The next target name and title for your new B-team salesperson pops up on his screen. He takes a quick look at the company web site and then punches “dial”. His conversation starts the exact same way his last conversation did. He doesn’t have any context for how your company can help his target, instead using a “One Conversation Fits Most” approach.

How much better would his sales numbers be if he could cater each conversation to the person on the other end of the phone?

1. Research the company as it relates to what you’re selling: It’s not enough to get an overview of the target, for example, understanding that they manufacture and sell lenses. Your team needs to get a quick overview that is relevant to the product that they want to sell. Using recent articles about the company might have tremendous hints for their needs (for example, if they have new management or if they recently opened a new location). In addition, current articles about their industry might point to pain that they’re having that your company can address (for example, if there is a huge market for a new size of lenses and they are going to need to ramp up production). If you can start your conversation with a relevant bridge between what you’re selling and what they need, you are much more likely to engage a sale… than with a generic conversation.

Sellers seeking to be more successful are putting more emphasis on proper sales call preparation.  Competition is fierce and prospect's available time is scarce, so seller's have to be prepared to make the most of this limited customer-facing time.... whether on the phone or in person.  Having an effective call preparation process can significantly improve results.  ShadeTree's Dynamic Conversation Playbooks suggests that the "Prepare" phase of a call consists of:

• Purpose
• Research
• Plan 

The better a salesperson understands his/her customer's business, the better able the salesperson is to help the customer improve their business.  Improving a customer's business rarely has "price" as the leading topic of interest.  Price never plays a factor in something that a buyer doesn't want or doesn't understand.

Yet, with the pressure to deliver quarterly revenue targets, many sales mangers and performers grab the price lever, believing that price is the fastest way to accelerate a sale to close.   Let's examine a simple approach to getting invited to the short list party... one that doesn't include pricing/discounting.