Planning for Success

Planning for Success

In order to have a successful phone call you must do your pre-call planning. 

This involves 3 main stages.

1. Define your goals & objectives for the call 
2. Intelligence Gathering
3. What will you say?

I cannot stress how important it is to go through these planning stages before each and every phone call you make.

Let’s start with the first stage of planning which is to define your Call Objectives.

Before starting any phone call make sure you know how you want the call to end.

what do you want to achieve from this call? What is your aim? What is the best possible (and realistic) outcome?

The call objective needs to be split into two – the primary objective and the secondary objective.

The Primary objective must be higher than what you would expect (aim high) and must be an action you expect the prospect to do. For example set an appointment and invite colleagues. Don’t set your primary objection as simply to send them introductory information about your product/service.

Think big – always aim for the stars with your goals and objectives. Donald Trump once said “As long as you are thinking anyway, think big”.

Rejection: it is vital to never take rejection personally and try to find small wins such as getting them to read your email, finding out why they said no or who they already buy from, or simply to be put on newsletter. This will keep you positive and motivated.

Even when rejected stay polite, professional and positive on the phone. Leave them with a good feeling about you and the company as you never know what the future holds.

The Secondary objectives is about planting seeds for the future. If rejected on your primary objective then make sure to achieve your secondary objective.

It may be to remember you in the future when reassessing things in the future, or for them to agree to be added to your drip marketing and newsletter.

An example of this was written by Art Sobczak: (I 100% credit him with a lot I learnt on this entire subject).

“I know it is not a fit for today but if you find the volume gets too much for your current supplier (as he is limited unlike us..) then please promise me you will remember to get in contact with me keeping in mind this is exactly what we specialize in and can help solve this exact problem”.

The benefits of having a secondary objective are that it ensures you will never be rejected again because you will always have some type of win; and it allows you to plant seeds for the future that you might harvest later.

Moving on to the second stage of planning – Intelligence Gathering. You should gather intelligent & relevant information about the person you will be calling, his background, his company, his colleagues, his role, challenges, interests and so forth. 

The absolutely crucial information you always need to know before calling someone is their Basic company facts (size, location, industry, products..) ; Recent company news (mergers, new contracts, new personnel, expansion, layoffs..) ; Trigger events from outside world (change in industry regulations or compliance) and their Personal Information (name, job title, location, background, responsibilities).

If possible try to find common ground such as a shared acquaintance or a common interest.

You cannot successfully pitch your product to someone if you don’t know what their pain points are, what challenges they face and how your product/service can assist them.

It is therefore important to do your homework beforehand to be as prepared as possible.

With regards to intelligence gathering it is important to remember that quality is better than quantity.

Where will you get this information?

Most of this information can be found on the internet, company website & blogs, Google news alerts, your own internal database, LinkedIn and data providers such as Hoovers / OneSource / Data.com etc..

I even know a salesman who often buys 1 share in their stock in order to gain access to shareholder information.

Another great way to get this information is through social engineering. Gather information from your prospects’ peers, colleagues, employees. Ask the gatekeeper (PA or secretary) for information, listen to voice-mail messages to know when they are on vacation (so you can chat about this on the phone and/or so you know when to call back) .

In order to plan the third stage (what you will say) you will need to know your opening statement, your value proposition, elevator pitch, qualification criteria & questions, FAQs, and how to close the call with actionable follow up items. 

These will be covered individually in the upcoming future chapters.

Again, I want to repeat that these 3 steps need to be taken before each and every call.