Get prospects to the call and run it 22 of 25 in this group
SOP 248
Prep every call with notes and proof matched to the prospect
What this page is for. Use it in the run-up to a sales call. By this stage, the offer is sound, you are talking to the right customer with the right message, and a video carrying plenty of proof from people like the prospect has already done its work. What remains is getting ready for the conversation. This page covers the notes a setter fills in, a tagged list of your best proof, sending the piece that answers the objection a prospect is likely to raise, when and how to do the prep, the order of events when a setter books the call, and common questions on whether your video should state the price, and whether a video belongs between a webinar sign-up and the webinar itself.
SOP-248-Prep-every-call-with-notes-and-proof-matched-to-the-prospect.md
1. The call notes
If you have a setter, the notes are what the setter fills out to qualify the lead, grading it as an MQL (a marketing-qualified lead) or an SQL. What separates those grades: Not established on this page.
What goes into the notes is everything relevant to the prospect's decision to buy. The reason: on the call, you want to sound as though you really do know something about their business. The same is said to hold for a consumer; you would want them to have that experience too.
Know the prospect better than the product. The view here is that reps are usually taught too much about the product and too little about the prospect. Teach them a great deal about the customers you serve and little about what you sell: tell a prospect their pain, and they will believe you can help solve it. The research can be gathered by software and handed to the rep as a summary before the call, so the rep sounds as if they did a great deal of prep.
The fields on a call-notes form and their order are not covered on this page.
Grading and routing leads before a call is SOP 84 — Score and route inbound leads, and its section 5 has a short version of looking a lead up before you talk to them. What a setter does before picking up the phone sits in section 2 of SOP 53 — Run the setter scripts.
2. A greatest-hits list, with tags
The aim here is for the sales team to have a greatest-hits list of proof; one practice here is to put a tagging system around it.
Some of your content, it is said, always converts people, and so do some of your testimonials. Put all of that on a list and hand it to the team as bullets, so they can send pieces to prospects before those prospects speak to you.
You can tag every piece:
- by demographic: who the person in it is;
- by the problem it solved, or the solution.
When a prospect fits a tag, send them the testimonials on that list. The point of the tags is that a rep can send the most fitting, most resonant proof there is to that particular person. This is called super powerful, and you already know it if you have been in this spot: you helped a chiropractor, then another chiropractor gets on the phone, and you decide to send them something. Their reaction: "This will work for me." And then: "Just like me."
Where such a list comes from, and matching each piece to the objection it gets past, is section 4 of SOP 38 — Turn the best organic post into an ad. Sending proof matched to the lead so that more people turn up is section 6 of SOP 87 — Lift a show rate with incentives.
3. Answer the objection you foresee
If you know a prospect is struggling with a particular kind of objection, you have probably already made content that answers it, and probably also a testimonial from a customer who once held that same objection, went on to buy, and ended up with a great experience. The practice here is to send both.
That is how you can curate a sales experience that makes a purchase as likely as it can be.
4. When to prep, and what prep is
When. One team preps its notes the night before a call or on the morning of it. The choice is up to you.
What. The steps, in this order:
- look up all of the calls;
- do the prep;
- work out the objections you think each prospect will bring;
- pick one piece of content and one piece of proof that fit the prospect's avatar.
That is said to be the whole of it, and it is very straightforward.
Why it slips. The view here is that this is, more or less, boring work, the kind a sales culture either praises and reinforces or lets become yet another thing the team ignores and does not do. In this view it is an obvious step rather than a secret one, and nobody does it.
The promise. The promise offered: if every rep on your team knows who is on the other end, has chosen content and proof drawn from people who resemble that prospect, and does this for every call, the team will sell more.
5. With a setter: book, then prep
Asked about the order when a setter books, the answer is that the setter calls the lead right away. So the booking might happen at once: reach the lead, get the appointment in the calendar, and prep for it afterward.
What other orders of booking and prep were weighed: Not established on this page.
How fast to reach a new lead is SOP 90 — Reach a new lead fast.
6. Should your video state the price?
A common question: should your video address price? In one team's practice, it does.
