Your manager says, “Come on, Bill. You gotta do better than that. What are you going to talk about?”

And the game begins. He urges you to have 10 things to talk about. You know in your gut that there is something about showing up the right way and asking good questions.

So how do you create an agenda? Or, better, “how do you prepare for a sales call?” Here are some tips:

1. Get Your Mind Right.

You knew that would be my first didn’t you? It’s always our first since we’re convinced most of our minds are not right when we go to the market. We’re needy. We’re thinking about our pains and problems and quotas. We’re thinking about our product. So get your mind wrapped around your “intent” which is to help them discover and solve a problem. Get it wrapped around how to express your value (below).

2. Get Your Upfront Part Right

Have a place you can begin the call–”Mr. Prospect, I’m not really sure I can be of help, but here’s what I thought we could do today.” Think “process” not “product.”

3. Get Your Value Expression Right

Given the business he’s in and the position he holds in the company, how will you express your value? This is soooooo important. If you’re speaking with a CEO, then he might never hear about the functions of your product. He might hear about how it helps other CEO’s solve CEO problems. And if you haven’t done that inventory yet, don’t make another call until you do.

4. Get Your Questions Right

Make a list of no more than 10 questions that will help you understand his business landscape and any problems he might have that warrant a solution–such as yours.

5. Get Your Notetaking Right

Go prepared to take notes. Be a sponge for his information. Ask permission and then write like hell.

TIP: If you must, go on to the prospect’s website and learn a little about him. Google his “name” and see what comes up. But be very careful about what you allude to when you meet with him. I did that the other day–alluded to seeing his LinkedIn profile and seeing that he went to UCLA. He was a bit creeped out by my bringing it up. Even though he put it up there. So my lesson was to not be so “clever” about it.

A yellow flag might be your prospect saying, “We’re going to look very closely at price” or “John will have a little influence but not much so you don’t need to talk to him” or other such nonsense.  

Batch The Flags

But in long selling cycles/complex sales, there might be dozens of yellow flags throughout the cycle. My suggestion would be to batch them. Here’s how it works.

After every sales call, especially if you have a team that calls on the prospect at different levels, come back and “brainstorm yellow.” Meaning, talk about all the things each of you has heard from the client that are yellow flags–those things that might prohibit the sale from moving forward. 

Use The Minds of Your Team 

Get into a true “mind-share” attitude with your team. You’ll be amazed at the customer data you collect on the buying process. Then,  make a list of all the things that your team senses  might be roadblocks and bring them up to the customer in batches. Let’s say you have 10 things that your team senses could be yellow flags. The next time you’re speaking with your prospect, say, “I have several things that I’d like to talk to you about–things that have come up when we do our weekly team debriefing.” And then tell him the issues.

Yellow flags are things your prospect has to solve for you. Remember, it’s him/her that has the problem that he wants you to solve. Therefore,  it’s up to them to get you comfortable–not just up to you to get him comfortable.  As we say in our advanced sales courses, you’re the one that needs to be bringing up objections–not him. He needs to be selling you on why he’s committed to solving his problem.  

I got to thinking about what he said and was curious about why that had such an effect on people, I determined that certainty kills curiosity.

Whenever I hear someone say, “This is how I do it and it’s always worked,” they almost certainly have killed themselves off from being curious about other ways to do it better. You’ve heard the saying, “only fools are positive.” To me, that is exactly what happens when you are so sure of yourself that you are not open to other ways to improve your results.

As you think about your sales approach to prospects and clients, be careful that you don’t “have all of the answers and don’t need more input,” because you may be cutting yourself off from one easy tactic that can monumentally affect your business.