Planning The Sales

Call: Steps To A
Successful Approach
Figure 4.1:
The Personal
Selling
Process (PSP)

• The second
and third
step in the
7-stage
professional
personal
selling cycle

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 Why Plan the Sales Call?

"Failing to plan is planning to fail"

• an old saying with a lot of truth in it

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 Why Plan the Sales Call? (cont’d)

Top professional sales representatives

thoroughly plan all their sales calls to ensure
success by
1.Establishing Sales Call Focus
Generate sales — sell particular products to target
customers on designated sales calls.
Develop the market — lay the groundwork for generating
new business by educating customers and gaining visibility
with prospective buyers.
Protect the market — learn competitors’ strategies and
tactics and protect relationships with current customers.

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 Why Plan the Sales Call? (cont’d)

2. Improving Effectiveness and Efficiency

3. Preparing for Customer Reaction
4. Enhancing Self-Confidence and Professionalism
5. Determining Which Selling Strategies to Use
6. Avoiding Errors

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 Sales Call Planning Importance

Sales call planning increases in importance when

• the customer's decision is a complex, high-
involvement, high risk one;
• future interactions and negotiations with the customer
are expected;
• the customer's needs are unique;
• a range of alternatives is available to the customer;
and
• the sale is very critical to the salesperson.

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 Planning for the Sales Call: Six
Steps to Pre- Approach Success
There are at least six general steps that ought to be
considered in preparing for a sales call
1. Prepare the prospect for the initial sales call
• "Seeding"
– prospect-focused activities carried out several weeks or months
before a sales call

2. Sell the Sales Call Appointment by prenotification

• cold call
• e-mail
• fax
• mail
• telephone

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 Planning for the Sales Call: Six
Steps to Pre- Approach Success (cont’d)
3. Gather and analyze all relevant information about
the prospect
• Gathering Information About Consumer Prospects
• Consumer credit bureaus
• Market research
• Library sources
• Gathering Information About Organizational Prospects
• In-house purchasing agents
• Electronic directories and databases
• Library sources

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 Planning for the Sales Call: Six
Steps To Pre- Approach Success (cont’d)
4. Identify the prospect's problems and needs
• Organizational Problems and Needs
• SPIN approach
– Situation
– Problem
– Implication
– Needs Payoff
5. Choose the Best Sales Presentation Strategy
6. Rehearse Your Approach

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 Initial Sales Call Reluctance –
Sales Stage Fright
• One of the biggest problems new salespeople face is
fear of making the initial contact with prospects

Kinds of Sales Call Reluctance

• Social or self-image threat
• Intrusion sensitivity
• Analysis paralysis
• Group fright
• Social class or celebrity intimidation
• Role ambivalence
• Exploitation guilt

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 Sales Call Anxiety (SCA)

• SCA (sales call anxiety) can be attributed

the fear of being negatively evaluated and
rejected by customers

• SCA has 4 components

1. negative evaluation of the self
2. imagined negative evaluations from customers
3. one’s physiological symptoms
4. protective actions

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 Overcoming Sales Call Reluctance

• Many of the barriers to making sales calls

can be overcome through the following
efforts
– Listen carefully to the excuses other salespeople use to
justify call reluctance and learn to objectively analyze your
own excuses
– Use supportive role-playing and discussions with sales
colleagues to overcome fear
– Make some initial prospect contacts with a partner for
support; then make calls without partner support

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 Overcoming Sales Call Reluctance

– Review and re-enact recent sales calls with sales colleagues

to constructively critique performance for signs of progress
– Shift the focus from individual prospect personalities to sales
objectives by setting them down in writing prior to making a
sales call
– Rehearse sales calls with sales colleagues to reinforce
positive behaviors
– Observe and model the behavior of successful salespeople

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 Approaching the Prospect

• The old saying that "you never get a second

chance to make a first impression" indicates
how important that first face-to-face contact
with the prospect can be

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 Greeting the Prospect

• Mood
– positive
• Facial Expression
– warmly smiling with mouth and eyes
• Proper Body Posture

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 Greeting the Prospect (cont’d)

• Good Handshake
– Types of handshakes
• Seal-the-deal
• The fish
• Three-fingered claw
• Bone Crusher
• The pumper
• The death grip
• The dish rag
• Presenting Your Business Card

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 Interaction with the Receptionist

• What determines whether salespeople

receive the receptionist’s assistance or not is
dependent on the behavior they exhibit with
that person.
• A common complaint of many buyers is that
salespeople are oftentimes rude, particularly
to receptionists. So, professional deportment
with the receptionist is critical.

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 Improving One’s Self-image

• Because failure is so prominent in selling,

salespeople may need to reprogram
themselves so that they can focus on their
successes rather than on their failures.

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 Key Terms

• Preapproach
– The approach planning stage of the selling process.
• Approach
– The first face-to-face contact with the prospect.
• Seeding
– Prospect-focused activities, such as mailing pertinent news
articles, carried out several weeks or months before a sales
call.
• Prenotification
– A technique using an in-person cold call, a mailing, or a
telephone call to send a strong signal to the prospect that
the salesperson would like to schedule a sales call
appointment.

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 Key Terms (cont’d)

• Cold Call
– Initial face-to-face contact with a prospect who is not
expecting the salesperson to call.
• SPIN
– A selling technique that allows the salesperson to identify a
prospect’s major needs quickly. The acronym refers to
Situation, Problem, Implications, and Needs payoff.
• Customer-Benefit Approach
– An approach whereby the salesperson offers the prospect a
specific benefit that can be realized from using the
salesperson’s product.

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 Key Terms (cont’d)

• Survey Approach
– An approach whereby the salesperson asks the
prospect to answer a few survey questions, the
responses to which establish quickly whether or
not the prospect has a need for the salesperson’s
product.

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 Case 4.1. The Really Cold
Initial Sales Call
1. What do you think are John's major problems as a
salesperson?
2. Outline a strategy for John in making initial sales call
appointments so that he isn't turned away so often.
3. What first-meeting approach might John use to win
over "gatekeepers" such as receptionists and
administrative secretaries?
4. What kind of training program do you think EBCC
has for new salespeople? What would you suggest
that the program include?

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 Case 4.2. Approaching Prospects
To Sell a “Gotta Have It” Product
1. What do you think of Jodi Miller's general approach to
selling the new line of area rugs? What could she do
differently to obtain appointments with buyers?
2. Critique Jodi's performance in trying to sell the area rugs
to Thrush's. What positive moves did she make? What
mistakes did she make? How would you have handled
this account?
3. What might Jodi do now to sell the area rugs to Thrush's?
4. What strategies would you advise Jodi to use in (a)
scheduling appointments with retail buyers, (b) preparing
for the sales call, and (c) approaching prospects for the
first time?

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