- In general, that team has kept putting ever more friction into how it sells, and has ended up making more money. All of this is said to come down to a sweet spot on friction overall.
- Stating the price has left that team with more money in almost every scenario, because saying it makes them much more efficient at selling: they are spared the calls with people who would never buy. If someone hears your number and their answer is no way, how much is a sales call going to change their mind? The practice there tends to favor efficiency in the sales team over simply cranking.
- But if nobody is booking, maybe take the price out. So there is no right answer.
- Looking back, that team has put the price in the majority of the time. Earlier on, the price was left out and salesmanship leaned on harder, so it might come down to maturity.
- It also depends a little on how expensive the thing is and how customized. If it is very custom and very expensive, a range might be given.
Saying what they must put down. Telling them the sum they would need to put down at the next call is said to work really well. An example: for something costing $100,000, a six-figure investment, the prospect must be ready to pay $10,000 as a down payment at the next call, and if they are not ready to, they should not book it. You can name the sum they would put down, as a sort of middle step between giving the full price and saying nothing at all. It is called a good way of bridging that gap, and one that has reportedly been used.
The figures in that example are an illustration; this page gives no figure for your own down payment.
The wider case for adding friction even when each lead costs more is section 8 of SOP 208 — Set prerequisites, raise lead quality and add friction. This page adds the price in your video, and the condition in which, in this view, it might come out.
7. A video between a webinar sign-up and the webinar
Asked about a video after someone opts in for a webinar and before the webinar itself, the answer is a firm yes: if you sell people more, more of them will buy. One practice here is to keep them watching from the moment they opt in until it begins, so that it is all one long webinar, getting as much viewing from them as you can. That video could be seven minutes. It could simply make the case for attending the webinar.
Making that video is SOP 247 — Put a video sales letter before every conversation. A related claim, that selling a person more does not make them less likely to buy, is in section 10 of SOP 207 — Build a video sales letter.
8. What this page does not decide for you
- The grades. What separates the grades a setter gives a lead: Not established on this page.
- Timing. Whether to prep the night before or the morning of is left to you.
- Other orders. What other orders of booking and prep were weighed: Not established on this page.
- Price today. How often that team states the price now, as against the majority of the time: Not established on this page.
- Down payment. This page gives no figure for your own down payment.
9. The checklist
| Step | What to do |
|---|---|
| 1 | If you have a setter, have them fill in call notes that qualify the lead and hold what matters to the decision to buy |
| 2 | Keep a greatest-hits list of the content and testimonials that convert; you can tag each piece by who is in it and by the problem it solved, or the solution |
| 3 | Hand the list to the team as bullets to send to prospects before they speak to you |
| 4 | Before each call, look it up, work out the objections you expect, and pick one piece of content and one piece of proof that match the prospect |
| 5 | Prep at a time you choose, which is up to you; one team does it the night before or on the morning of |
| 6 | With a setter, contact the lead and book the appointment, then prep for it |
| 7 | Decide whether your video states the price: one team puts it in the majority of the time; if nobody is booking, maybe take it out |
| 8 | For a very custom, very expensive offer, you might give a range; stating what they must put down on the next call is said to work really well |
10. What this page does not cover
Making a video to go before a call is SOP 247 — Put a video sales letter before every conversation, with SOP 207 behind it. How many times, and when, to reach out to a lead who has not answered, and reminding booked leads to turn up, are SOP 89. Collecting proof in the first place is not covered on this page; SOP 123 to SOP 126 deal with it. Scoring leads is SOP 84.
Terms defined on this page
- Call notes
- What the setter records while qualifying a lead: everything that bears on whether they will buy. On the call you sound as if you know their business, and later you use them to pick proof that answers their objections.
- Call prep
- Done the night before or that morning: look up the day's calls, work out the objections each prospect is likely to raise, then choose content and proof, one piece of each, to suit their avatar.
- Greatest-hits list
- The content and customer results that convert, each tagged by who is in it, the problem it solves and the objection it answers, handed to reps so they can send the best-fitting proof before or during the sale.
- Setter
- The person who works a list of people who already responded, qualifying them, filling in call notes and booking a longer call with a closer, who runs the selling part.