Sales Enablement

Top 5 Things You Need to Do Before Your Next Sales Call

When it comes to perfecting your selling techniques, there are a few best practices you can follow. But a big part of selling your product or service is the prep work you do before you even speak to anyone or try to sell anything.This prep work is vital no matter if you’re in SaaS sales or if you’re trying to sell a physical product. It also doesn’t matter who you’re trying to gain as a customer. In the world of B2B marketing, every sales process benefits from laying the groundwork before the call.So, if you want to put yourself in the best position possible every time you talk with a potential customer, do these 5 things before your next sales call.


When it comes to perfecting your selling techniques, there are a few best practices you can follow. But a big part of selling your product or service is the prep work you do before you even speak to anyone or try to sell anything.

This prep work is vital no matter if you’re in SaaS sales or if you’re trying to sell a physical product. It also doesn’t matter who you’re trying to gain as a customer. In the world of B2B marketing, every sales process benefits from laying the groundwork before the call.

So, if you want to put yourself in the best position possible every time you talk with a potential customer, do these 5 things before your next sales call.


1. Review the Potential Customer’s LinkedIn

One of the easiest ways to prepare for your next sales call is to do your research on the customer. This research should start on LinkedIn, as it’s the ultimate social network for businesses.

On LinkedIn, you can check out their work history, seeing where they’ve worked and with whom they’ve previously done business. This is very useful, as it can give you a good insight into the kind of person or team they are.

Plus, if they’ve just started in the world of business, you can congratulate them when you first get on the call. This can set the relationship up for success, as it shows them that you do your research and learn from it too.

You might also find that you have some mutual connections, which is yet more ammunition for the rapport building process. LinkedIn gives you plenty of information to work with. From work history to where they’re based, all of this is useful for preparing your next sales call.


2. Check Out Their Company Page

If the customer you’re calling works for a firm with their own LinkedIn page, check that out as well. This will give you similar information about the company itself, which will also help you gauge what kind of customer you’re dealing with.

You can also see what the company has been doing and look for anything noteworthy that might be useful to discuss on your call.

If they don’t have a LinkedIn page, try and find a website or a profile on other social media. The more sources from which you can gather information the better. You want to be as prepared as possible before you get on the call. 

You can find out useful information about deals they’ve done in the past, how fast the company is growing, and where they’re likely to go in the future. All of this will allow you to perfect your pitch and decide on the best practices to really drive home your message to the customer.

3. Look at Crunchbase 

Crunchbase is a useful platform that allows you to find out lots of useful information about both private and public companies. This information can prove invaluable for sales calls. Not only can you use the information you find to build rapport and show that you’re thorough in your research, but you can also use it as leverage.

We don’t mean you can use information to broker better deals for yourself by pushing or pulling the client in a specific direction on the call. Instead, you can use any information you find to assess the right prices and angles to approach from on the call in order to get the result you want. 

Check Crunchbase for any news or noteworthy events that might influence your approach. Check for growth signals, previous acquisitions and news of any funding rounds the company has gone through.

You don’t want to waste any time on your sales call. Finding out as much information as you can beforehand ensures you can be efficient and not waste your time – or theirs.

4. Review the Company’s Website

Step 4 involves reviewing the company’s website to build a hypothesis of your approach based on the company’s offerings. You want to once again find information that will help you formulate the best pitch for that specific customer. 

Look at the products they offer. Check if there are multiple products and look at the trends between them. Note down the simplicity or complexity of their range of products and ask what your product or service could add to any of them.

Where you can add value will be the first question the customer asks you. So, if you already know exactly where you can add value to their existing system, you will be in perfect shape to set them up for a sale. 


5. Review Your Pitch to Match Your Research

The final best practice before your next B2B sales call is to put all the research you’ve just performed to good use. You’ve gathered data and information about the customer (hopefully a lot of it) and now it’s time to process it.

Look at the customer’s history and reverse engineer the things they like and don’t like from those with whom they do business. Find out what works for this customer, and what practices you might want to stay away from.

Look at previous deals they’ve made and use this, along with any other market data you can find, to formulate the ideal strategy for getting their business. You need to be calculated when you jump on the call, as the wrong approach won’t get the sale.

Be ready for all the key questions they’re going to ask you. You won’t be able to answer everything with your pitch alone. And while you can’t predict their questions with 100% certainty, you can prepare for the ones that are most likely to come up. Then, you just need to give them the right answers. 


If you do all of these 5 things before your next sales call, you will be in the best possible position to make that sale!


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