Do you consider yourself a success when it comes to the planning and execution of your sales calls?

Posted on 05/08/2017 in Sales Call Planning

Most sales professionals will admit to not dedicating enough time to sales call planning. However, it doesn’t have to take long to plan. Which of the following three critical sales call planning tasks do you still need to work on?

Critical Task # 1 in the Planning Stage: Identify your goals and objectives
What is your Sales Goal (long term) or desired outcome for this account?
What is your Sales Call Objective (short term) or what you want to accomplish at the next sales call?

Critical task #2 in the Planning Stage: Identify the decision makers and influencers
Are you meeting with all the right people? Are there additional people influencing the decision making process? Make the mistake of failing to identify and gain access to all the decision makers and you miss out on important sales opportunities.

Critical task #3 in the Planning Stage: Prepare the appropriate resources
What and Who do you need to bring to the sales call? Would a product demonstration help? Should you bring a technical expert or upper level manager?

Successful sales professionals follow a roadmap to effectively plan and conduct sales calls. Our 12-part Essential Selling Skills online training series teaches a 6-Stage Sales Call Process and the critical tasks for each stage. Visit Essential Selling Skills online training for more information. Module 2 Stages and Critical Tasks of Selling and Module 3 Pre-Call Planning go into more detail on the 6-stage process and how to successfully plan for sales calls.