What’s your tactic to make sure you present your best self before a client call?

What you don’t have one?? You just get on a call and let the chips fall where they may?

Huh, yeah I did that to for a while and there was some success with it. Certainly enough to keep the bills mostly paid, with only a few times a quarter of sweating about the next pay cheque (that’s Canadian for check).

There is a better way though, that can land you more sales.

Getting yourself psyched up

What you hear most people tell you is to get yourself psyched up before a call/meeting with a client.

Tell yourself how awesome you are and how you’re going to land the next client.

You will see a few better calls, but getting yourself psyched up is not the best way to convince more clients to purchase services from you.

Interrogate yourself

Before I get on the phone with a client I always have a decent idea of what their project is going to need.

You’ve got to get past my first email filter before I let you try getting past the call filter.

I’ve already written about 3 Questions to ask yourself before you write an estimate, but really the questions need to start earlier than that, as in right before the call you are going to have with the client.

Questions like:

1. Will I land this client?
2. What are their objections going to be?
3. What do they need to hear to go with my services?

This is more than just telling yourself that you’re awesome, it’s forcing you to think about your client and understand their motivations.

The better we empathize with our customers needs the more likely we are to make a sale [1].

Give yourself 20 minutes before a call with a client and ask yourself those 3 questions. Write down a solid paragraph answer to each.

If you don’t have an answer, make sure you get it during your client call and write it down after.

Then when you write an estimate ask them again, along with these other questions.

Now watch yourself make better sales and more of them.

photo credit: s3a cc