Questions To Ask When You Review The Sales Call

Whether you’re successful or not on a sales call, it is always advantageous to review what you did and didn’t do. This is your own Sales Training review 101!

The main reason for this is to check whether you and your prospect got the most out of the interaction. If you did well, you can learn how you can apply those ideas in future calls. If you didn’t succeed in your main objective of the call, you can identify what learning opportunities the experience can give you.

Here are some specific questions you can ask yourself in reviewing the call. Identify which ones are most important for you and create a checklist for yourself to review after each call.

1) Was I prepared enough at the start?

Did you arrive in time, with confidence and with the right amount of preparation to achieve your goals? Simply turning up with a suite of questions isn’t enough these days. You must have your reviews of their business, their problems, their needs, and the individual buyer’s profile as the basics before you start. Did you go into this encounter with the right sales mindset and mentality for success?

2) Were my questions ‘deep’ enough to gain specific information?

I hope you didn’t turn up just to present your product! If you did, you risk sounding like every other salesperson. Your visit should include probing sales questions that go deep into the real needs of the prospect.

3) How did I deal with questions about my ability to deal with their needs?

Ask yourself: Did I simply try to ‘big-up’ my product? Or did I align the product details with the specific situation the prospect is currently facing?

4) What objections came up and how did I deal with them?

Did I create a good feeling about the way the products and services would change the future of their company? Was I able to handle sales objections in such a way that the prospect felt good about moving on? Are specific objections coming up regularly with prospects, and if they are, what can I do to stop them from become obstacles to the progress of the sale?

5) Did I end up with some form of commitment from the prospect?

Remember, you won’t get a sale on every call, but you could get a commitment to agree to a further product presentation, or an agreement to compare your offer with a competitor, or an arrangement to meet with another decision-maker. It doesn’t have to be a failure if you didn’t achieve your main objective in the call; having a secondary objective may well be a good compromise so that you have opportunities to advance with this prospect in the future.

By asking quality questions like these as you review your call, you give yourself the chance to learn from every experience and you then build confidence in dealing with future situations that you may have been concerned about in the future.

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Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training