Ryan Dohrn walks through a four-step sales call framework: validate the prospect's time upfront, set a three-point agenda including success stories and questions, come prepared with pricing and ideas, and use a soft close before the proposal.
if you don't get significant enough buy-in at that meeting to warrant a proposal, you're probably creating a lot of proposals that maybe don't even need to be created. So here's 3 or 4 things, Carrie, that you might consider. One is you do need a sales call roadmap. You need something you can replicate. So for example, mine has basically kind of 10 steps in it. I'm not gonna go through all 10 today, but it kind of goes like this. I always validate time first. Hey, Carrie, thanks for the 20 minutes. You still have 20 minutes. The second step is I always have a 3-point agenda: sharing success stories, asking questions. Is it a yes? Is it a no? It is a maybe. So I always try to set that agenda up front. And then the third main thing that I do is I come prepared to get buy-in. So I come with pricing ready to go. I have to come with ideas ready to go. In the end, I might still need to create a proposal. No problem. But I do need to get significant. Buy-in before the proposal is created, and that's where the soft close comes into play.
