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Haven’t you heard the old saying, “first impression is the best impression?” The same goes for a sales call. Your first call decides you’re reaching the right person to sell your product and services.
It’s the first call that drums up the excitement to know more, which starts with introductions, building good rapports, presenting professional pitches that sound organic, not robotic building, counter-arguments, and as luck would have it, there’s a guaranteed call waiting for you!
On the other hand, if you’re not prepared before the call, you’ll fling the potential opportunities away from you never know. As a result, no matter ‘n’ the number of calls you’ll make, you’ll miss out on something or the other in the translation.
A perfect sales call creates demand generation, meaning your call has the power to attract prospects to the business. It produces leads and identifies them based on the various spectrum of the market.
The information shared grabs more deals, supplies the right target for existing and new campaigns, and gives an insight into prospects’ behaviour.
The entire organization will love you for this because you’re the golden goose bringing the product/service close to the people with the attractive marketing funnel and closing the deals.
The sales call also helps you build sales call data, which includes the information about the prospects that can be used in processing their preferences. In marketing, this is called “sales data analysis.”
What is sales data?
In business, sales data is the information used to manage sales. Some of the metrics include contact, market data, forecasts, addresses, names, potential leads, opportunities, documents, quotes, campaigns, sales, platforms, orders, products, and much more.
The analysis of sales data provides an in-depth understanding of the products that your customers are interested in buying. Using the data, you can study why the target audience reacts differently.
In short, you get to see prospects' behaviour and the pattern they follow in transactions, bouncing back and optimizing the marketing process. It increases reliability and responsiveness and provides your business with more time to close sales.
Ways sales call data transform demand generation
1. Extract the keywords that boost your messaging
Delivering a great sales pitch isn’t just another conversation, message, or phone call. Your demand generation is just a call away if you can analyze call recordings and see commonly used words.
Why is it a must-to-know word often used by prospects or potential customers? These keywords reveal what the prospects or customers teams can pull from call recordings and transcriptions to identify said words most often.
Keywords are what brings them to you, and these words highlight what prospects and customers are talking about the product and to what extent they amplify the keywords. You’re halfway through nailing your message when you know what words you must use to get an impactful message.
Keywords research can bring into attention what competitors are up to in the market, decode their keywords to increase sales, skyrocket your business and move ahead of the pack.
It’s about time you find the right keywords!
2. Use sentiment analysis for running a successful campaign curation
Sentiment analysis takes you one step above keyword analysis, where you study human behaviour, thoughts, and emotions to locate the target audience. If a customer picks up a particular product, you can read their mind easily and interpret their feelings for good or bad. The tonality of their talk gives an idea of whether they will buy or drop off. It takes practice to hone the skills of understanding the customers' perceptions.
The way customers talk about your business says a lot about their nature and whether they will help generate demands. With this information and a great sales data dashboard, you can crush your goals. You can create demand without wasting your resources and set result-oriented campaigns based on needs.
3. Levels up the internal alignment with sales calling patterns
You can expect a lot when the sales and marketing team co-exists and works hand in hand. Once you start analyzing the calling pattern multiple times along with the sales team’s calling patterns; you start to understand if everyone is going along with you or if there’s a gap.
Furthermore, you can use the opportunity to bring new ideas, fix the problems, and reinstate the objectives. Clarity and alignment make the pitch stronger 10x. It isn’t one team taking up the sales business; You have all your teams aligned on the same goal.
Getting prospects on board or closing a deal can seem like a daunting task because you have to look out, pitch, carefully pick what you should talk and wait for it to generate sales - all over the phone.
Sales call and sales call data are an integral part of the sales process. The data you collect via sales call can be used for analytic purposes and to improve the effectiveness of the campaigns.
Back to the start: What Is a sales call?
A sales call is an unexpected phone call to a prospective customer from the sales team to generate leads. The salesmen convey important information about a good or service that will grab their attention through sales calls.
Types of Sales Calls
There are two main types of sales calls:
A cold call: When you call potential customers who are completely new to you to build a business, it’s a cold call.
The rep reaches out to the customers for the first time without prior rapport with a convincing pitch or message. The whole point of cold-calling is to keep potential customers hooked before showing disinterest and cutting the call.
A scheduled call: This type of call is done when you already have a good relationship with the potential customer. The rapport between the customer and you establishes grounds for diving deeper.
Scheduled calls are pre-planned. The sales rep calls the prospects at a previously agreed-upon time to pitch the products and create conversion. Unlike cold-call, scheduled calls don’t need a convincing pitch early in the call. The knowledge of what you’re dealing with takes you a long way.
Be sure of your goods and services when you make a scheduled call.
What is the role of a sales call?
The most common purposes of a sales call are to:
A call without purpose can make the person hang up on you. But you can do it better if you know the purposes of making a sales call. You can sell your products when your call is backed with a purpose. Hence, sales calls are a powerful tool that sales reps can use to raise awareness in the market and within the niche.
A sales call inspires the listener to know more about the product's utility and compels him to go for it. Even if they are not in the urgency of buying, you can still have a relationship for future business. But you need to maintain a consistent relationship with them to keep them hooked.
A follow-up call is a great way to know prospects' points of need. In some cases, you can't fully rely on one call, especially when dealing with technology requiring detailing. Only through follow-up scheduled calls can you share the information needed by the prospects. The follow-up goal is to ensure the prospect is clear about what they're looking for in the product.
