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Did you know that in 2007 sales rep had to make about 3.7 cold calls to reach a sales prospect? Now, it takes around 6 calls to turn a prospect into a customer.
That’s when your sales pitch comes into play. It can either improve your win rate or decrease it drastically. In this article, we want to help you understand the foundations of a good sales pitch. It is not only what you say on a call, but also how well prepared you are beforehand.
You may have a fantastic product. You schedule a demo, and everything seems great. You start feeling how the money from the closed deal are flowing to you. Suddenly the prospect says "I don't see what your product could do for me." or "You don't understand my challenges. I need help with Y, not X."
If you want to succeed it is crucial to learn as much as you can about the prospect, his company, and product beforehand.
Not only it will increase your chance to close a deal, but also help you to avoid unnecessary calls with those who won’t buy anyway, and prepare for the possible objections or questions they might throw at you.
Here are a few things you can do to learn more about your prospect:
Look your prospect up and engage on Linkedin
Look at a prospect’s interests, previous jobs, and education, and take notes about the topics you can leverage to your advantage during the conversation.
Connect with your prospect on LinkedIn and share some valuable content based on his needs. Building a relationship with your prospect is necessary if you want them to listen to your pitch.
Check company website
Learn about the company, product, its customers, value proposition, and the problem the company is solving. This information will help you to better align your sales pitch to prospects' needs and wants. You want to help your prospect achieve his goals, so you have to come prepared.
Look the company up on AngelList and Crunchbase
If you are pitching to a startup you might want to know the prospect’s acquisition history, funding rounds, investors, team members, and more. You can also check news about the company, competitors, customers, partners, and other related details and use them to your advantage.
Prospects are searching for a solution. They are looking for an answer to the question “What’s in it for me?”. If you can’t answer this question, your chances to win this deal will be very low. Talk about what they want to hear. Talk ABOUT THEM.
Here are some ideas you could think of when preparing for a meeting:
- Show you know what problem they are trying to solve.
- Ask about their goals and what are they trying to achieve.
- Explain how your product solves the problem and aligns with their goals.
- Think of the objections and questions they might have.
Remember it is all about them, so structure your next pitch in a way that shows how your product helps the prospect, and your chances to close the next deal will grow significantly.
Are your sales reps trained enough to answer the questions and overcome objections your prospects have? Maybe you had some tough sales calls you did or didn’t manage to handle?
I bet you do.
Best way to prepare your sales team for most cases is sales role-play. Listen to the calls your team had (both good and bad ones) and transform them into sales role-play scenarios and practice. This will help to build confidence during the next call and eliminate stress.
Practice role-plays with new reps during onboarding. By doing so you will prepare them for the challenges they might face and gradually decrease ramp-up time. You will hit your quota faster and your sales reps will be grateful for the training you've organised.
The last one, but probably the most important one is lack of execution. When you learn something you have to put it into action to make it stick. Now it is time for you to:
1. Create a checklist for your team on things they need to research before a call with a prospect and share it with the team.
2. Listen to the calls your team had and identify areas to improve. Find objections, hooks, and weak areas you could work on. Write them down!
3. Now that you know what you need to practice, it is time to create a role-play exercise and assign it to your team members.
4. Once you are done practicing make sure to provide feedback, schedule 121s, and refreshment training to make sure it sticks.
So, what are you waiting for?
We hope our short guide will help you to better prepare your sales team for any meeting with prospects. To make your role-play practice even more efficient we’ve got just the thing.
PitchMonster helps teams all over the world to conduct the most effective sales role-play sessions. Moreover with intelligent conversation AI you will spend 60% less time checking and providing feedback.
In addition to that you can get live sales coach to review & feedback your role-plays and help your coach your sales team with minimum friction.
Check yourself and sign-up for free!