The Sales Call Introduction Consultative selling Sales call structure Introduce yourself Lowering resistance Explanation of products Asking questions Back at the office The second call Smoke objections Straightforward objections Second call objections The fastest way to increase sales! Participate in this award-winning, newspaper-specific ad sales course on-site or in a Webinar.  • Get past upfront stalls and objections without any pushing  • Make the account believe he really needs you  • Get better information from your prosepct  • Develop quick ad strategies that work the very first time  • Eliminate size, frequency, content, cost and most other objections before they ever arise  • Get dramatic responses for all kinds of advertisers  • Never have to push an advertiser to run again click here

One of the principles of consultative selling is listening more than you speak, at least at first. Instead of the one shot sales call, where the salesperson is supposed to introduce themselves and launch right into the sales presentation, the consultative approach involves being more of a consultant, almost a partner, resulting in a sales process that involves two separate meetings.

The first one, often called a needs-identification or fact-finding meeting, is not really a sales call at all in the traditional sense, but just a meeting to find out about the prospect's needs and goals.

The second meeting, typically a few days later, is where you return with a formal recommendation on how you can help him meet these goals.

The two-meeting approach does a few things for you.

First, you and the prospect can feel comfortable that you're not trying to sell them on the first meeting. This usually results in a much more relaxed and open conversation. Just the fact that you leave after the first sales call without trying to sell anything makes your second meeting seem less of a sales presentation and more like a recommendation.

Second, after you collect information on the first sales call, you'll have time to think about what the account told you about his business and create a customized presentation, including a spec ad, based on his particular business. This added time will help you create an infinitely stronger presentation than if you walked cold and started presenting.

Third, your conclusions will be harder for the prospect to argue with, since everything was based on his own information. This is why even if you know all the answers, you need to make sure you get the prospect to tell you before you make a recommendation.

And finally, just the process of asking and then taking the answers into consideration when you create a solution will show the account that you truly do care enough about the account to learn about him and are qualified to make a recommendation, building a huge amount of rapport and credibility.

You're going to meet salespeople who will try to sell all in one sales call because it seems faster. These salespeople often don't understand the subtleties of consultative selling or are afraid they can't control the open-ended parts of the initial conversations.

Although making two sales calls on an account seems to take longer, you'll find that you'll not only close more sales, but those sales will be for larger, more frequent ads with customers that will stick with you longer.

So let's get into some specifics of how these two meetings play out with ad sales.

Next: Sales call structure