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Your business should give you freedom, not steal it.

Do you feel comfortable going into a sales call?

Or do you feel these knawing sensations of:

You know you’re great at what you do. You’re excited to help the prospects unlock a serious transformation. But going on a sales call is so uncomfortable that you’re secretly staying away from them!

Have you sat down and created a PLAN about how to structure your sales calls?

A sales call is a choreographed dance. It works beautifully if all these pieces are working in sync. But if not, it’s chaos all the way!

In today’s skillset newsletter, I’m giving you these pieces.

Sales is too big a topic for one newsletter, but it’s so damn important and a common point of frustration for my Essentialist CEO clients. So I’m going to be doing a whole series to help you level up your sales game.

Today, we won’t go into HARD sales tactics. This newsletter aims to give you the overarching strategy for sales calls.

Once you understand this, all other sales tactics will start making sense!

We’ll first unbundle you WHY sale calls are scary (and hard), then I’ll give you the 7-part structure of a winning sales call, and we’ll conclude with ONE biggest mistake to avoid.

Ready? Let’s get started.

And you rationalize winging it because you still manage to get pretty solid results.

Your ability to wing it is a BIG skill. The problem is when you RELY on it.

When you wing it, you don't REALLY know why something worked or why it didn't. And you've heard me say it a thousand times, you cannot improve a process that doesn't exist. So by rationalizing winging it on sales calls, you’re rationalizing NOT HAVING A PROCESS.

This hurts your confidence (because you never know where to improve).

Prospects saying NO is normal. In fact, expected.

Rejection is just going to be part of the process. We need to recognize that. When a prospect says NO, they are saying NO to your offer and NOT to you as a person. You have to be mentally prepare yourself for this.

Without this work, these sales calls might scar you (and we don’t want that).

Is this a “HELL YES” for you to work with them?

Every single time I’ve had a rude, unappreciative, and pain in the a** client, the signs were ALWAYS there on the sales call. I just didn’t listen. A sales call is FIRST about you evaluating them, and then if you say YES, they get a chance to evaluate you.

Accepting all business we can is the fastest path towards burnout and frustration.

Now we know how our minds sabotage us, and what frame of mind we need to adopt. With this, we can move into the core skill.

Let’s see how to structure an effective sales call.

Think about this pieces as guidelines you need to follow on the sales call. We’ll cover why every piece is important, and what to do in each.

Keep this small & to the point.

Open with casual statements like, “Hey! Where are you tuning in from?”. And build some rapport. But don’t digress into all kinds of casual talk. We’re here for business.

After a few moments, take control of the call. You say: “Here’s what’s going to happen next…”

This signals the start of the call.

Make it clear why they’re on the call.

I like to do two things:

Tell them, “We’ll start with some questions. Get to the core of your problems. And if I think I can help you, we can talk through that and decide how we go from here. Cool?”

Once they say yes, we move forward.

This is the biggest piece where you spend most of your time.

The objective is to uncover 3 things:

Dig deep in this piece. Do NOT skip it, even when you are 100% positive that you can help them and want to jump to the end and start talking about money and working together.

Your job is to help THEM understand their core problems, feel the pain of staying where they are, visualize a better future, AND show them that they want help.

Only when prospects tick all 3, you move forward.

Now you twist the knife.

Ask them:

By this time, the prospect gets emotionally involved in the conversation. You want them to feel the pain of inaction, of staying stuck, of not solving these problems. You want them eager to find a solution.

When you sense that, it’s time for the next piece.

VERY important: you never present without permission.

Ask them, “I have the solution. Are you open to hearing what it might look like?”

When they say yes, reference your Offer Doc.

(you must have your offer doc ready BEFORE the call. If you don’t have it, this playbook will help you create it)

Don’t read the document, but present the information in the same order.

Show them that you know their problems, you know their concerns, and you have the answers. Don’t rush. Take your time.

When you come to the price: Quote your price and SHUT UP.

DO NOT try to fill the uncomfortable silence. Let the prospect speak and break the tension you’ve created with your price.

Now, 3 things happen:

Work through their concerns with them, but keep coming back to the hell they’re in, the way they’re not able to solve it on their own, and the heaven they want to achieve.

And remember that all you want to do is help them solve their problems.

Either you walk away with a friend, or you walk away with a client.

Last step: Don’t leave the call without the next step.

Ambiguity kills deals. Always show that you are in control.

Outline the next steps, and you’ll wrap up the call 🤝

Those are all the moving pieces. Winning sales calls is just about executing these pieces one-by-one. With enough practice, you’ll be surprised at how seamlessly you’ll execute this!

Now, before we conclude:

Nobody likes being sold to. But everyone wants to buy.

My dear friend and personal sales guru, Walker McKay, always says that your job is to SLOW the sales process down. Not speed it up (like most shitty salespeople).

Don’t jump the pieces and start selling too early. Take your time and lead them on a journey. You need them to get to the place where they're like, “Oh my god, yes. This is what I need”.

Once you start selling, you can never come back. So take your time.

I know, it’s wayyy harder to DO than it sounds. Because we’re emotionally involved in the sale too. And often, we know within 5 minutes that we can help them. So we want to rescue them from their pain.

But they need to FEEL their pain so they are motivated to solve it. And that takes time.

When you know this, you can get BETTER with every repetition.

You can watch game footage and see EXACTLY where you went wrong. You might cringe at yourself, but that’s okay. We’ve all been there!

And I promise, you’ll get better FAST.

Now be ready before your next sales call. I’m right here with you!

In love & growth,
Kasey