How to make sales calls – Top 5 tips

While a great part of modern sales is social selling and emailing, we still haven´t advanced beyond the need to pick up the phone and make an actual phone call. If you’re not that great on talking on the phone, or even if you’re a seasoned pro, you may be making a few mistakes that are killing your calls before you even get started.

We’ve compiled the top 5 mistakes when making a sales call – hope you can learn from it! 

1. Sounding like a cliché salesperson

You may be a salesperson, but that doesn’t mean you have to sound like one. Huh? I’m talking about those salespeople that call with an overly enthusiastic voice shouting “Hi! I’m so-and-so from XYZ company. I’m calling here to talk about a great opportunity for your business!” or any of the other cliché openers.

When people can automatically detect that it’s a sales call, they´re also likely to automatically reject you – don’t let that happen! Be more casual, be firm, be … genuine. Try it and see if it works.

2. Not having an answer to a negative response

If you’ve ever made a sales call, you know that a number of times (usually higher than we would like), prospects respond negatively. Whether they do that politely or rudely is a whole other story in itself … but typically negative responses range from “I don’t have time right now” … “I can’t say when I´ll have time to have a meeting” … to that straight up “I’m not interested”.

If these responses catch you off guard every time, you´ll never learn how to surpass these problems. Instead, knowing that you are very likely to encounter negative responses multiple times a day, come up with a guide of “tree” or possible responses to counteract the negativity.

3. Not being smart about calling times

While it may be comfortable for you to arrive to the office at 9, have a coffee, catch up on your emails, etc. and then begin calling at 10, you’re making a bad move. Why? Your leads probably have similar schedules, and by the time you call them they will be knee-deep in their daily job and stress.

Be smart about calling times, and you’ll ensure that you’ll be able to actually talk to your leads. Not only are you trying to catch your leads at a time that´s good for them, you also want to be strategic about avoiding gatekeepers. Calling after 6, when you know the secretary has gone but your lead is likely to still be working, is one smart move. Likewise for the morning, calling at 8:30 or 9:00 on the dot before the gatekeepers have settled in, may give you a higher chance of getting through to your lead. Be smart!

4. Not having clear talking points

If everytime you call, you improvise, you’re again making a mistake. You’re likely to forget exactly what you want to say, especially if the person on the other line is somewhat aggressive or hostile, and you find yourself a little flustered. It’s perfectly normal to get nervous or feel flustered, especially if you’re a newbie to this business!

The best way to ensure you get your main message across everytime, without fail, is having a little guide or script with your main talking points. The best sales people have different scripts for different kinds of customers and sectors, but the idea is to help guide you so you always deliver the right message.

5. Delivering a monologue

While in the previous point we mentioned that it’s a guide idea to have a script with talking points to help guide your calls, you also need to remember it’s not your time to shine. People don’t want to listen to monologues – especially from someone they’ve never met! Use your script as a guide, and don’t think of it as a one-man-show. Improvise and most importantly – listen to your lead!

We hope some of these tips will help you to succeed when you make your next sales call!