the uses and great versatility of the power statement, this phase of the sales call is when it delivers maximum impact. Here we deploy the full-form power statement in all of its glory. In phone calls, voice mails, e-mails, and other sales weapons we’re limited to using bits and pieces of our power statement, but at this point in the meeting we can let it fly.

In three enrapturing minutes of sales magnificence we deliver the prospect a succinct, compelling, client-focused understanding of why people or companies come to us, what we offer, and how we are different from, and better than, other alternatives. When executed properly it’s a thing of beauty that brings a tear to my eyes. More important, it works wonders on the prospect.

With neither projector nor brochure, but with eloquence and great power, you put forth your story and engage the mind of the prospect in a way most salespeople never will.

Pay careful attention to the customer’s physical reactions while you’re walking through your power statement, particularly the first segment where you explain the issues, pains, and problems addressed, along with the results you achieve for clients. Very often customers will react when you hit on a salient issue. Look for a wince, a nod, or even a hand gesture acknowledging that you pushed an important button. If someone starts writing feverishly, smile on the inside knowing you’re on to something good! It’s not unusual for your potential customer to interrupt you to ask a clarifying question or for more details about one of your client issues. Provide a clear, brief answer to the question, but stop yourself from launching into a full-blown sales pitch. Remember the flight analogy? There’s a time to climb, a time to cruise at altitude, and a time to land. It takes discipline because our sales instinct wants to pounce on the opening. Be patient and keep your powder dry. Make note of what aroused the customer’s interest so that you can explore the cause during the next stage of the call.

Let’s pause and review where you are in the meeting. At this point, you are likely somewhere between seven and fifteen minutes into the call. You’re in complete control and the potential buyer is thankful and surprised by this unique and engaging experience. You’ve gained relational ground by following the prospect’s lead in building rapport for an appropriate amount of time. You’ve assessed the buyer’s style and are making slight adaptations to your delivery (e.g., the speed and volume of your voice, your body language) in order to improve communication. You’ve masterfully shared a well-thought-out plan for the call and sought the buyer’s input and buy-in. The buyer now sees you are a professional and is comfortable letting you lead. He has also been put on alert that you expect him to engage in a dialogue and that you aren’t going to present at him for the next hour. If meeting with an existing account, you’ve demonstrated that the customer’s issues are a priority by doing some housekeeping to clean up outstanding items. Then, in a very compressed manner, you’ve shared your story, providing a list of reasons other people turn to you for help, what your company sells, and why you are the best choice. Wow, not a bad ten or so minutes. Wouldn’t you agree?

Before moving ahead to the next phase of your call, I’d like to address a question often posed by experienced sales reps about the prospect’s willingness to answer questions. A good number of salespeople aren’t comfortable leading a dialogue with a potential customer. They like to talk, pitch, and present because that feels familiar to them, but some are also afraid the customer won’t respond well to their questions. Beyond that, some sellers are concerned the customer will be reluctant to provide information and could take offense at being interrogated (sales reps’ biased words, not mine). These reps argue that we should first give our full presentation, thereby earning the right to question the prospect.

I use two responses to help alter the doubting salesperson’s perspective. First, let’s not view the prospect as a witness facing hostile cross-examination. Is it not more accurate to see yourself as the doctor and your potential customer as the patient looking to cure an ill or achieve a health breakthrough? You wouldn’t trust a physician who walked into the examining room, spent an hour telling you how great he was, and then wrote a prescription, would you? The same concept applies to the sales process. Discovery precedes presentation.

This is where the power statement pays huge dividends. You share enough meaningful information on the front end to build credibility, create interest, and help the prospect warm up to answering important questions. This is analogous to meeting your new doctor. This time your new doc sits down on that rolling stool, engages you in small talk, then gives a three-minute overview of her education, specialty, and philosophy of care. You now believe she’s competent and are more receptive to being examined and answering questions about your health. Following the examination, the doc shares her thoughts, diagnoses your condition, and suggests a solution. That’s a great example of how to best structure your sales calls.

Ask Probing Questions: Discovery

When we were little they taught us that there’s no such thing as a stupid question. They lied. Salespeople are notorious for asking obvious, ignorant, and off-target questions.

More selling can be accomplished by asking a series of great questions than by executing a highly polished presentation. The operative word here is great. The skilled sales hunter uses this phase of the call to ask targeted, probing questions to demonstrate expertise, identify potential opportunities, gather necessary information, and move the ball forward.