7 Tips for Successful Sales Calls
Here are some tested and tried sales tips to help you crack your first call:
1. Do the groundwork:
Everything starts with research. The amount of time to spend in preparation signifies a successful phone call. You can feel confident when you face the prospects over a call.
Lack of preparation can be a red flag. Your inadequacy can cost you much more than you thought. For example, you might face rejection from well-read potential prospects.
Before you call, you need to know who you’re calling to reach the right people at the right time. Map out their needs, sweet spots, and your USP.
2. Give a good introduction to the start:
It's the introduction that sets the base for conversation. A great introduction catches attention faster and makes the prospect curious to learn more.
On the other hand, cold calls are simple and crisp. The shorter you keep, it gives the person the space to think. Remember, one makes cold calls before jumping into a detailed pitch, meaning you know when to take the call forward based on the person's interest.
3. Establish expectations:
Here’s a proven sign to know the best sales - they are precise, educational, and streamlined. Set your expectations right, allowing the person to know the reason for your call. Be specific, and don’t beat behind the bush. Cold calls are short, and you need to know the main points like the back of your hand while sharing the information. Whereas, in scheduled calls, you have your agendas clear, and you allow the other person to ask before taking it to another level.
4. Strike the right balance between speaking and listening:
Have a well-balanced conversation allowing the right ratio between speaking and listening. As much as you want to share your information, know that the other person also has to say something, and this differs both in cold calls and scheduled calls.
A great sales call values the time of both parties. In short, you make the pitch purposeful to ensure time doesn’t go wasted. For example, when you do a cold call, you need more time for introduction and reason for the call compared to scheduled calls.
5. Be sure of your call-to-action:
Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Keep your actionable points handy to see if the sales call was successful or not. What do you want the prospects to do before closing the call - sign up? Place an order? Your CTA can be anything you want the prospects to do for your business.
Your CTA should fix another follow-up call and dive into details in the cold call. On the other hand, in scheduled calls, your role is to see how you seal a sales deal.
6. Keep a track of your metrics or KPI (Key performance indicators):
As a sales rep, you need to keep an eye on your metrics and determine the results and strategies that drive more sales based on them.
Your strategies should have the right time of the day for the call, place, easy conversation starter, main points so you don’t get deviated, and the total number of days you would take to close a deal.
Pro-tip, you can use a sales database software or a customer relationship management tool (CRM) to record your call data and other inputs to monitor trends.
7. Discouraged isn’t the way:
It’s a normal human thing to feel unhappy when things don’t go the way we want, and sales calls can be overwhelming when you see disapproval staring at you.
The key to overcoming is knowing that this is part of the sales process. You don’t get what you want easily, and there is persistence and no room for discouragement when nothing works out but courage to keep trying until you agree.
Also, the call rejections you once face teach you a lesson to rework your tactics and become a better version of a sales caller. Remember, rejection is inevitable, but it doesn’t define you.
How to forecast sales using historical data?
Getting an accurate sales forecast is important for any sales team. When you get what you want, it's almost hitting the jackpot. But how is it possible when there are too many forecasting methods? How will you find the technique that guarantees accuracy when you know there’s no such thing as 100 per cent certainty?
Here’s a thing you must know about choosing the right forecasting technique. It makes a difference by helping you predict future profit and sales with correctness.
Three kinds of sales forecasting techniques one should swear by
Your forecast is based on a premise of data requirement and data usage in projecting future sales. Your sales predictions can only be as good as the data it is based on. Forecasting specialists use three types of techniques in sales forecasting. These techniques are based on the type of input data you used to forecast demand.
The three sales forecasting techniques include:
- Qualitative techniques
- Time series analysis
- Projection causal models
The qualitative technique involves qualitative data, while time series analysis focuses on patterns and changes. The causal model is based on reformed and specific information regarding relationships between system elements.
It is why the forecasting specialists suggest what technique works for one may not be suitable for the other because of the variation.
Function of forecasting techniques you must know
🔹 Qualitative Techniques Qualitative:
The particular technique of sales forecasting models is used when data limits you.
For example, you can use qualitative techniques while launching a new product. You can find qualitative and quantitative figures by applying human judgment and rating schemes. While doing so, you also see that everything is based on estimation.
Using the rough estimates, you can predict the market penetration and how well the product will perform if accepted by the mass. This implies you will also know where and all you’ll find null and void situations.
🔹 Time Series Analysis:
You use this analysis technique when you have years of sales call data or other information related to products that can help with future predictions.
The usage of this technique matters when there’s a clear stable trend, connecting the product to determine the future.
You can also use the records of sales call data to forecast the product performance in the future and current scenario.
In the time series method, there’s a specific way of analyzing data sequence points collected over time.
In time series analysis, you record data points at consistent intervals over a set period. There’s the structure of recording that puts everything into perspective.
🔹 Projection Causal Models:
This model is developed when you have enough historical data about a product and analysis, showing the factors you wish to forecast and other economic forces and social-economic factors.
You use a range of variables that are likely to influence the future movement within the market. This forecasting method determines the level of impact those anticipated variables will have on consumer demand, what type of pricing will support in the future, and how your company can adopt the future predictions.
If you’re looking for sales forecasting models that align with the world, the causal model is your go-to option. Using this technique, you can express the relevant causal relationship and access market survey information.
The benefit of the technique is that it even includes time series analysis. Hence this is why specialists call it the dynamics of the flow system and use it for the predictions of events.
What’s stopping you from pitching your first sales call? It’s about time you make your sales team make a large profit!
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