Why Context Should Be the Holy Grail During a Sales Call

People see the world through their own lens. To change the way your customers look at things, you need to give them the perspective you have through context setting.

Context setting allows a sales rep to quickly answer the question “why are you calling me?” and thus build relevance. But it also allows a sales rep to answer the tougher, more pointed question, “no, why are you calling me?” by building a connect. 

To ensure the prospect continues to move towards each stage of the sales cycle, you need to add the right context during your pitch. Context setting must span all stages of a sales call, but you will need to customize the content according to the stages of the sales cycle.

Let’s see how context setting can make closing B2B deals easier for your inside sales reps.

How can context setting help your sales rep build relevance? 

1. Customizing context according to the sales journey

Consider this: 

• Some prospects may be buying a product for the first time.
• Some may need a better product or solution than what they currently have
• Some prospects may be looking for ways to do better

When you customize your pitch to the prospect’s purchase process, you get better results.

The kind of data your rep needs to detect the stage of the sales funnel your prospect is at is called Opportunity Data. This data directly maps the prospect's desire with the seller's action. Opportunity data can be:

• Search keywords the prospect used before placing a demo/sales call request
• Sales enablement content specific to the feature/category/keyword for which the prospect expressed interest
• Data extracted from the prospect's social media profiles and search history.
  

2. Show the prospect you understand their situation

• On a company level, this entails researching the prospect’s company’s financial situation or newest ventures, from product releases to new office locations. 
• On a job level, this entails researching the role and responsibilities of the prospect to understand better the decision-making power they wield. 
• On a beyond-the-job level, this entails researching where your prospect is located and updating yourself on major local news. If there’s recently been a flood or political unrest, for example, expressing concern can instantly differentiate your rep from hundreds of others.
• On a right-at-this-moment level, it’s about trying to simulate what your prospect could be doing right now that you’re potentially interrupting. An easy way to do this is to attach it to the nearest meal timing – “before you step away for lunch” or “while you were having your evening tea”.
  

3. Show the prospect you understand their needs

• On an offering level, this means understanding the prospect’s company so you can define which features of the product they’re likely to find more useful. 
• On an industry level, if you are able to talk with authority on the prospect’s competition and how they are using certain features (that may be directly relevant to your product) to stand out; again this shows your awareness about the prospect’s business.
  

How can context setting help your sales rep build a connect?

1. Acknowledge their struggle

The route to empathy starts with understanding the major challenges and anxieties your prospects face on an everyday basis.

“While I know your budget will certainly be strapped for a project like this...” or “Since you may be struggling to get together a team of your own…”

2. Honor the past by logging into your CRM to discover if your prospect

• Has been approached by your company before (and how many times)
• Is familiar with your product
• Has used a similar product before
• Is buying for the first time
  

3. Discover shared interests

In Modern Family’s S04E20 “Flip Flop”, real estate agent Phil Dunphy and his clan take this a little too far. They attempt to convince a buyer that a house is perfect for him, full with a kickboxing gym and Black Hawks poster. But the intention was good – to build a connect by finding common ground.

If your sales rep can employ Haley Dunphy’s social media savviness to discover a common interest or two, it could add a jolt of familiarity to the conversation. Be it by peppering the sales call with references or building analogies related to that interest.

4. Personalize content

Sales reps often dig through content repositories to assemble their presentations. But such content is rarely customized for the prospect nor is it updated often. The best sales teams apply personalization to sales enablement content – bringing sales reps closer to the prospect through deal-specific, contact-specific, and campaign-specific data.

Leverage technology to have better conversations 

As a sales leader, it can get exhausting to train your reps endlessly without any tangible way to assess how much they’ve learned. Context setting is an important skill that can reduce customer responses like “yeah, that’s great, but this has nothing to do with me”. 

Conversational intelligence tools such as Salesken enable your reps to have contextual conversations. When you integrate Salesken with your CRM, your reps have all the customer information they need in one place. In addition, your reps get real-time cues for better tackling of customer objections and changes in customer sentiment. 

On your end, you have Salesken’s post-call analytics to effortlessly get deep insights into what’s working best (for your top reps), so you can replicate their success and update your playbook.