“If you truly want emotional engagement from yourself and from your customers, you need a customer impact story.” – Lisa McLeod in today’s Tip 549

How do you make a difference to your customers?

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Selling with Noble Purpose: How to Drive Revenue and Do Work That Makes You Proud
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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast, and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Lisa McLeod. And once again, she’s self introducing. So let’s just get right into it.

Lisa McLeod: Hi, I’m Lisa McLeod, I’m the author of “Selling With Noble Purpose.” And I have got a quick sales tip for you.

One of the things we know from our study of top-performing salespeople is when it comes to the difference between the top performers and average sellers, top performers have this sense of what we call noble purpose. They truly want to make a difference in the lives of their customers. Transactional salespeople are just there to close the deal. But these top performing sellers have a different story in their head. And that’s what I want to talk to you about, is the story in your head. And we call it the customer impact story. Let me tell you what that means. It’s a compelling story about how you make a difference in the lives of your customers.

Now, a lot of organizations have case studies and spec sheets and all of that, and those things are fine. But if you truly want emotional engagement from yourself and from your customers, you need a customer impact story. So here’s an example. We work with a concrete company, and one of the stories that they share is about how they mucked out the basement from a family that had two brand new twins. When it was leaking, the basement was flooded. They mucked it out. They put in their concrete and they fixed it forever. And they created peace of mind. The family that had two new babies. It’s simple. It’s short.

So think about how do you make a difference to your customers and get that story in your brain. Tell it to your colleagues. Tell it to your customers. A great customer impact story is true. It’s short and it’s a factual and emotional summary of how you made a difference in the life of a customer. Once you start telling customer impact stories, you become more engaged and so do your customers.

Scott Ingram: For more about Lisa and for a link to her book, “Selling With Noble Purpose” just click over DailySales.Tips/549. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“Keep everything as simple as possible.” – Joe Ingram in today’s Tip 548

How will your prospect get engage with you?

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Joe Ingram, the CEO of Ingram Interactive. I don’t think we’re related, but this is a pretty good idea. Give a listen:

Joe Ingram: In today’s business, lead submissions, right? Or website visits that convert into a contact me or an I’m interested, lead submission come in consistently. So if you’re advertising, the goal is what? To get the prospect to engage with you. One of the big things I always tell people is a confused mind will never click submit. So keep everything as simple as possible.

With that, I’m trying to get one place with my prospect. I need to be in one place. Now, ideally, I’d say, Oh, that’s face to face. But not all of us do actual brick and mortar businesses where we have to get in front of somebody. Where I want to get is right here. I need to get on their phone. I need to get to them. And 90 percent of all emails are read on a phone. OK, it’s only 17 percent of the people that an unknown number comes in will actually pick up the phone. OK. But ninety-three percent of all text messages are read within five minutes. OK. So how do I get him on the phone? If I get a lead submission, a form that comes in to me and there’s a phone number given, I will pick up my phone and I will text that individual right away. Seventy 78 percent of the sales go to the first responder. Now, I’m going to go ahead and say I’m going to go text that person, go. Hi, it’s Joe over at XYZ Company. And I want to know if it’s OK if we text today. So I’m sending out a yes or no question. Very short, very simple. Don’t send the novel too many times. We’re dumping in all of this extra information thinking I only got one shot. Well, they know they submitted an actual request.

So, again, throw it out there. Hi, it’s Joe over at XYZ Company. And I just wonder, know if we can text today and then I wait 60 seconds. I’ll wait 60 seconds, then I’ll pick up the same phone I texted from and I will dial their number. The number is already there when I dial it. One of the best things that’s helped us today is iOS from Apple. When you call somebody so they have an iPhone and you call them after you texted them. The system reads off to them instead of saying no, no, it says maybe Joe. Now they have to stop and think, which, Joe, is this that I’m ignoring. So you have a much better chance. So instead of a 17 percent answer rate, I have companies almost up to 50 percent answer rate because the person is trying to figure out who they are. And why does their phone know them and they don’t. So they answer the phone and that gets you the conversation and gets you talking to your prospects.

And then you do what you do. Hopefully, I’ll be back around to explain better ways to convert it once you get them on the phone. Thanks. I appreciate you.

Scott Ingram: To learn more about Joe, Ingram Interactive and his Sales Genius podcast. Just click over to DailySales.Tips/548 and we’ll have everything for you there.

Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“If you’re new to sales, this is probably the most important podcast you can listen to because what you’ll start to do is pick up on the habits and the routines and the best practices when you’re fresh, when you’re a blank slate, when you can actually start to implement and get way better, way faster.” – Nick Cegelski in today’s Tip 547

Thank you, Nick!

Join the conversation below and go subscribe to Sales Success Stories!

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. This is about the most self-serving tip I’ve ever shared, but if you take it to heart I think it will serve you too. Here’s Nick Cegelski:

Nick Cegelski: This one is just a testimonial to the Sales Success Stories Podcast. Scott, I owe you so much and my sales career owes you so much for what you’ve done with this show. I want to give a shout out to David Weiss. He probably doesn’t even remember this, but he got on the phone with me when I was really struggling as an SDR and actually helped me figure out what I needed to do next to take control of my career narrative and find success.

I have listened to probably 90% of the episodes, Scott has put out most of the time on the bike. I used to listen when I rode my bike to work in my first ever SDR job. And it helped me get competent so much faster.

If you’re new to sales, this is probably the most important podcast you can listen to because what you’ll start to do is pick up on the habits and the routines and the best practices when you’re fresh, when you’re a blank slate, when you can actually start to implement and get way better, way faster. That way, as you get deeper into your sales career, you’re not trying to break old routines.

Scott, thank you for everything that you do with this show. And if you haven’t listened to the Sales Success Stories Podcast, get on that thing right now.

Scott Ingram: Now let me put this into a bit of perspective. Nick not only listened to the podcast, but he took that inspiration and really did something with it and was actually the most recent guest on the Sales Success Stories podcast where I only interview quota-carrying individual contributors who either the #1 top performers in their companies like Nick is today or folks who work for very large sales teams who are in the top 1%. So I sincerely hope you’ll take Nick’s advice and go subscribe to Sales Success Stories and give a listen if you’re not already. Also, if you’ll check out the post for this tip at DailySales.Tips/547 we’ll have a picture of Nick’s bike and the speaker he used to blast the podcast for everyone to hear as he passed slow-moving cars stuck in traffic in California while he rode into work. We’ll also have a link to his episode on Sales Success Stories as well as my episode on his own new podcast called 30 Minutes to President’s Club that is so, so good. He and Armand Farrokh are doing a really amazing job with that show.

Once you’ve done all that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

 

“Don’t tell me why you’re better. Tell me why you’re different.” – Jeff Bajorek in today’s Tip 546

How are you different from your competitors?

Join the conversation below and be sure to connect with Jeff!

Rethink The Way You Sell: When It Goes Sideways
Rethink The Way You Sell Community
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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Jeff Bajorek is back with another great tip.

Jeff Bajorek: Don’t tell me why you’re better. Tell me why you’re different. The default for most salespeople is to brag about their product. It’s to be so enthusiastic and passionate about what they sell, but they just want to tell everybody how great they are. And believe me, if there’s anybody out there that believes in passion and believes in enthusiasm and how effective it is in a sales process, it’s me. But what I want to help you understand is that different is or better rather is in the eye of the beholder. Better is subjective. Better is emotional. Look if there was a best solution for everybody, there would be no other solutions. If it was so clear, that one thing was the best. It would be the only thing yet, there are other options.

If you were clearly the best, then what the heck are your customers or I’m sorry, what are the heck are your competitors still doing in business, right? Someone clearly disagrees with you and thought that your competitors were the best solution for them the last time around. So you can’t win the better best game. What you can do though, is have a meaningful discussion about the clear differentiators that your product or solution brings to the market.

How are you different from your competitors?

If you tell me how great you are, you tell me how much better you are. It could very well lead to an argument or at least a disagreement. But if you tell me why you’re different and it’s clear as day. How you’re different? Well, now we can have a conversation, which do you think is going to be a more conducive environment for making a sale, having an argument with someone or having a reasonable conversation with them.

Now here’s the other benefit of explaining to me your prospect, why your product is different. Now you’re separating yourself from the rest of your competitors, which means I no longer have an anchor for how much you should cost, because you’re clearly different than them. That means that you won’t be entering that race to the bottom for price, right? Because in the absence of any real differentiation, the only way you can stand out is by offering a better price. And we know that the only thing worse than winning that race to the bottom is finishing second. Cause you really show your cards as to what you feel, your products really worth, and then you don’t even win the business.

