How To Create the Right Sales Call Objectives?

A sales call with no objective is equivalent to shooting an arrow in the dark. Ask any successful sales professional if this strategy of calling without any goal in mind can work, and they will always tell you — this strategy will never generate enough business and will keep you from closing more deals. 

That’s why setting clear objectives before a sales call becomes essential for growing your business. It eliminates surprises and takes you closer to getting more wins. Here’s how a clear sales objective helps in closing more deals:

• By improving the quality of sales calls made 
• By reducing non-productive hours 
• By providing personnel with more time to make more sales calls
• By brushing up personnel’s skills to further improve their performance

Let’s take a closer look at some ways you can create the right sales objectives. 

How to Ace Chalking Out Appropriate Sales Call Objectives? 

Remember - Each call is an opportunity you don’t wish to miss. So while there’s no specific set standard that can bring you 100% results to define your goals; keeping the following things in mind can still help you draw the right sales call objectives:

1. Use the 60/40 technique to learn more about your customer

Think of the call as more of a discovery call than a pushy sales call. Using the 60/40 technique involves listening to your customers more than talking; even if you talk, focus on asking more questions to get to know them. 

Gathering intel about their interests, pain points, and needs can not be overlooked. It can help you set your offerings right as a sales professional. Besides asking questions, analysing their social media profiles, interest topic areas, etc., should also be on top of your list. This will help you position yourself smartly as a sales professional, help build a stronger rapport, and set your objectives right. 

2. Write down your sales objectives

At a stage when you know what the customer wants, it’s time for you to figure out the result of the relationship. Determine whether this customer is ready to close right now, if he can be worked for an upsell or cross-sell, if he needs to be nurtured more through a demo meeting, and so on.

Work on SMART objectives — that clearly define your specific goal; have KPIs to measure your accomplishment; actionable; realistic and have a reasonable timeline. 

For example, a SMART goal for a sales professional can be to improve customer retention by 30% throughout the year by improving his customer support service.

3. Pan your call to reach the end goal 

Based on your discovery call and set objectives, you can smartly pan out your call right from the start. Then, from a strong opening till the end, centre your efforts on reaching your end goal. 

For example, if you believe the customer is partly convinced to buy your product but still hesitates to jump to the cart, you would want to define your end objective of the call as — persuading the prospect to move further through the sales funnel. You can then map your efforts to convince him to accept your invitation for a product demo to eliminate his hesitation towards buying your product.

4. Track your progress

Whether you achieved your objective or not — is something you should dig deeper into. Analysing your every call can help you determine what worked for you and what didn’t. 

Some of the ways you can analyse your calls are by asking yourself the following questions:

• Did you set the right objective for your call?
• Did you build a strong connection with your buyer?
• Was there enough clarity on the customer’s end?
• Was the customer satisfied? Did you ask for feedback?
• Did you back your pitch with stats or stories?

A post-call analysis such as this will help you create the right sales objectives over time. 

5. Constant improvisation 

You can not hit all your objectives at once. It’s a hit-and-trial process, and failures will be a part of it. You should deal with failures the right way, such as constantly evaluating them and deciphering the cause behind the failures, which can help you attain an updated version of your objective quickly. 

Some of the ways you can improve by drawing upon appropriate objectives are:

• By targeting roadblocks that stopped you from achieving objectives. 
• By ensuring that the sales team’s capabilities are enough to match the objectives 
• By going back and analysing if the objective you created was realistic enough to be achieved 
• By filling the other resource gaps keeping you from hitting your goals 

Ready to Create the Perfect Sales Call Objective?

Setting sales call objectives demands organising your thoughts and thinking like a professional. A successful sales leader can tell you that effectively setting the right objectives is all about finding a delicate balance between your customer’s needs and the professional’s sales capabilities. 

Juno is an online interactive platform that focuses on building a strong sales foundation via experiential learning, teaching about cutting-edge tools and educating students about the best sales techniques used by sales experts. To sharpen your skills and to know more about Juno, visit our website.