You’re sitting with a new sales hire. There’s a slight tremor in their voice. Their knees are shaking. No, you’re not watching a horror movie together. Your new seller is making their first sales call.
Before you end up in this scenario, take time to roleplay a mock sales call to help new sellers find their rhythm and build their confidence. This blog post covers everything you need to know about the mock sales call and includes essential tips for conducting them.
Mock Sales Calls Build Skills and Confidence
Mock sales calls are designed to improve sales professionals’ ability to make better sales calls. They’re an effective tool for helping sellers practice their call techniques, try out new strategies, and gain experience with challenging conversations.
When conducting a mock sales call, it’s essential to practice asking open-ended questions to understand the customer’s needs and wants. It’s also important to prepare by researching the customer and industry, developing a plan of attack, and practicing the sales pitch and responses.
Through these roleplaying exercises, sales leaders can help their team members sharpen their selling abilities for success in the long run. Here’s why having your sales team make mock sales calls is essential to your success.
Prepare for the Real World
Your sellers can practice difficult conversations in a relaxed setting with realistic simulated calls without jeopardizing actual transactions.
Practice Countering Objections
Your sellers can learn common objections and walk through various responses to practice managing objections calmly.
Improve Confidence
Your team will feel more confident, and actual sales conversations will go more smoothly, after rehearsing a variety of call scenarios.
Learn New Techniques
No matter how long you’ve been in sales, there are always new tactics to learn. Acquiring new techniques will help sellers stay current and adapt to buyer demands.
Develop Self-Awareness
Sellers can identify areas for improvement and develop more self-awareness by recording and listening to their own mock conversations.
Keep Track of Progress
Sellers can hear the progress they’ve made by reviewing prior mock call recordings.
Reduce Anxiety
Coaching your sellers through mock phone conversations can help reduce nerves before live customer calls.
How to Conduct a Mock Sales Call
Mock calls help new sales professionals prepare for customer calls so every interaction goes as smoothly as possible. The best way to train sellers is to use the same tools they’d typically use when calling real customers.
Here are other key ways to coach your sellers for live sales calls.
Train on Your Company’s Core Offerings
The first step in any new hire onboarding is training on the products and services your organization offers. Sales professionals must be well versed in your solutions and the value each delivers.
Define the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Make sure your sales professionals understand the definition of an ideal customer and typical buyer persona.
Make a Pre-Call Plan
Every seller should have a checklist and script in front of them as part of their pre-call plan and should know as much as possible about the buyer. Success happens when preparation meets opportunity.
Practice Active Listening
Good sales professionals realize that, to get the best results, they should spend less time talking (20%) and more time listening (80%).
Be Ready for Objections
Help sales professionals prepare for questions, stalls, and common objections. Train them to ask follow-up questions to help clarify the issue and be ready to find solutions to their objections.
Record and Evaluate Calls
Recording mock calls benefits both you and your sellers. You will have a concrete example to evaluate and can give the seller specific feedback. Early calls will also show the sales professional’s improvement over time.
Assess Mock Calls with Teammates
Sales professionals’ peers—especially more experienced sellers—can be a great source of advice and suggestions. Ask a new hire to partner with a teammate to review mock call recordings and identify development areas.
Sales Training for Effective Customer Conversations
The mock sales call is an excellent way for sales teams to practice their sales skills, build confidence, and become more successful in their sales process. It’s important to remember that the mock sales call should be conducted in a realistic yet controlled way so the sales professional can get the most out of the experience.
Contact The Brooks Group to learn more about individualized training and assessments to help your sales team have conversations with confidence.