The other hidden benefit or not well-realized benefit of differentiating is that, now you’re showing me a different way to look at solving my problem. I’m going to start thinking of you as a resource, a trusted advisor. Even if you can, you know, continue to provide that kind of service in that rethinking of my processes throughout our relationship. I’m more likely to give you more business later because I know that you’re different and I have a level of trust in you that I don’t have in anybody else. You’re going to sell me more and at higher margins for the rest of our relationship.

All of this, and then some cause I want to keep this tip brief can be had. If you just switch your mindset at the very beginning, don’t tell me why your product is so great. Don’t tell me why, It’s the best thing out there. Help me understand why it’s different. Start a new conversation, start a new line of thinking. Start challenge, that challenge my thought process around products and services like yours. Think different and you’ll get different results and I think you’re going to like them.

Scott Ingram: Well, that’s Jeff for you. He may or may not be better, but he is a little bit different. Sorry Jeff, I couldn’t resist. If you are a super active listener who listens to these tips the day they come out and you hurry. You’ll have just enough time to sign-up for Jeff’s newsletter that he sounds out on Sunday. You can find the links you’ll need at DailySales.Tips/546 and don’t worry if you’re listening to this a few days or weeks or even months later. Lucky for us Jeff sends a killer note every Sunday. I hope you’ll check it out.

Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“We’ve got to define what we mean by good at something in sales, especially everything we do has to be measurable and repeatable.” – Jack Wilson in today’s Tip 545

What are you good at?

Join the conversation below and learn more about Jack!

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531: Ikigai (part 1 of 6)
538: Ikigai (part 2 of 6) What You Love

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today Jack Wilson, “The Guy with Ikigai” is back to talk more about Ikigai in part 3 of his 6 part series. Here he is:

Jack Wilson: Hey there, Daily Sales Tips Community. I’m happy to be back with part 6 of defining your Ikigai. If you’ve been following along, then hopefully you have a high-level understanding of the framework and you’ve begun the work to determine what you love. If not, don’t worry, check back on tips #531 and #538 to get caught up. For today’s tip, we moved down into the left of what we love, and we turn our focus to the next of four components of Ikigai, which is what are you good at?

Let’s start first by understanding, we’ve got to define what we mean by good at something in sales, especially everything we do has to be measurable and repeatable. The benchmarks we choose to measure good are ultimately what we use to develop our personal sense of ability. But buyer beware, there are helpful and negative ways of measuring ourselves. Take the good old fashioned comparison model. Let’s say I’m on a sales team with DeJuan. And DeJuan books, one meeting for every X amount of dials. And he’s the best on the team. I might look at him and say, “Damn, DeJuan is the man. I’ve got to be more like him.” Well, not so fast, cause one of my mentors used to say, “So what? Compared to what?”

So we booked a ton of meetings. Are they qualified? How many of them close? What if you booked half as many and closed twice as much. The devil is in the details. Try to compare not just the quantities, but the quality of your actions as well. I bring up comparisons first because for better or worse, that tends to be the first place we go. A better approach though is to identify the key tasks you perform as part of your day to day. Try compiling an exhausting list of everything you do. I mean it, everything. If checking email is something you do throw it on the list.

Once your list is complete rank these tasks in order of importance, don’t rush it. Take your time. You should have to wrestle between a few of them and make some trade-offs before it feels complete. Finally, once you’ve identified all the stuff you do and you’ve organized it by what matters most it’s time to evaluate how good you feel you are at each. I know, I said feel, and it might seem uncomfortable. But at first, you’ve got to check in with yourself. By the end of this exercise, you should have a list of the stuff you do, how important it all is and how good you think you are already each.

Now let’s get some conflicting data to help you evaluate. You need to verify your opinion with a few different sources. Start closest to your work first. Ask a leader, maybe a colleague to review your list and solicit their honest opinion. It’s important to let them know you’re vulnerable. Give them permission to be brutally honest and promise them that you’ll check your ego at the door. Next, ask some non-work even family. And lastly, perhaps a shameless plug here, consider asking a coach or a mentor.

So now that you’ve compared yourself to others in the industry, you reflected on your own skills and solicited some important feedback from those within your sphere of influence. What’s left? Consider you evaluating your aptitude and personality traits by leveraging some well-known industry tools for more on that, I’ll leave it to you, Scott.