There are dozens of books and even entire selling systems devoted to schooling sales professionals on probing methodology. There’s enough material out there to earn a doctorate degree on the topic. We won’t go that deep here, but I will offer a simple framework to group probing questions into four categories that ensure we discover the information we need:

1.   Personal questions

2.   Strategic and directional questions

3.   Specific issue-seeking and opportunity-seeking questions

4.   Sales process questions

Personal Questions

The old adage says that people buy from people they like. I couldn’t agree more, and there’s no better way to earn people’s affection than to help them get what they want. That means asking questions to discover what personally matters to your prospects. What are their short-and long-term goals? How are they being evaluated? What type of results are they working to achieve? How could you make their life easier? How and when do they get bonuses or promoted?

Sure, some of these questions are deeply personal and may not be appropriate in all circumstances. But be open to the concept of working hard to understand what is personally important to your potential customer. The deepest and most successful client relationships result when there’s mutual trust and personal commitment between buyer and seller. Isn’t that the type of long-term partnership we desire?

Strategic and Directional Questions

These questions help us get a handle on what is taking place in the prospect’s macro world. What’s going on in your customers’ space? Who are they up against in the market? What industry trends are working for or against their situation? Are there corporate initiatives or new strategies catalyzing change? Is there pressure to grow and expand or to reduce costs?

Precall research can aid you in framing these questions so that they’re more specific rather than generic. There is no excuse for making a business-to-business sales call without having fully investigated your prospect using all available means. At a minimum, scan publicly available information, press releases, social media sites, and anything senior executives or your contact have said or written lately. How smart will you look to your prospect when asking questions about a speech their chief marketing officer made last week that you discovered on YouTube? Or how unprepared or lazy will you sound asking questions that have readily available answers? In the latter case, you’ll only prove that you didn’t care enough to do your homework.

Specific Issue- and Opportunity-Seeking Questions

Once you become more familiar with your prospect’s big-picture world, it’s time to probe more specifically into areas where your offerings can make a difference. Your objective is to gather every morsel of information to identify if and how you can help this prospect.

The easiest way to formulate effective questions is to review the client issues section of your power statement (problems solved, pains removed, opportunities captured, results achieved). Work through the entire list, taking each of the stated reasons that clients look to your company and converting it into a probing question. It’s helpful to keep the questions open-ended because this encourages the prospect to provide descriptive responses as opposed to yes or no answers. As examples:

 How are you approaching Pain No. 1?

 What has your experience been pursuing Opportunity No. 2?

 Could you share your thoughts on capturing Opportunity No. 3? What’s worked and what hasn’t?

 What happens when Problem No. 4 raises its ugly head? And if the problem is not addressed, what’s the impact?

 Tell me about your current initiative to achieve Result No. 5.

This is also the time to explore issues the prospect responded to when you delivered your power statement. Circle back and ask why that particular issue piqued the customer’s interest. Asking why is usually a good idea as long as you don’t do it so frequently that you begin sounding like a three-year-old. Too often we begin answering a prospect’s question assuming we know why they asked it. But the simplest way not to head down an unhelpful and unproductive path is to stop, pause, and say, “That’s a good question. Why’d you ask that?”

Here’s a critical piece of coaching as you progress through these more specific opportunity-seeking questions: Listen to the answers! It’s very common to see salespeople so focused on getting all their questions asked that they lose focus on the prospect. Listen intently. Look interested. Take notes. When the prospect’s answer doesn’t make sense to you, ask for clarification or an example. And most important, when you hit on a topic where it’s clear an issue exists, dig deeper. Don’t just move on to your next question. Ask follow-up questions. Remember, we’re in search of the customer’s pains, problems, needs, and desires. If you discover some of these issues, camp out for a while. Go beyond the surface to understand more about those issues. The more you can learn here, the more relevant your questions and persuasively you can address the issues when you begin “selling” in the next phase of the call.

But as mentioned previously, resist the temptation to launch into sales-mode. When you find a scab, pick at it. Keep probing. And when it starts to bleed a little, pick harder. Ask your prospects how they’ve attempted to conquer the issue and why that hasn’t worked. Pour a little salt in the open wound. Find out the consequences of not solving the issue or achieving the desired result. Everything learned at this stage is useful later, especially when the time comes to propose a solution.

Sales Process Questions

This fourth category of questions is designed to help us gather information we need to successfully advance the opportunity through the sales process. Using our aviation analogy again, these questions secure data about air traffic and weather that assist in planning our flight so that we can arrive safely at the desired destination.

Salespeople get excited when discovering a prospect has the very issues they can solve. This excitement causes the salesperson to speed the sales process toward the proposal stage. While responding with a sense of urgency appears to be a good thing, it can also create problems. The fast-moving salesperson forgets to gather important information, which inevitably will stall the sale later in the process.

