The Art of Pre-Call Prep Work
Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail Never has a phrase resonated more than getting ready for a sales call. You have to think about your allocated time on a call + the prospect’s level of patience. You have a set amount of time that is scheduled to get as much info as you can. Plus you have to do it before the prospect gets impatient about getting the information THEY want. Remember, it’s about them not you.
This is when your pre-call research can really lend a hand. Every 5 minutes of research gives you 20 minutes of a return on your call. The more work you do on the side allows you to “confirm” the information rather than dig for it. For example:
“I’m assuming the budget is coming from the COO Corey Smith and needs to be run by the CFO Sally Seashells.”
This statement which is just seeking confirmation saves SO MUCH TIME. You can confirm the executive signer as well as the approval process. Rather than needing to ask about it and eating up your call. Also, prospects VERY MUCH appreciate you doing the pre-work. It shows your dedication to your profession as well as connotes how you handle evaluations. You are prepared and ready.
This brings up the first thing to do in your research. Go on LinkedIn and map out the decision making process. If you are lucky enough to have a contact database like ZoomInfo then you can do it directly in the app. Understanding the flow of the decision making process helps tremendously. Just some high level points:
You can map the pains of the evaluation to the people in the decision making process
Demonstrations can tailored towards those pain points
You can name drop to the specific person when covering that aspect of the demo
Here is a visual on the what it looks like:
Another thing to research… How does the company make money? Meaning, what do they do? Understanding the industry helps guide your level of questions. It also gets you thinking about customers you have worked with in the past in the same industry.
You can drop that company name which lets the prospect know Hey, you are in good company…the rest of the industry is facing this so you are in the right spot. Also, this isn’t your first rodeo. You have personally led an excursion to the top of Everest before. Not a big deal.
“Acme was facing this challenge and we rolled out these simple automations. It helped them 4x productivity and saved them $X millions of dollars. The CIO Will Clark loved how easy it was.”
If I’m a buyer and I hear this then I know I’m in the right place. Naturally, I am more willing to give up information to fix my problem.
Recent news… this is often forgotten but really compelling. Why? What if the company announced a round of funding and you didn’t know? Or what if they are expanding offices and breaking into new GEOs? Maybe a new CEO has joined and they were a former customer?
This is all very important intel to know. It helps you map out potential compelling reasons on why they are looking to purchase something. Another thing it tells you is the project priority. Is this a P0 project or a P3 project?
“CEO has a 90 day plan and this is the first thing they want to address. We also got some funding which coincided with the CEO hire. We want to break into Europe by the end of year.”
This would be amazing to know and hear if I asked the question, “I noticed there is a ton of momentum at Acme this year…is this driving our conversation today?”
At the end of the day you want to do this work. Here is the checklist I always follow:
Prospect Research
Double check my CRM
Review company website
Look at recent news
See if there are any mutual connections
If you are clearly able to understand, articulate and recommend relevant solutions then you are in the 1% of sellers. If you are a leader and put this into your process then you are in the 1% of the 1%.
Having powerful and compelling meetings separates you from your competitors. Imagine doing this work and the AE you are competing against just rolled out of bed and winged it on the call? Imagine being a leader and all your sellers are doing this over a region? How do you think the competition stacks up when you are dominating a segment this way?
That buyer is going to walk away thinking you or your team is the gold standard and they need to spend the majority of the time with you. The solution you sell and who you are clearly beat the other bozo who didn’t know anything about our business… let alone what solutions would fix it.
Sales is hard. Don’t make it harder for yourself. Do the work upfront and reap the benefits later.