Scott Ingram: Thanks Jack. One of the tools that we’re working to incorporate into the broader Sales Success Experience is Gallup’s Clifton Strengths tools. For just $20 you can take a quick assessment that will help you identify your top 5 strengths. I’m sure I’ll be talking more about that in the future, but if you take the Strengths Finder or if you’ve already taken it in the past. Send a note to: [email protected] and let me know. I’d love to give you a little preview of what we’re working on. For a link to that tool, Jack’s LinkedIn profile and more, just click over to DailySales.Tips/545

Once you’ve done that make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast so you don’t miss the rest of this series, or tomorrow’s tip. I’ll talk to you then. Thanks for listening!

“Nurture your spirit. Read. Surround yourself with people and nurture every day a spirit of appreciation for what you do, because ultimately that’s all you’re going to be benchmarked.” – Denis Champagne in today’s Tip 544

Do you evaluate and rate yourself on the value of your personal services in your workplace?

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Denis Champagne. As the President of Lotus Communications Denis has generated millions of dollars for his clients based on his own prospecting efforts and he also trains and coaches others to gain access to the C Suite. Here he is:

Denis Champagne: Hello everyone! Today, I’m going to throw you a challenge to make sure you can evaluate yourself and rate yourself on the value of your personal services in the workplace. Whether it’d be for yourself or as an employee.

In the early thirties, a book was written by Napoleon Hill called Think and Grow Rich, of which I’ve read multiple times. Very touching book. And in that book, he studied the ultra-successful. And you had a chapter in there where he talked about how to measure, how to evaluate, and how to benchmark yourself in terms of the value of your marketing or personal marketing services. And he established it with an acronym called QQS.

Obviously, you probably know of the two Q, but I’m sure you don’t know about the S.

The Q is the quantity of work that you do. The amount of involvement that you had, the hours you’ve put out, the effort you deploy to really serve and provide all of the efforts and the work that needs to be done to bring success. The quality of the work is the intelligence with which you do and execute the thinking behind, the IQ component, the intellectual component, the thinking, the writing well, the writing-reading well, speaking well. The last one is actually what makes or breaks every single one of those people as successful or unsuccessful.

The S is the one that everybody wants and everybody benchmarks you and evaluate you. And that is called the spirit. The spirit with which you render a service to someone is the determining factor in almost every single circumstance of an engagement in business.

Your spirit, your determination, your willingness, your passion, your emotional involvement, selling is an emotion, is a transference a feeling and most people will tell you that they succeeded because they wanted it more than the other, in sports, it’s the same, in sales it’s the same.

So my message to you is today, although I’ll be at important that quality and quantity is considered, nurture and feed your spirit of the things that you’re going to do and a company you’re going to represent, and the products or services that you’re going to provide as a solution for some of your clients.

So my message to you again, I’ll repeat is nurture your spirit. Read. Surround yourself with people and nurture every day a spirit of appreciation for what you do, because ultimately that’s all you’re going to be benchmarked.

Scott Ingram: To connect with Dennis Champagne and learn more about his company, Lotus Communications, just click over to DailySales.Tips/544 and we’ll have those links for you there along with the video version of this tip and a transcript.

Then, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“If you’re looking for advice on how to thrive in the world, you should really look to nature and strawberries have been around for hundreds of thousands of years. Just continually evolving into like the perfect sales engine.” – Marc McDougall in today’s Tip 543

How can you sell like a strawberry?

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Marc McDougall. Marc is a B2B Conversion Specialist out of Atlanta who helps B2B SAAS companies to land more demos by making their website convert more traffic. Here he is:

Marc McDougall: You should try to sell like a strawberry. When you look at a strawberry, you see they have a not so hidden agenda. They’re covered in seeds with the aim of helping the strawberry to reproduce once it passes through your system. Well, not your system. But these days, animals in the wild will hopefully eat a strawberry and then fertilize the soil with new strawberry plants once it passes through their digestive system. Right?

But if you’re looking for advice on how to thrive in the world, you should really look to nature and strawberries have been around for hundreds of thousands of years, right? Just continually evolving into like the perfect sales engine. There’s no salesmen in nature, right? There’s just a strawberry. The strawberry doesn’t have a spokesperson that doesn’t have a development rep that’s trying to get you to eat this job. It’s just pure value.

