What is a Sales Agenda?
A sales agenda is a checklist of the most important topics to cover during your sales call to help you stay focused and not miss out on an opportunity to build a relationship with your prospective buyer. Set time-limits for each section of the agenda and make sure you stick to it as best as you can.
Setting agendas for every call will help you stay focused on your end goals and keep your prospects engaged at every step.
Follow These 9 Steps To Create A Winning Sales Agenda
1. Don’t send a blank invitation
When sending an invitation, make sure you add the purpose of the call in the body of the invitation. Your prospects are busy and a blank invite is a perfect target for a reschedule. Adding the purpose will show the importance of the meeting and using their own words to describe the purpose will give you an even better chance of having the meeting occur on schedule.
2. Do Your Research
The most important step to ensure a successful meeting–Research your prospect and their company! Going into a call already having a good understanding of the problems they’re currently experiencing and how you can help solve them will make you stand out immediately. Also, knowing a little bit about your prospect personally, will help you build rapport quickly. Be ready with something real to say in order to build rapport. “How’s the weather” won’t cut it.
3. Start You Call By Building Rapport
Starting off the call going right into your pitch or asking business related questions will come off as overly aggressive. Spending too much time on small talk won’t help you make a sale. Give yourself 5-minutes for a personal conversation using what you learned about the prospect when you did your research. Try to pick something that you can relate to and are genuinely interested in.
4. State Your Goal
What do you want to get out of this meeting? Be upfront about the purpose of the call and make sure you and the prospect are on the same page. Stating your goal will get rid of any confusion once it comes time to wrap up the call.
5. Have a List of Questions Ready
This is your chance to ask open-ended questions that will get your prospect talking. Make sure you have questions that are tailored specifically to the persona and company you’re speaking with. Also, be sure to ask the necessary qualifying questions required to move the deal forward.
6. Match What You Learned in Your Product Overview
Nobody likes a generic demo. Show your prospect that you listened to what they had to say and show them how you can solve their specific problems.
7. Discuss Their Decision Making Process
A great way to end a call is to give a highlight of the areas that you both agree that can be solved with your solution and then asking what needs to be done in order to move the deal forward. Don’t be thrown off when you find out your prospect has zero authority or budget. Every company is different when it comes to their buying process. Get as much information as you can to help you both get to a decision as soon as possible. Find out the names of the people who will be involved, how they’ve purchased things in the past, how long it typically takes, existing contracts that might get in the way. If you’ve done a good job up to this point these questions will be a lot easier to ask and your prospect will be more open to answering you.
8. Secure Next Steps
Don’t end the call without establishing what the next steps are going to be. Having to chase them down on the phone or over email is never fun. Get something on the calendar before signing off and discuss what information they need to bring to additional stakeholders.
9. Follow Up ASAP
Doing wait days to send over your follow up. Leave yourself some time in between each meeting or before the end of the day to send a follow up email highlighting what was discussed on the call and send any necessary information that your champion needs.
Sticking to these steps is easier said than done. It’s on you to stay disciplined and keep your buyers from veering off track. The more you prepare the more consistent you’ll get and you’ll be on top of the leaderboards in no time.
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