The Importance of Replaying the Call

The rest of the story: Sales training best practices teach us that after every sales call you need to mentally review what happened.

• What you did right.
• What selling errors you made.
• What threw you off your game plan.

Here’s an example of what happens when you properly replay the call:

Thanks to some ideas he picked up in a recent Action Selling ® sales training workshop, Ken Prenger, General Manager of a farm-equipment dealership, rescued a $250,000 deal he had given up for dead. What’s more, replaying the call not only allowed him to salvage the sale, he learned an even more valuable lesson.

On the flight home from the sales training workshop Prenger completed the review process that he had learned during the sales training program.  By reflecting on what he had learned, Prenger realized that he hadn’t actually questioned the farmer well enough to understand the objection that had killed the sale.

When he got back and met again with the farmer, Prenger learned that an opportunity had arisen for the man to buy another farm. He couldn’t buy Prenger’s tractor because he needed to keep his credit line open to do the land deal. Prenger proposed a lease option for the tractor that would not tie up the farmer’s credit. Voila! The deal was saved—“a direct result of the sales training workshop,” Prenger says.

When he replayed the successful call, however, it struck him that the implications extended far beyond a single deal. “As I went over the call, I realized that I didn’t really know this prospect very well,” Prenger says. “He has sons who want to enter the farm business, but for them to have enough opportunity they need to grow the size of their operation.

“Now I know what I need to add to calls on all of my accounts in the future: more business questions. I need to understand my customers’ business goals so I can help achieve them. Instead of just selling farm equipment, I can be more of a consultant.”

As Ken discovered through sales training, you will find that replaying the call is critical to improving your selling skills. It uncovers golden opportunities to help close the deals you’re already working on and will help you navigate the sales process with future prospects more efficiently and effectively.