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The Two-Call Close: How to Stop Overwhelming Prospects and Start Closing Them · Sell Well: Helping Agencies Close More Deals and Grow Revenue

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Your first sales call is too long.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know that sounds counterintuitive because we've all been told that more time with the prospect is a good thing, but what I see most people doing on a sales call is actually pushing people farther away from saying yes and they don't even realize it.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to picture this.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: You get on a call with a prospect and you have your questions lined up.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: You guys chit-chat about the weather for a second.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I know it's getting so hot out or whatever, right?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of make the small talk and then you go into your two or three questions to get to know them and warn them up, but really your finger is just hovering over that mouse ready to pull up that pitch deck.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: My theory is that as soon as you say, Can I share my screen?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: and you pull up a pitch deck that's 40 slides long about how incredible your company is and all the case studies and all the nice things clients have said about you, you're done.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: The client is zonked out.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to hear your pitch.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about them anymore.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: It is a showcase all about how awesome you are.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Your client isn't saying no to your offer yet.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're just saying no to this experience.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's overwhelming.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like they're being sold to and nobody wants to feel sold to.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I know that your intention and your pushback is I want to give them clarity, I want to give them options, I would want the information and the pricing as quickly as possible.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I totally get it.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to talk about the best way to give that to them.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But initially, it's a lot of information.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like drinking from a fire hose when you're like, hey, I'm Susie.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a pitch deck about all of the things that I'm capable of and that I can do for you.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Especially when it comes to pricing.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is something nobody wants to watch, be watched while they're finding out about how much something is going to cost.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's overwhelming.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: It can feel really weird.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can have this pressure of like, I need to say this is too expensive.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are like, no, I just need to agree, and then I'll tell them that I need to ask my spouse later.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of ways to weasel your way around this.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to tell you about a moment that this clicked for me, and when I saw somebody do this really well, it happened in a car dealership of all places, which is like the worst place to learn sales tips.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I was buying a car and I was dreading it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But the saleswoman who had uh drawn me that day was honestly one of the best salespeople I have ever worked with.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So much so that the next time I needed a car, which is a whole other story, uh, we called her back, which is one of the highest compliments I can give somebody in a car dealership because normally my experience has been I never want to see you ever again.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what she did that was so smart.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: When it came time to talk numbers, she didn't sit across the table from us and watch us react to the price in real time.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, she said, I've written down the deal I want to offer you and put it in this folder, which can sound a little like I'm gonna write this number down and slide it across the table to you.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it wasn't like that.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: She had just put all of the information together.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, But I'm gonna let the two of you look at these numbers together.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: My husband was with me.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh she said, I'm gonna let the two of you look at these numbers together without me sitting here.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you can have some space to really think about it without feeling any pressure to have a certain reaction in front of me.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be in my office, come find me when you're ready.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And if I haven't heard from you in about an hour, I'm gonna come check in.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: She made sure that we had snacks, she made sure we were good, and she gave us some breathing room.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: She gave us a timeline so we didn't feel abandoned.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like, hey, uh, you guys look at this and then uh I'm gonna go grab lunch and I'll be right back.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: She made the whole thing feel like it was on our terms.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't being closed, we were making a decision independently of how she felt about it.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: When I went home, I started thinking about how to bring that moment into a virtual sales process.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I can't go get them a coke.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can't go and see if they need a snack or tell them I'll be back in an hour to check on them, or things like that.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's when I landed on a two-call close.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Call one is not a pitch.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Call one is a conversation.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Your job on that first call is to get to know them, ask questions, listen more than you talk, be curious about their business, their challenges, what they've already tried.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Think of yourself as a consultant on that call, not a salesperson.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're gathering information and you're building a relationship.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Then you let them go.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: After the call, you send them a loom, which might be my favorite tool of all time.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're just going to walk them through who you are, what you do, and how you can specifically help them based on what they just told you.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's personal, it's on their terms, and they can watch it when they're ready, they can pause it, they can re-watch it, they can forward it to their boss, and they're not sitting across from you trying to manage their reaction to a big number.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: This also gives you time to put extra things in, to customize it if you want to, to add in a case study that's more relevant to them, to really make it something that they will actually connect to and hear you and pay attention to because you're not pitching them on, hey, here's my business.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're pitching them on here so I can help your business.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I do like to do in that first call is set up a second call.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're sending them the loom, you can say, hey, I'm going to be sending you a video.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to walk you through exactly what we do, who we are, and how we can work together, what that pricing will look like, a timeline, et cetera.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd love to schedule a follow-up call to answer any questions that you might have about it.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead and get that on the calendar and then be like, great, I'll have the loom over to you in 24 hours, 48 hours.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't go any longer than that.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I know we're all super busy, but try to make time to put a 10-minute video together so that you can send this to them.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: And this video does not need to be perfect.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, the more natural it feels, the more customized to them, the better your close rate is going to be.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: This second call is going to turn into just a QA.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to be able to answer their questions.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: You can pull up the deck that you shared on that loom together.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to be able to answer anything that felt unclear to them or give them any more details.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You might even be able to upsell them on a couple things and say, totally, that's why we need these extra website pages, or that's why you need this extra part of the package, etc.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great time to wrap up the deal and make sure that everybody's aligned.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have found that most people who show up to that second call are 99% of the way there.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: They just want you to hold their hand, have a contract and invoice ready.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're either going to send it to them while you're on the call or immediately following.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: This really works.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I got a voice message from a coaching client today, actually, that I worked with last year, and she told me she's used this process on every sales call she's had this year so far, and she's only lost one deal this year.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: I on the time that I'm recording this, it's the beginning of April.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is crazy to only have one no in all of Q1.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: That is absolutely amazing.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: When we first started working together, she was pulling out this crazy deck, walking them through everything.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: It took way too long.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: She was getting way too in the weeds.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: She's a designer, and she wanted them to fully buy into her whole process and understand who she was and see her work, etc., because that's how it would feel to her.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: She wanted to see somebody's full work.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, what people wanted to understand is can you customize your process for me?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: What does this have to do with my business?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to learn about her business.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: They wanted to know how it could help theirs.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so what she did in this process, and what you can do in this process is flip the script and make it about their business.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Stop making this a showcase about yours.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people resist this because it feels slower.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're adding a step.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it can feel a little clunky and a little bit different in the sales process.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of my clients have pushed back on me.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: But when they've implemented it, it ends up being a lot more natural and it feels like, oh, I'm solving people's problems instead of just trying to close the deal or make a sale.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a lot more interested in the money I can make long term than forcing a yes on a single call.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: When you give somebody this breathing room, you're not just hovering over them, waiting for them to react to a price.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: So they feel really respected.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So before you rewrite your pitch or lower your prices or raise your prices or make any crazy sweeping gestures, ask yourself, am I trying to do too much on the first call?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Try splitting it in two.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let the first call be human, relational, get to know them, send the loom, and give them space, and then come back for the close.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you want help building out your two call close process, I work with agency owners all the time to help them implement this.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can book a call with me at susiecoli.com.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, sell well.