Think back to your last few deals where the prospect went dark (i.e., stopped responding). Everything seemed great at first. There was interest and need. You connected with the prospect on a personal level, or so you thought. The feedback was positive and you continued edging up the likelihood of closing the deal. But then suddenly and without warning, the prospect went dark. Nothing. No more return calls or replies to e-mails. Crickets.

More often than not, deals go dark when you’re blindsided by some factor you didn’t discover earlier in the process. Maybe your contact, the person you’ve been meeting with, truly didn’t have authority to buy. Or was there no money to fund a solution. Possibly our definition of “soon” didn’t align with your prospect’s. Whatever the case, it hurts when your contact stops responding, especially when you already booked the revenue (and spent the commission) in your mind.

It’s unlikely you can learn everything you need to during the initial sales call, but it certainly helps to go into that meeting with a clear handle on the factors you want to discover, namely:

 Decision authority and decision influencers

 Timelines

 Available dollars or budget

 Willingness to make a change

 Stage in the buying process

 Decision criteria (how the decision will be made, not who makes it)

 Alternative options

 Competition

Great salespeople tackle all of these issues before presenting a proposal. You must fully understand the prospect’s situation to give yourself the best shot at winning the business. You don’t get paid for working hard and cranking out proposals. You earn your keep closing deals and booking revenue! While it seems counterintuitive, sometimes the best way to speed up closing a deal is to slow down the sales process to gain the necessary information.

I worked with a highly talented, high-level salesperson who was a subject matter expert in her area. In fact, this woman was more of an expert and consultant than a salesperson. We’d go on sales calls and prospects would fall in love with her and what she could do for them. It was common for the prospect to ask for a full-blown proposal for an annual program at the conclusion of a first meeting. Flattered and excited about the opportunity, the salesperson usually would happily comply. The problem, however, was that these proposals were complex and could take up to fifteen hours to prepare. After losing a deal we thought was in the bag and seeing another go dark, we began examining her sales process. It turned out that we were not asking enough questions about decision influencers and the decision process.

You put yourself in a much stronger position to win once you’ve gathered critical data that helps not only position your proposal, but also work all the variables influencing the decision. It serves your best interests to get comfortable asking these types of questions:

  Along with yourself, who else really cares about this issue? (That is by far the best way to ask about other influencers and your contact’s decision-making authority without it coming off as an insult. I did not craft the wording, but have heard it used perfectly by several experts. I am not sure where it originated, but can attest that it is a very useful question to ask.)

  Where are you in the process of evaluating options?

  Where will the money come from to fund this initiative?

  This is a significant decision. How committed are you to making a change? What is the likelihood that you will leave your current supplier (or solution) or change direction?

  Tell me the criteria you’ll use to make your decision. How will you decide?

  What other alternatives are on the table?

Deals go dark when you get lazy and shoot from the dark. Practice asking these types of questions at every prospect meeting. You’ll become more confident and more skilled at securing the information necessary to successfully move the deal forward.

Sell

Now it’s your turn. Finally! Let it fly. Based on what you learned thus far, sell, sell, sell.

The patience and discipline you’ve displayed to this point earned you the right to take center stage. Your prospect is primed to hear how you can help him and his business. You built rapport and credibility, demonstrated professionalism, served an exquisite appetizer that created hunger for more, and gathered copious amounts of information about your prospect. Take full advantage of the solid platform you constructed and launch your strongest sales missiles.

This is the stage of the call when you finally get to act like a salesperson. And because this sales call was structured and conducted so beautifully, you have the ability to weave what’s important to the prospect into your sales pitch. Say it aloud with me: DISCOVERY PRECEDES PRESENTATION.

Grab your literature. Review fancy charts and graphs. Wax eloquently about your samples. Share stories of how you’ve helped other clients achieve remarkable results. Describe possible solutions. Flip through a few screens on your iPad, showing off your latest and greatest whiz-bang offering. Provide customer testimonials.

Take full advantage of what you’ve learned to tailor your message for this particular prospect. Show off your sales skills by showing the buyer that you actually listened. Skip over areas that are not relevant and spend extra time dwelling on key points that will resonate with the buyer’s issues. You’ve identified the prospective buyer’s needs, issues, and opportunities; now tie them in directly with your offerings, using the buyer’s own words to drive home your points.

Determine Fit and Seek Out Objections

By the time you wrap up the previous phase, where you demonstrated your selling skills, you have a pretty good idea if there’s a potential fit with this account. If I’m relatively confident that the prospect is tracking with me, and sense that I can bring value and an appropriate solution, then I start to smile because an opportunity is materializing before my eyes.

