As a sales coach, one of the things that I think is great about the HubSpot CRM is the ability to listen to recorded sales calls to see how well coachees are actually executing on the strategies we help them develop and role play.

It's amazing how different the salesperson recounting of a call is from the actual call. Here is one example.

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The client who hired us to work with him and his salesperson was concerned over how the style of the person matched the buyer they were trying to engage with. His job as a BDR was to set up appointments for the owner of the company.

It's been said before and I will say it again; how you approach a lead will determine how well the process goes. Whether or not you close depends on how you start.

For this call, the prospect, let's call him Steve, had filled out a form on the site asking for a specific service, in this case a website redesign. He came from the site of a marketing automation software company where they have many different providers listed. The objective of the salesperson was to schedule qualified appointments with the decision makers of both his company, and the prospect's company. Here is how the call went:

Steve: I want to modernize the site for a few thousand.

Salesperson: What if that's not enough?

This is an okay question. However the problem was that when Steve started to answer, the salesperson interrupted him by asking him two more rapid fire questions, which were really the same question reworded. The salesperson should have just let Steve talk. The more that Steve tried to go into it, the salesperson kept talking over him.

Salesperson: So whose idea was it that the website needed to be redesigned?

This is a great question! But the opportunity to find out who the other influencers and decision makers was lost. After Steve answered "Well, it is my idea since I am in charge of business development, but I have someone else on my side as well. Plus the COO has to okay it."  Instead of asking if the COO was the only person that needed to approve it, the salesperson jumped into setting up the meeting, not knowing if the real decision maker was the COO. He also didn't ask who the other person that was for it was.

Steve: Leadership doesn't put this as a priority, they think as long as it not costing them a lot, it's fine.

Never asked, what is leadership's priority? Or how much is a lot?

Salesperson: So Steve, what is your goal for this website redesign?

Steve: I just want to make the website look good so that people who look at it through a traditional sales method can see we are a real company.

Salesperson: So you want two things: One, make the site look good, and two, get found."

Huh? He didn't say get found?

Steve: Well, we did get one small client from the web. We are a small company with 4 clients. Our existing clients knew us before we had a website. Most clients come to us through referral. The owners want more clients exactly like the ones they have now.

Salesperson: So, what happens if they don't update the website?"

Great question!

Steve: I think they see the website and are not impressed.

At this point the salesperson tried to create urgency and got pushy. Steve told the salesperson, "If you come in hard and fast and you must do this now- they will shut the door on you." He had to repeat this more than once.

At several other points during the call, the salesperson asked Steve a question, but would never let him answer. He did most of the talking, sometimes putting words in Steve's mouth, sometimes rudely talking over him and repeating the same question more forcefully when he didn't get the answer he was looking for. 

Towards the end of the call, the sales person said, "I've asked a lot of questions, let me prescribe for you. I think that's what you need is a strategy plan doc before you do a website design. A client just did one with us, and here's why. After the doc was delivered, they could do it themselves, or hire us. We subtract the fee from the project. So let's make that the next call- what do you think?"

Steve: I was tasked with the website redesign. I'll get them in the room, but you will have to sell them.

There were several times in this 52 minute call that I was amazed at Steve's patience. Would you have hung up on this salesperson? How would you have handled it differently? Have you seen this in the salespeople that call on you, but not able to see it in yourself or your salespeople?

Or, does it really matter? After all, the salesperson thinks he did what was asked of him- get more appointments booked.