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Step 2 of the five steps to the sales call.

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Published: 04Jul2009
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The introduction is designed to build a strong foundation for the entire sales presentation. It is not designed to sell your product or service, but instead to help create a relationship with the person you want to sell to. This is the time when they size you up, and you establish your believability. Many salespeople worry about being cut off and not being able to sell, so they jump right into the pitch. However, the more a prospect believes a sales professional, the less likely they will be to cut them off. There are four objectives that a sales professional should accomplish, in order to assure a productive sales call, and the whole process should take only a few minutes. The four elements to the introduction are: ICR Brief product or service overview. Credibility statement Validation statement.

ICR is an acronym for " Interest Creating Remark". The purpose of the ICR is to elicit a positive remark from the prospect or client. This can be as mundane as, "Great weather we are having" to something about a mutual acquaintance or current news in the industry. Whatever it is, you should have an idea of what your ICR is, before you make contact with the prospect, but don't hesitate to dump your planned ICR if something presents itself. You should keep making ICR's to the client until you get a positive response, unless of course you get the sense that prospect is testing you.

The brief product or service overview is not a mini sales pitch, but an objective explanation of what product or service you will be talking about. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for a sales professional to go on a sales call to make a presentation that took days to prep and was planned weeks in advance. The prospect then asks, "So what is this meeting about?" Remember to keep the brief product overview brief - even one sentence if possible.

Credibility statement is about you and/or your company. It is meant to position you above others in your field and show that you are worth listening to.

Validation Statement is about the prospect. This could also be called the "butt kissing statement." The main objective is for you to validate the prospect or the prospect's business as something they should be proud of. It might also be a statement that shows you have confidence in the success of their business. Imagine you are going to your favorite sports team or the head of a major studio to pitch your product or service. Would you treat this as an ordinary call or would you be more humble and show respect for their company? If this is the way you would treat a company that you really wanted to do business with, why not treat every prospect that way? It does not really matter who you sell to in the end. It is more important that you sell as much as you can.

Here is an example of an introduction.

"It was great meeting at the trade show; it certainly has grown over the last 10 years." "It sure has," says the prospect. "I want to thank you for considering GregMedia to do the outbound calling for your company. I have been at this for 30 years, and being able to offer potential clients your current risk free offer, is going to our job much easier the usual."

Keep the introduction as short as possible, and give your prospect what they need to have confidence in buying from you.

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