Use These 3 P's To Make A Good First Impression, Everytime!

How many times has this happened to you? You are about to lay into your pitch and the prospect excused themselves? (or worse, hangs up on you!)

What could have possibly gone wrong?

In today’s world, every salesperson is desperately trying to get their customer’s attention, and they rarely have more than a few seconds to do so. 

How then, does a good introduction to a sales call work? At Salesken.ai, we have the benefit of assisting and analyzing almost 1 million minutes of sales conversations every month. Our customers include companies in Education, Software, and the Financial Services industries. And their buyers are both businesses and consumers. 

We found that 9% of all sales conversations last less than 10 seconds. Basically, how you open your sales call affects the chances whether the person on the other end of the line is going to want to hear more from you or not.

To make a good impression on every call, use these 3 tips, we’d like to call the 3P’s:

Personalize

Personalization will help your prospects see the human side to you and influence their interaction with you in a positive way.

Start on a Positive Note

Always begin the conversation with a positive comment or anecdote like, “I’m very excited about our call meeting today” or “How are you doing today in this pleasant weather?” Talk about great weather, fun weekend plans, or even their local sports team winning a game.* That kicks most sales calls off on the right foot and sets a positive tone for the call. It leaves your prospect excited and curious to talk to you.
Taking a little detour, from your planned pitch, to set the tone of the call will go a long way.

*Not a sports fan or a weather junkie? Don’t worry, Salesken’s real time cues will show you local weather, scores and more such information to help you in every call!

State the Purpose of your Call

When you enter a sales conversation without giving it a direction, the customers sense it. Your prospect will lose interest, and may even end the conversation if  they feel that their time is being wasted.

Instead of telling them that you have called to ‘check in’ or ‘touch base’, state a clear and justifiable purpose of the call. If there is a set agenda for the call, now is the time to reiterate it. If this is a cold call - explain why you’re calling your prospect. Sending the right message across in the start is essential, and will work in your favor. How? The prospect will know that there is a purpose of this call, and that you mean business.

Your sales pitch begins the second the conversation starts. Even if you are speaking with the same person for the 3rd or 4th time, the first 10 seconds can change your outcomes considerably. Personalization, Positivity and Purpose, remember these 3 P’s to make a genuine connection, and the opening can become the easiest part of your call because the objective is not to make the customer buy the product, but just to make them interested enough that your call goes on to the 11th second!