Aligning Sales Calls with Proposals

I have tried in multiple occasions to give my Business phone calls some structure especially my sales calls. For the past year I have been pitching to leads around the world via phone (or Skype) trying to gain new customers.

On many occasions I play it by ear but when I finish my call I am not satisfied with the outcome. When I have my first call with a lead, which I call a “discovery call”, I already have some mind-maps which help me document while getting a better understanding of what my possible client needs. That mind-map helps me align their needs with my strengths. When I prepare and make a more formal process I end up with phone calls that went smoothly and the result is a request for a proposal from my company.

My Homework

I then take a few days and do some research on the organization or individual on what needs to be done. Once I finish research I create a proposal, which I later discuss with the client.

Here is where I usually drop the ball big time by focusing all my energy in small details of the proposal and not having more like a script to run them through everything in a summarize way.

Pointing clients towards the key parts they need to analyze vs. explaining each and every detail ends up taking less time from the client and helps me send the message that I always look for practical solutions that take less time from them. On most occasions the client is hiring us to save time.

The detailed proposal can probably overwhelm clients and make them feel like what I am offering is too much.

Too Much Detail or Not Enough

I will create a summarized version of the proposal that will become part of “my sales playbook.” I will cover the key things we will we will work on with the client and provide more details if needed.

This can become a challenging task and time consuming something the client might not have. Perhaps creating a small checklist of key things I need to cover vs. walking them over the full proposal line-by-line. Recently I made revisions to my process and it seems to have worked better than just running the client through the full proposal.

Once I have this I will be sharing this sales playbook with those who subscribe to this blog and have provided their email. If you want to receive this and the process I have for a discovery call with a few templates feel free to subscribe to my blog.

If you have any suggestion on how I can improve my sales process and cycle or have any questions on how you can improve yours feel free to comment in the comments area.