7 MISTAKES YOU’RE PROBABLY MAKING ON SALES CALLS (and what to do instead):

#1. STARTING THE CALL BY ASKING ABOUT THEIR WEEKEND PLANS

You can sub “weekend plans” here for quite literally anything that is outside the point of the call. Finding out that both of your kids love Paw Patrol isn’t the flex that you think it is. The fool proof way to build credibility is to value your prospect’s time, show up as the professional and act with purpose.

What to do instead: Get to the point in the first 30 seconds of the call.

#2. GIVING THEM A BACKSTORY ABOUT YOU OR YOUR BUSINESS

Can I give you some tough love? Just for a second? They don’t care. They really don’t. And it’s not even their fault - it’s totally human nature. They don’t care how you got here. They care about where THEY’RE going and how you can help them get there.

What to do instead: Ask them about their business or needs. You can’t miss when you make it about them.

#3. LISTENING TO RESPOND

When you listen to respond, you can end up missing the whole point. This is one of the (many!!!) reasons we aren’t big sales call script girlies. We’ve been on hundreds of calls and very few of them went the same or were predictable at all. Ditch the script. Your prospect (and everyone else, TBH) wants to feel heard, seen and understood above anything else.

What to do instead: Listen with the goal of understanding and respond according to that, not a predetermined list of questions.

#4. ASSUMING YOU KNOW WHY THEY’RE ASKING A CERTAIN QUESTION

So, Sally asked you how much time per week your course would take her? Got it. I know you start assuming that OMG she’s so busy and it will take her 4 hours a week, but you can’t even tell her that because it’s soooo much and how embarrassing. She’s not qualified - onto the next.

What to do instead: Asking clarifying questions like: “that’s a great question, can you tell me why you ask?” could’ve allowed you to discover that Sally’s only child just left for college and she’s actually looking for something to occupy 4-6 hours of her time weekly. She’s a perfect fit. Never assume.

#5. TALKING MORE THAN 20% OF THE CONVERSATION FOR ANY REASON

Write this down: the person who is in control of the conversation is the one who is doing the listening, not the talking. If you find yourself talking more than 20% of the time, trust us when we say: zip it up, queen.

What to do instead: You can practice keeping quiet by using conversation skills like mirroring with your spouse, kids or barista. Make it a little game with yourself to see how you can keep the other person talking!

#6. MAKING YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE THE HERO OF THE STORY

If you’re smart (and we know you are) you’re telling success stories and referencing testimonials when the time is right on a sales call. Where you may be going off course here is by using language that insinuates that your service is the hero, instead of your client. People want to believe that they can do it. This is your opportunity to inspire and it’s critical to your sales that you do

What to do instead: Make your clients the hero when you give testimonials as evidence, never you or your program.

#7. ENDING THE CONVERSATION WITHOUT DETERMINING A NEXT STEP

Conversations aren’t Google Docs... they don’t have autosave (unfortunately am I right). More often than not, people are getting back to their busy lives and probably forgetting about us all as soon as the Zoom meeting ends. This is why determining a next step is crucial. Without it, you could be fumbling on the 1 yard line.

What to do instead: Give them 2 options to move forward: “would you like to get started this week or next?”

If you were searching for someone to tell you that it’s 2024 and sales calls are a useless thing of the past… you’d better keep looking.

Salesgirls are sales call stans.

Xo, The Salesgirls