Prior to picking up the telephone to make a sales call or approach a prospect, you should be setting a sales call goal. Each call should have a specific purpose, desired outcome, or intended result. Before making a sales call, ask yourself, “What do I want to accomplish or have happened as a result of this call?” If you can’t come up with a good answer, perhaps you shouldn’t be wasting your and your prospect’s time.
Beware of unrealistic call goals. There’s little chance of “getting an order” or “making a sale” on an initial cold call. The best you can probably hope for is to get the name of the person you should be talking with. Just getting a future appointment with that individual would be considered a very successful conclusion to a cold call.
A sales call goal should answer one of these questions:
• What do I want to happen as a result of this call?
or
• What do I want the prospect to do as a result of this call?
Typical sales call goals might be:
• get name of key contact(s)
• qualify an opportunity
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