There’s nothing about a strawberry that isn’t absolutely delicious. Everyone loves strawberries and the one of the most delightful fruits to eat and they’re even aesthetically pleasing.

So how can you craft your offer such that it’s so valuable, you’re giving away so much for free? You’re just a no brainer decision. How can you make your offer as compelling as nature has made the strawberry? How can you sell like a strawberry? Something to think about.

Scott Ingram: For more about Marc and the video version of this tip where you can of course see his strawberry, just click over to DailySales.Tips/543. There you’ll also find his offer for a free clarity call if your SAAS site isn’t converting as much traffic as it should be.

Once you’ve done that. Be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“The very best way to avoid being ghosted is to always schedule your next meeting before the conclusion of your current meeting.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 542

How do you schedule your next meeting?

Join the conversation below and share your own thoughts!

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from me!

I had a pretty fun experience last week. As I got towards the end of a particularly productive sales meeting. I was walking them through next steps and in this particular situation, almost everything we needed to move forward was on them. So I was simply detailing those items, confirming who was going to do them and by when. It was at this point that the VP of Marketing who was on the line and is a pretty good student of sales himself called out that I was doing a really good job of quote “assignment selling.”

It was certainly a nice compliment, but also just a good reminder of a pretty natural part of my process. I talked about this idea a little bit more way back in tip #37 which was about running a sales process like a project manager.

Done right this is a super straight forward and very natural process. Once you have that commitment to move forward you’re simply confirming the details of those commitments. What are the things that need to get done? Who is responsible for them? When will they be delivered and perhaps most importantly. When will we meet again.

I guess this is a bit of a bonus tip within a tip, because the very best way to avoid being ghosted is to always schedule your next meeting before the conclusion of your current meeting. This keeps you from having to try to coordinate calendars via email later, where there’s the risk of them not responding, and allows you to maintain momentum.

In this specific example, they committed to delivering all of the things we need to proceed next Monday and we’re scheduled to meet again next Wednesday.

“Assignment Selling,” what a great term. It works for me. Give it a try.

Then be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip! I’ll talk to you then.

“What you want is to be able to effectively communicate to where they can see themselves being a future success example of their own with your company.” – Rajiv ‘RajNATION’ Nathan in today’s Tip 541

How do you tell a story with an impact on your customer?

Join the conversation below and learn more about RajNATION!

Startup Hypeman
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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Raj Nathan, otherwise known as ‘RajNATION.’ RajNATION is the founder of Startup Hypeman where he helps startups not suck at how they pitch and tell their story, so they stand out to customers and stand apart from their competitors. Here he is with today’s tip:

Rajiv ‘RajNATION’ Nathan: Here’s the scenario, you’re in the midst of a demo call or a discovery call with a potential customer. And they ask you for a customer example of your own. They ask you something like, “Yeah, Hey, can you tell me like some customers you’ve worked with and what kind of results they got.” And then you ramble on for like three or four minutes, explaining all the ins and outs of what you did with them and everything, or perhaps on the flip side of that, they ask you for that customer example, “Hey, who have you worked with? Have they been successful?” And you rattle off like three big logos and just kind of stop there. And that’s not going to do much either, or a third scenario, they ask you for that customer example and you ramble on, but you kind of immediately you open and you’re like, “Oh, well, we help sell. And so improve ROI by 46%.” And then you just kind of continue to highlight like three or four more of those stats with that customer.

None of those are cases where if that’s your response, you are inspiring or motivating that person into action. You’re not making them want to do business with you more and why not? Well, because it’s very much a look at me kind of response. It is a response that pretty much only makes your company look good in the process. And that’s not what you want. What you want is to be able to effectively communicate to where they can see themselves being a future success example of their own with your company.

So here’s an outline to tell a story with impact and do it in about 45 seconds. So not only is it impactful, it’s actually concise as well. You can do this either with slides or without slides, just verbally.

Number one. You want to state the customer who comes to mind because of the conversation you’re having with this current prospective buyer.

Number two. Deliver the qualitative or emotional results.

Number three. State what was their challenge initially.

Number four. What did you do about it? What kind of work did you do with them?

Number five. Deliver the quantifiable result.

