Removing the gender politics from the equation, a dance between two people should be intentional. Rhythmic. Fluid. One person leading their partner through time and space on the dance floor. Executed movements with directions, patterns, tempo. Whether it is rigid and rehearsed or elastic and improvised. The best dances seen are ones where the two people are in it together, feeding off each other’s motion. It may be choreographed, but feels free. This is how a perfect sales call should be handled.
If your organization has any structure, it recognizes the value of every inbound sales call and the importance of learning the steps. If your organization has plans for improving how your team sashays through calls, you make phone training a weekly, if not daily focus. No one can tango without knowing routine. Without practice, you are setting your sales team up to be the person being led on every sales call. You’re setting them up to step on toes and be dragged around with no control of their direction. It is hard to watch and harder to hear.
As our team listen to many of our dealer clients’ sales calls in advance of grading the team’s performance, we can hear during the duration of the dance between caller and client just who is leading who. The problem? Customers have an agenda that rarely are in lock-step with your dealership goals. When this happens, we let someone who can’t dance lead. Yet with consistent training, role-playing, scripting, guiding, and rehearsal, it will be your sales team able to overcome every misstep. They won’t leave their partner bored, reaching, or out of touch. Instead, with phone training, it will be your team able to guide every sales call to a positive ending, seamlessly gliding them to an appointment.
Don’t let someone who can’t dance lead. Take control of the engagement by teaching them the choreography of what makes a sales call great. When you are leading the customer on the call, it has a musicality to it. It involves posture and presence. You’re putting forth energy and technique to lead your partner to the perfect conclusion. When trained enough, it no longer looks like a routine, but like art.
