How to effectively use sales call planning tools

Why just having a call planning tool isn't enough

While having call planning tools isn’t new, how to use them effectively was recently a topic of interest in recent Korn Ferry research.

According to Korn Ferry research, sellers spend almost 20% of their time prospecting and preparing for calls. So, having tools to support these activities isn’t a radical idea. But it’s worth taking a closer look at how effective sellers are at using the tools provided, especially considering that even the world-class segment found room for improvement, with one-quarter indicating that they’re not effectively using their call planning tools.

Figuring out how to use call planning tools effectively requires deliberate and conscious effort. And world-class organizations do just that.

Once a call planning tool is made available to sales professionals, additional planning and thought is required to help them use it effectively. If you don’t put as much effort into this step as you did when selecting the tool, you’re more likely to have poor adoption of the new tool you just rolled out.

3 checkpoints to effectively use your call planning tools

Here are three checkpoints to help sellers use call planning tools to produce the intended outcomes from customer calls and meetings.

1. Are you clear on what you want to accomplish?

Similar to choosing an exercise device, being clear on what you want to accomplish is the first step. This will help determine which tool you need to achieve the desired results. For example, if you want to increase your flexibility, you need a yoga mat and a stretch band; on the other hand, if you want to work on endurance, you might need a treadmill and a good pair of running shoes.

A call planning tool can be as simple as a checklist or as advanced as the latest sales technologies with AI capabilities. Don’t be afraid to be selective and choose what works for you and your team. If you haven’t yet defined standard steps for call preparation, start with a simple checklist.

Introducing the latest sales technology without a clearly defined call preparation process that your sales team will use consistently only results in poor adoption. On the other hand, if you have a well-defined process and are looking to automate and scale in support of your growing sales organization, it makes sense to look at the available sales technologies.

When selecting a call planning tool, don’t forget to look at the user experience holistically: how it will fit into your current workflow, whether it’s available on a mobile app and integrated with your CRM, whether it provides anything new that’s of value to your salespeople and whether it improves the customer experience when engaging with your team. Being clear on what you want to achieve will help you select the tool that fits your needs.

2. Have you decided when you will use the call planning tool?

Buyers expect salespeople to be prepared for any interaction. And, with an average sales cycle of more than five months and an average of five decision makers per opportunity, your sales teams could be engaging in dozens of calls just to close one opportunity. So, acknowledge up front that not all sales calls require the same level of planning. Some might be quick meetings with an existing internal champion, while others might involve multiple stakeholders, each with their own desired outcomes that your salespeople need to address.

Be thoughtful in determining which sales calls require documented planning, whether in a template or by using sales tech that integrates with your CRM. If salespeople are spending 20% of their time on call planning, being selective on when to use the call planning tool will help ensure that they’re using their time wisely instead of completing a form for every single call.

3. How do you plan to use the call planning tool?

What you get from using the call planning tool depends on how you use it. Are you being mindful of the results that you want to get and purposeful in the steps you take to achieve those results with the tool’s help? Going back to the exercise scenario, how you use the stretch bands makes a difference in whether you achieve your goal of being more flexible. If you stretch the bands halfheartedly and not all the way, there’s a limit to the level of flexibility you can achieve.

Let’s see how this might apply to a call planning tool. You have a complex deal with multiple stakeholders. As an outcome of your next sales call, you want to drive alignment and agreement on the main business issues these stakeholders are trying to resolve. To date, you’ve met with each of the stakeholders and are aware of the business issues each has identified — many of which are not the same. You already have notes on your key contacts in your CRM and may even have an opportunity or account plan started.

You can decide to use the call planning tool to consolidate available information and identify additional gaps, or you can grumble and complain as you cut and paste text from your CRM or the plan you started elsewhere into the call planning template. If you choose the former approach, you can use the call planning tool to help aggregate and clarify what the real business issues are, understand stakeholder dynamics (to invite the right people to the meeting) and pull together content to drive the right discussions. If you choose the latter approach, you may miss the opportunity to identify gaps that you didn’t see before and go into the meeting unprepared.

World-class organizations pay close attention to the what, when and how — the key components to ensuring that sellers use your call planning tool to produce the desired outcomes from their sales calls.

These organizations are clear on what they want to use the call planning tool for, as they know what they want to achieve by using the tool and have chosen one that fits their needs. And they’re selective about when they use it and also make a conscious effort around how to use it so they can get the outcome both they and their customer want from the sales call.

Additional questions to answer about call planning tools

• How will a call planning tool help you and your sales teams?
• Do you have a list of criteria to help sellers determine which calls or meetings require them to use a call planning tool?
• What other things might you need to consider to make a call planning tool part of your sales workflow?

If you want to learn more about call planning tools and becoming a best in class sales organization, contact us here.