Number six. Restate that initial qualitative or emotional result. And if possible, share what’s on the horizon for that customer. What’s next for them.

And then finally, ask a question to the prospective buyer who’s on the phone with you right now.

So let’s create a totally hypothetical example with that. Let’s say I’m selling some type of like SMS software here, again, totally hypothetical example. And I’m creating like an SMS software here, or I’m selling an SMS software here.

Here’s how I would go through this outline. They asked me. “Yeah. So can you tell me about a customer and kind of what kind of results have they had?”

“Yeah, absolutely. I really want to talk to you about Monster because you really remind me of them. And from the execution to the results, they were really happy with what they accomplished. And I think you might be able to identify with that as well. See what Monster was doing really well in grocery, but surprisingly losing market share at convenience stores. We launched an SMS trivia campaign where if consumers answered all three questions or text message, they got a coupon. They could go use at a CVS or Rite aid on the spot. The redemption rate was about 2% and even better. Most of them actually opted in for longterm remarketing. Monster loved it because it directly helped them regain market share in convenience stores. And we’re actually now exploring the same thing for their 7-11 locations. And then on top of that, again, they have these people for longterm remarketing. So now those people are going back into those CVS is after that first time to redeem the coupon. I’m curious, what channel relationships come to mind for you and are there specific demographic market areas where you actually want to drive more traffic?”

Right, So you can see in that format there, I delivered, I started with saying, Hey, you remind me of Monster. And here’s why qualitative emotional result. They were really happy with what they got out of it. What was their challenge? Losing market share and convenience. What did you do? Hey, trivia SMS trivia. So they can go and redeem a coupon at CVS. Quantifiable result, 2% redemption rate and people are opting in for longterm remarketing. Restate the qualitative result. Hey, they loved it because they were directly regaining market share in the convenience stores. And now we’re, and what’s the next thing for them. We’re now exploring that for 7-11. Close the question. What channel relationships come to mind? Are there specific DNAs where you want to drive traffic?

So try that out next week. Try that out today. When you are asked to deliver a customer story.

Scott Ingram: If you’ll click over to DailySales.Tips/541 you’ll find the video version of this tip, the transcript and more about RajNATION. You’ll also find a special link to his Startup Hypeman website.

After you check that out, make sure you come see us tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!

“The distinction between an agenda, the agenda is the structure of the call that we share with the client. Call plan is our internal prep document that we use to get prepared for that meeting. ” – Mike Simmons in today’s Tip 540

How about you? How do you prepare for the meeting?

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Transcript

Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Mike Simmons. Mike is the Founder of Catalyst Sale and host of the Catalyst Sale podcast. Here he is:

Mike Simmons: Let’s go ahead and make a distinction between a call plan and an agenda. An agenda is the piece of information that we share with the customer in advance of the meeting or the prospect in advance of the meeting. It’s got a structure of how we want the call to go traditionally when meeting with a client or a prospect. And what I want to do is I want to start with some basic information about what’s changed since the last time that we’ve met, then I’ll follow that up and that’s, what’s changed on there. And then I’ll follow that up with what’s changed on our end, ideally in the context of what they’ve shared with us, the things that are important for them. And then we’ll go ahead and establish some clear next steps, things that we want to execute on in the short term. When thinking about the call plan, the call plans and internal tool. This is what we put together so that we can be prepared for that call. We want to identify, who’s going to be in the room, anticipate what their objectives are, establish what our objectives are, clarify what our objectives are, and list out our desired next steps. Getting the call plans, an internal document, something that we use as an internal team to help make sure the team is prepared for the meeting. The agenda is the thing that we use to set expectations with the client on the things that we’d like to discuss. One of the things I like to do with an agenda. So I like to signal that to the client in advance and just ask them if there’s anything that we’ve missed. Then when we start the call, I’ll state the agenda and give them another opportunity to add any items that they’d like to add to the agenda. So again, the distinction between an agenda, the agenda is the structure of the call that we share with the client. Call plan is our internal prep document that we use to get prepared for that meeting. Thanks.

Scott Ingram: If you’d like to go a little deeper into these ideas Mike shared a couple of images that visually explain the Call Plan and The Agenda. Just click over to DailySales.Tips/540 and if you’ll click one more time from there there’s also a link to some even more comprehensive templates and planning tools that Mike has available on his Catalyst Sale website.

Once you’ve checked out all of that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!