Background: many times, joint calls become a “circus show” of show and tell; or someone trying to dominate the conversation. Some reasons typical joint calls end in confusion are:
- No pre-meeting plan
- Uncertainty of each person’s role & responsibility (sales manager & salesperson)
- Poor “post meeting” debriefing, inconsistent follow up and “uncertain” agreed to “next steps.”
The Steps to Success:
- Plan in advance of the call:
- What’s the objective of the meeting? What commitments do we want/need?
- Who are the players? What is their role/responsibility?
- Company history with (xxx company?)
- What “end result” do you want? What will you “settle for?”
- How /what will be needed to accomplish your objective for the meeting? (Be specific!)
- Who does what (between you and the other person)? How do you “signal” each other to “stop” or hand off the communication?
- Prepare your roles in advance
- Who opens the meeting/establishes the agenda/sets expectations/ground rules?
- Who “guides” the meeting and is the primary spokesperson?
- The other person must be good at listening and taking notes, and when appropriate, interjecting a relevant for clarification or to keep the conversation “on track.”
- Post Call “De-briefing”
- Share input and feedback immediately.
- Be concrete/factual…not: “Boy, I feel great about how that went!” What went well? What could have gone better? What did we learn? What are their issues and what are our solutions? What agreements and commitments did we get? How do we follow up? What did we agree to or promise? BE SPECIFIC!
- Did we achieve our meeting objective? Why/why not? What options do we have moving forward?
- How do we follow up? Who follows up? What do we want to communicate to them? (Review it with each other before sending the follow up out to the prospect/customer…. “Two sets of eyes are better than one!!!)
- What is your takeaway to improve joint Sales Calls?
Need to clarify Sales Leadership issues like Accountability, Motivation of the sales team; Recruiting & Retention of Outstanding candidates; Pipeline management…give us a call at 630-560-3614.