I smile, begin gently nodding my head, and say, “Based on our conversation and what we’ve shared with each other, it looks like we might be a fit to help you.” Then I pause to let the thought and moment sink in. If the prospect doesn’t respond after a few seconds, I follow with, “What do you think?”

This is a pivotal moment. We need to hear what’s on the other person’s mind. Were we just imagining and hoping that we connected the dots, or will the prospect affirm that for us? It’s imperative that the prospect speak up. Don’t feel the need to fill the silence or resort to reselling your main points. Exercise self-control. Ask again what the prospect thinks, and pay attention to the tone and content of the response. If the person is uncomfortable providing too much positive feedback, it may be a sign that you need to ask a few more sales process questions. Are there others in the organization that deserve to hear your sales story? Do you need to repeat this initial meeting? Are there any cultural issues, politics, or competing initiatives possibly making it difficult for your prospect to get excited about what you have to offer?

We’re looking for two distinct takeaways from this phase of the call. First, we’re seeking confirmation that we indeed have a potential solution for this prospect. Plain and simple: Do we have a fit? Can we help this prospect? Does the prospect think there’s potential for us to help his business?

Second, we need to flesh out potential obstacles and objections. I know that seems counterintuitive. Many people in sales want to run and hide from objections. That’s silly. The best time to learn about concerns the prospect may have about going forward is right now! If the prospect conveys any reticence or sends a signal that something is just not right, ask about it. Go back to probing. Discovering potential obstacles while sitting face-to-face is the best thing that can happen. It presents an opportunity for you, if possible, to address them on the spot. And it helps you strategize how to work around and overcome those obstacles as the opportunity progresses. If you can tell in your gut that something is amiss, but your contact won’t say it, ask directly. Say: “I get the feeling you have concerns or see obstacles about going forward. Tell me what you’re thinking. I’d rather hear your concerns now than pretend they don’t exist.”

Define and Schedule the Next Step

I always enjoy listening to salespeople recap sales calls. There’s always something to learn and usually something that makes you laugh. Salespeople like to brag about the great job they did conducting the call. Sometimes the stories take on a life of their own, kind of like fishing stories. Each time the story of the incredible sales call is retold, it becomes more dramatic. The fish gets bigger and the salesperson looks more and more heroic.

There’s one question I make every salesperson answer following each call: What’s the next step? And more often than you’d think, that next step hasn’t been defined. I don’t care how great you feel about your meeting with the dream prospect. If you left without defining, agreeing to, and scheduling the next step, then you failed. They loved you and told you so, but you forgot to define the next step for both sides? Fail. You gave the greatest presentation of your life and received a standing ovation, but you left without agreement on the next step? Also a failure. Point taken?

The final stage of a winning sales call is the simplest stage of all. Define what comes next. Once you’ve discussed whether you may be a fit for the prospect and worked to unearth potential objections, the conclusion of the meeting is easy.

One question—“What do you suggest as an appropriate next step?”—is all it takes to bridge toward agreement on what comes next. It also provides an opportunity for the prospect to direct you and to remain in control. Asking for the other person’s thoughts relieves the pressure that traditional closing techniques create. We’ve spent the previous hour (or however long) conducting a professional, no-pressure, two-way sales conversation. There’s no reason to switch gears now and a pull a power-move on the prospect. Let’s not destroy the credibility and comfort we’ve worked so hard to build.

Listen and process the prospect’s response. My favorite thing to do at this point is to offer next steps for each of us. I’ll say, “Based on what you’re saying, how about if I do EFG, and you pull together JKL?” In other words, “Let me do this and you do that.” Mutual commitment is a good thing.

However, suggesting the next step only earns you partial credit. You’ve got to schedule that step. Today, that’s easier than ever. Grab your smartphone or open your calendar. There’s a high likelihood the prospect will follow your lead. Pick the date that both parties can agree to accomplish an agreed-upon task and confirm what happens next. Repeat it. Book it. Shake on it.

One final thought about ending the call appropriately: Don’t fall all over yourself thanking the person for their time. Sure, be thankful; be respectful. But act like you’ve been here before. You should be accustomed to conducting meetings that end with a positive outcome for both sides. Keep in mind that you’ve delivered much value to the prospect. You provided ideas; you painted a picture of a successful outcome. So while it’s fine to thank the person for investing the time to visit with you, don’t bow down in the process. Remember, your prospect is the one with the pain, problem, or desired result. You have the potential solution. If you’ve done your job by correctly structuring and conducting the sales call, your prospects should be just as appreciative of you as you are of them.