The first five minutes of a sale call are the most critical. Here’s why:

If your folks don’t connect with prospects, they will probably be dismissed after a short meeting. If they show that they understand prospects’ problems and goals, they will be given a chance to discuss them in greater depth.

Test of effectiveness

The most important test of whether you’re handling preliminaries effectively is whether prospects are generally happy to move ahead in the presentation. If so, then you’re probably handling this stage of the call acceptably.

Solve prospect concerns

While you are thinking about the benefits of your proposal, your prospects will probably be thinking about problems, such as:

• Will I be able to justify a higher price?
• Will my present suppliers serve me better?
• Will there be political repercussions?
• Is the item too new or too radical?
• Are there built-in biases against it?
• Will bringing in a new product line create more problems than it solves?

Education is critical

Prospects always need to be educated. Don’t assume that they know the difference between good and poor quality products or services, and how that will affect achieving their goals.

It’s your job as a salesperson to point out the relative advantages of your product or service and how it will help prospects solve problems.

Tags: education, presentation, sales call, test