Thread by @BowTiedSalesGuy

Alright so I did a sales call review yesterday with an anon.

I’ll do a deep dive into what he did right and most importantly, wrong and how he could have dramatically improved the call.

A thread 👇🏼

Context: he sells listings on an online marketplace

This should have been a layup because he had a referral but instead he made his job harder due to incompetence

So right off the bat - the guy answers the phone:

“This is Mark” *heavy breathing into the phone after saying that*

1) His full name is Marcus
2) Heavy breathing

2 indicators the DM was stressed for whatever reason (personal, busy/in middle of things, etc)

The salesperson could have mirrored the prospect and let out a slight *sigh* and say

“Yeah hey Mark this is Anon. How’s it going?”

Mark: Good and yourself? (still sounding uneasy)

Salesperson: “Yeah i’m doing alright.. *slight pause and bored tone* In between meetings here, Jack suggested I give you a call.”

Instead the salesperson said:

“I’m calling from [company] actually Jack said I should talk to you did he mention anything to you?”

Wrong.

Salesperson boxes himself in now because the prospect will likely say:

“Nah man he didn’t we’ve been busy”

which he did say lol

Now the salesperson has to start all over, which he did, going on about the product.

So let’s say the salesperson did say:

Salesperson: “Yeah i’m doing alright.. *slight pause and bored tone* In between meetings here, Jack suggested I give you a call.”

Mark would likely say: Ok what’s in this regards to?

NOW the salesperson can introduce the company but in a concise and compelling way:

Bridge:

“Yeah so we’ve been partnering with roofers like yourself within a 25 mile radius. Think of [fierce competitor 1] and [fierce competitor 2] giving them exposure on our lead gen platform..

I realized you’re one of the few we haven’t had a conversation with!”

*PAUSE LET IT SINK IN*

Give it 3 seconds before he answers. He will likely say:

“[Competitor 1 & 2] huh? What are you guys doing with them”

Then instead of pitching the product salesperson should say..

“Lots of stuff actually. But before we get into that, can I ask…

How are you guys currently acquiring new business?”

That’s it. Now salesperson has structured the beginning of the call perfectly and has complete control

The buyer is in a prime emotional state

Pro tip: If you sell to local businesses, use google maps to see their closest (by radius) competitors then name drop them.

Ok another point to address in the call.

You need a long enough runway in the beginning in order for a call to go smooth.

A Runway breaks down a message into bite sized components and extends the introduction to build momentum forward

Most of you guys are in a rush to get your message out:

“Hey this is X calling from [company] i wanted to see if you would be interested in bla bla”

My strategy is opposite. I say less and encourage more investment from the other side

The more we go back and forth and exchange dialogue BEFORE i start selling, the more trust and forward momentum is built priming them to continue the conversation

An object in motion stays in motion.

It looks like this in practice:

Ok next mistake:

Mark said: “Nah man he didn’t tell me anything we’ve been busy”

Salesperson: Ok are you familiar at all with what we do?

In general, This is not a bad question. Problem is the prospect is already “far away” from him and this question boxes salesperson in again

and reminds the prospect that the salesperson is just a stranger

Instead, I would’ve said:

“So if you guys haven’t spoken I’ll assume you literally have no idea who I am. Ok, let’s take a step back.”

Go back to the Bridge portion of the call and drop the line:

“We’ve been partnering with roofers like yourself within a 25 mile radius. Think of [fierce competitor 1] and [fierce competitor 2] giving them exposure on our lead gen platform..”

This will reset the call and lead to the QA portion

Next mistake

Salesperson asked how do you get new leads

Mark said 80% comes from one source

Instead of saying: That’s risky af. What happens if that one source dries up? Happens all the time.

He said: Oh ok.. anything else you sell from your website?

The guy said we use Facebook and some magazine advertising too

The salesperson just said “Oh ok”

Then something funny happened. The prospect is on the company website and sees his competitor there!

He says “Oh [competitor] is there we should probably be too. what’s the cost?”

The guy is interested despite all the mistakes!

Salesperson should have probed further:

“Oh how do you know [competitor]?” (play stupid)

And then find out WHY that’s interesting to him

Instead the salesperson only asked a few surface questions and didn’t probe at all

This means the context of his questions are angling to sell his product rather than to understand the prospects current situation DEEPER and find problems to solve

He would have done better had he took 1-2 questions from each section of my questioning framework:

The Ending

Mark asks salesperson to email some info

Salesperson says: Sure! i can send it over and then follow up with you next week if Wednesday works?

Prospect said: Ok that sounds good (in a high tone implying he didn’t even listen to what the salesperson said)

He didn’t lock in a follow up ON THE CALL. The prospect didn’t even acknowledge the response and was preparing to exit the call and probably ghost.

Moving forward the prospect is going to compare price JUST to the value of a competitor being there whereas

If the salesperson properly found pain and desired outcomes he could’ve charged more AND closed faster because he would be selling to a horny prospect (+intrigue from competitor listing)

Key Mindset shifts:

Chad Frame: We sell a business growth mechanism. We’re selective with who we work with and partners rely on us for high quality leads.

Amateur Frame: Will you join our marketplace? We can give you free leads if you do