Appearance matters (sales call 101)

Sales calls are something you WILL run into. After all, signing a client over just dms is more uncommon than Bigfoot - a few sightings - and not to mention it’s even harder.

Make it easy, pitch calls.

Now, I see a lot of people asking about sales calls, projecting worry into the world about how nervous they are. Honestly? There is nothing to even worry about as long as you read this listicle I’m about to hit you with:

1. Appearance matters

This is the biggest point, and it is often overlooked, I would say. 

My father always told me, “Whenever someone meets you in person, they look at your shoes, your teeth, and your hair.” sounds like random BS advice, but I’ve found it to be true, both for people I meet and analyse, and people who meet me and analyse me.

You can tell a lot about a person with those 3 things, and it goes to show that your look does matter. 

But translating that to sales calls you can take in your underwear with a T-shirt on (I’ve definitely done that), the rules start to shift.

All you need to remember is: Look sharp, committed, and confident. 

This doesn’t mean wear a 3-piece, a nice watch, and style your hair. This simply means, don’t look disheveled and like you don’t look after yourself. Trust me, lower tier clients might not care (though you should still look normal), but higher level ones? They think differently. 

Which leads me to my second point…

2. Know your connection

It’s good to lift the mood up on a call, considering the other person is about to handover close to or above 4 figures.

I do this by knowing the person I’m speaking with.

Before you get on a call, make sure you’ve done your research - know where they live, their hobbies, if they have a dog, etc etc

Things you can whip out at the start of a call to make them smile. Basic things really, like “I saw you live in Canada, is that Ontario, Toronto?”, “Ontario”, “Ah that’s cool, I’ve been meaning to visit sometime, my girlfriend wants to go see” blah blah blah

You’d be surprised how much this lifts the mood. You can even ask how the weather is, and make jokes about your own weather (especially in the UK). Dogs are a big thing btw, if they have a dog don’t forget to mention it at the start and compliment it in some way.

3. Be competent, not cocky

You’re gonna have to make some promises on a sales call, to show what you’re really doing for them. Now I must stress this, DO NOT BE COCKY.

You’ll come off as an idiot. Instead, be realistic but competent. Believe in what you’re saying but don’t make outlandish claims. 

One time, someone asked me if I could get his open rate from 20-30 to 40-50. I said, “Yeah, by the looks and sounds of it all I need to do is” XYZ.

Now I knew I could get a confident 60 within a week or so working with him, but I didn’t want to sound unrealistic because a lot of people don’t get those opens. I simply matched his demands but also provided an explanation of why, making me seem like the true expert without saying that I am while believing in what I was saying. Slightly hard to go about, but once you know how to carry yourself and your skills, you’ll get the hang of it. 

Btw, first email I wrote for him got a 71% open rate. I’m still yet to top it.

4. Take notes

Small point, but if you write shit down you’ll remember it better. Along with the benefit of showing you actually care about the client and their plans.

Get a notebook, write stuff down throughout the call, then at then end, what I like to do is go over what needs doing and I ask final questions - even if this is after payment, I still do it to clear up their worry of spending 4 figures on me.

5. The price drop

The whole point of your call is to build up to this moment. Sometimes you may have to reveal your price beforehand, but try not to. I’ve done this a few tiems and it hasn’t affected me much because I use a weird strategy to divert the attention, but that’s straying from sales calls into normal outreach…

Anyway, dropping the price on call seems like a big thing for most people, not so much for me. I set a price, I will complete the work at that price, and if they say no I move on (that bit hasn’t happened yet).

Have a price in your mind, and sell them on that price. Build up to it, show off your skills and likeability on the call.

Hopefully, they ask what the price is.

To that you then say your price with a little bit of seasoning, “So considering everything we’ve covered, and I do want to make this fair both ways, it’ll be an investment of $X for you”.

Don’t over do it, don’t under do it.

Simply let it down easy.

However if they never mention the price, you must bring it up. This has only happened once to me, in which case I simply shifted the talking point of the call to payment by saying “So how much were you looking to invest in this”, or something like that.

Granted, I did get a lower amount that I bargained for by $100, but $1350 down to $1250 ain’t gonna hurt and I’m not going back and forth over $100. “Great, that actually works perfectly for me as I was considering the range of 1.2-1.3k for this kind of job - could I grab your email for the invoice?” CLOSED.

TLDR; look normal, know the prospect, be competent, take notes, handle the price

Peace,

Presley