8: How to Conduct a Great Initial Sales Call, part 2

Photo by David Travis on Unsplash What the initial sales call should look like (but didn't) In episode 7, I talked about what an ideal initial sales call looks like, everything from the planning session to the sales conversation to the review afterwards. Today I’m going to dissect an actual sales call I went on and show you what worked, what didn’t, and how I can modify for my next sales call. Okay, to set the stage: A few weeks ago an 86-year old woman--we'll call her Miss X--contacted me about writing her life story, and we scheduled one of my free initial consultations. But on the morning of our appointment, I cancelled because of an ice storm. Well, sort of. There was a big ice storm and my daughter’s school was closed. And I’d been working way too hard. So when I got the early-morning text that daughter had the day off, I made a snap decision to give myself a snow day too. I NEVER cancel appointments with my clients or potential clients. But I did that day. Because my youngest is a high school senior and I’m getting a little wigged out about her moving away to college in a few months. So I made the executive decision to take the day off—and make it a movie day with her. We drove (yeah, see why I’m still feeling guilty?) to a big multiplex theater and saw THREE movies. Best day I’ve had in a long time!! My next not-so-professional semi-mess-up was not rescheduling right away, mostly because I’m working on so many books at the moment that I wasn’t all that excited about adding another. I did try to call Miss X to reschedule, but only once, and her answering machine was full, so I couldn’t leave a message. However, she called me a week later and we got it scheduled. Still, I knew I hadn’t treated her with the professional courtesy she deserved. Promptly returning phone calls and emails is definitely something I have to work on. Okay, on with the review. I’ve always been pretty good about entering dates on a calendar; where I fall down is checking the calendar. My kids tell me I’m a great mom but on paper I stink; that's because of all the doctor appointments and teacher conferences I've missed. Obviously, this had to change when I went into business for myself. But it hasn’t been easy. Even a great tool —I use the calendar app Fantastical 2 for Mac—is worthless unless you use it. So one thing I’ve done is to set up alerts. I get a pop-up message (okay, usually more than one because one is too easy for me to ignore and/or forget about) on my phone, my laptop, and my desktop for each appointment I make. For initial sales calls, I have it set up to remind me an hour in advance (plus the night before, and at the time I need to leave the house, and...). Because an hour, I’ve determined, is plenty of time to get ready for one of these sales calls. Have you heard of Parkinson’s Law? A task expands to fill the time you allot to complete it. If I gave myself a couple hours to prepare, I’d take it, and that would be less billable time to work on other projects. So restricting myself, in my schedule, is a good thing for me. Except that this time, it barely worked. Because what I hadn't remembered until an hour before my appointment with Miss X was that I needed to print out copies of my service agreement. And somehow my printer, that sadistic, whirring hulk of machinery, always goes fritz-y on me when I most need it. Can I take just a moment to say how much I HATE printers?? They work when you least need them to. Otherwise, it’s all “Printer not connected”! Until that point, I was feeling pretty happy with myself. I’d managed to clean myself up, dress in my business clothes, do a mental run-through of questions I wanted to ask Miss X and points I wanted to cover, and gather most of what I needed to bring to the call. I managed not to smack the printer and it managed to spit out the papers I needed, and I flew out of the house. I was leaving just a few minutes late but a whole lot flustered. Especially when I saw my car.