Chris Smith | The System to Open and Close Sales Calls

Part 1 – Opening Strong

Step 1: Follow the 3 critical components of successful sales calls.

• Speed
  • If you attempt phone contact within 5 minutes after lead submission, the odds that the lead is contacted are 100 times greater than if it is contacted 30 minutes after the submission.
• Tenacity
  • When a lead is not answering your call, immediately dial a second time right after the first and you will get a 22-25% more answer rate.
  • If you call a lead once, even within the first 5 minutes, you have a 48% contact rate. If you call additional 5 times over a 3 day period, you can get a 93% contact rate.
  • Differentiate your methods – every lead gets a call, text, email.
  • Best times to call: middle of the week (Wednesday, Thursday), between 8 am and 10 am, and between 4 pm and 6 pm.
• Script
  • Gain control of the call early by perfecting your first minute. If you can set the tone within the first minute, then you are in charge of this call.
    • “Hey, this is XXX, calling from XXX. I see you working at XXX and you’re looking at using our services. Can you please grab a pen and paper since I’m going to share some information about what we do that isn’t on the internet – please let me know when you’re ready.”

Step 2: Pre-call preparation – set yourself up for the call.

• When you’re calling a lead, investigate to get information about them. You need to make yourself liked and trusted.
  • Suggestion! Instead of Googling a prospect’s name, search for their email to dramatically narrow the results.

Step 3: Handling brick wall statements by acknowledging, responding and then pivoting.

• Acknowledge – repeat the question you got from the lead.
• Respond – give a reply but don’t give the information they require.
• Pivot – get back to what you want to talk about.
  • For example:
    Prospect: “Well I just want to know how much your <products/services> are.”
    Acknowledge: “Oh great question, so you just want to know how much our <products/services> are.”
    Respond: “Our <product/service> isn’t inexpensive… <product/service> isn’t for everyone…”
    Pivot: “Are you  or ?”

Part 2 – Closing Strong

Step 1: Identify 4-6 features + benefits and tie-downs.

• Here’s one Feature of working with me, here’s the Benefit of that feature for you, do you agree there’s a benefit? Or is that interesting to you?

Step 2: Script the transitioning closing statement.

• At the end of listing the features, benefits and tie-downs, tell the prospect “Ok great, here’s what happens next… I’m going get … and I’ll start .

Step 3: Use a trial close.

• Ask them a question about the next steps, assuming they’re going ahead – this is not a “Yes or No” question but rather an “Either/Or” question.
  • Example: Is this better for you in the morning or early in the evening?

Step 4: Make the final close.

• Give two last choices about when they’re starting with your product or service.
  • Example: Would you prefer your coaching on a Tuesday or a Thursday.