How a Well Structured Sales Call Leads to More Closed Deals

Overview: Matt Wolach teaches why you need to structure a sales call and how to execute the perfect sales call. 

About the speaker: Matt Wolach works with founders and leaders in B2B SaaS companies to transform their product demo and sales process into one that attracts and emotionally compels buyers to purchase.

Transcript

​​As part of his roles as an executive, he has demoed many products for his teams use. There, watching a product demo of a solution he was investigating. But the demo was done by a SaaS founder, who although he was nice, clearly didn’t understand sales and he hadn’t been trained on the finer points of selling software. He didn’t understand how to effectively bridge the gap and deliver a demo that creates a strong positive emotional response from a prospect. Matt comes in to help tech companies structure sales calls.

Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Demand Gen Summit. I am thrilled and delighted to be here with you today. Demand Gen. Obviously, is talking a lot about generating leads. And that is fantastic. You need to do that. But today we’re going to talk about closing deals and really how a well structured sales call is going to lead to more close deals. I’m Matt Wolach, I’m with xsellus. We do sales coaching to kind of help people make sure that they are understanding how they can close more deals, that’s really what we focus on. So we don’t have a lot of time, let’s jump right to it. 

First, a little bit about me, I am a sales coach, I help people all around the world really understand how they can get better at sales, how they can close more deals, how they can grow their companies. So first and foremost, I’m a family guy, I really love my beautiful, beautiful wife, she takes great care of me make sure that I do everything I need to do. And my two little girls who are super, super sweet to me. I am so proud of what happens in the SAAS world, the sauce, the software world as it were, we’re going to talk about sales in general today. But I really love my software people. So any of you out there who are software people, we’re going to focus on general sales, but just know that I’m there for you. software is where it is at.   

So I’ve done thousands of demos. Through my career, I’ve given thousands of demos, I’ve coached on thousands of demos, when it comes to demos or even sales calls. I’ve done it, I’ve seen it, I even advise companies on how they can structure their sales calls, how they can build out their sales calls. And why do I do this, I always think it’s important to put out why you do something. Well, I’ve been a software founder, I’ve founded a few companies, I know what it’s like to go through early struggles to try and figure out how you’re going to sell this product that you built.  

And you’re so proud of your product, and you really want to make it happen. But it’s very difficult in those early stages. In fact, I went through several struggles myself, it’s not easy to figure out how to sell or to figure out how to sell within the software world. And so my personal life, I help software foundersaround the world get past that early struggle phase, it took me years to figure out exactly what I was doing.   

Eventually, what I did was I came up with a process, I realized that what I was doing was trying to pick and choose different pieces, different aspects of sales from this book, or, or that guru or that video I just saw on YouTube. It was difficult, it wasn’t working. So I realized, you have to have the exact process for how to structure a deal. How to structure all the way through. I couldn’t really find that.  I came up with it, it’s called the perfect deal process,   

the perfect deal process. Now this is what I do is I take that process. And I coach software founders on how to implement that process into their businesses. So they can grow, they can scale, and they can do it really, really responsibly. So what is the perfect deal process, we’re going to touch on that here. And we’ll dive into it a little bit more that D E A L that stands for something.  

So the first one the D is discover, you have to be able to discover to learn about your prospects. And then you need to educate them, there are certain things that educating them will do to help you close more deals. And so we’re going to talk about what those are, I’m going to give those to you. So from discover, to educate, then A is for associate, once you’ve discovered all about them, once you’ve educated them a bit, you need to be able to associate your product, your solution to their needs, their pain, their goals, we’re going to talk about that. And then you need to be able to lead as the person who is guiding the sales process, you should do exactly that. lead the conversation lead the process. It is your process. I’m going to show you today, how that can happen.   

Now, as you can see the way everything’s structured in the perfect deal process, it’s got a nice little let’s see go going up here it’s looking real good. That’s what will happen. If you can do this correctly. If you can make sure to implement and execute the perfect deal process. You’re going to be able to close more deals and your chart is going to be looking up. So let’s get some more sales in the door. Well, first of all, why do you want to structure your sales calls? Why do you want to structure those calls those demos? Well, it’s really Important.   

First of all, you want to prevent wasted leads, you work so hard. And my guess is if you’re a founder, you put a lot of effort into building your product into making it something that’s special, you saw a need somewhere, you saw that there was a problem that you could solve. And so you built a product. My guess is you put a lot of process and framework into building out the product. But then you said, Hey, well, I hope somebody hears about us, how are they going to know about us?  

And so you probably came up with some processes for marketing, and you put out some marketing and you did some work on your own, you’re hustling, maybe you did a few ads. And so you put some money, you put some time into it. But then let’s say you get something, you get a fish on the line, you get something grabbing the hook, and somebody says, Okay, I’m interested, I saw your marketing, what do you got?  

Well, if you haven’t done anything on the sales side, if you haven’t set up a structure, to be able to take that lead, make sure you get them into a call, make sure that call is absolutely amazing. And you emotionally grab them, and they say, Yes, I’ve got to have this, if you don’t have that structure in place. And then if you don’t know how you’re going to progress through the final stages and close the deal. Well, that’s just like wasting all of those leads all that money, all that time you’ve put into generating that lead, gone. And I love this gif here, it’s like Here comes the lead coming in the door. And it’s toast.  

So please make sure you’re structuring your sales process as a whole and your sales calls, in particular, your demos, make sure that you have an exact method of going through the call.  

Well, second of all, I should say, what it’s going to happen is you’re going to be able to demonstrate expertise. If you’re able to take control and structure the call, well, the the prospects, they’re going to love it, they’re going to see that and say, Wow, this is really good. And if this person is doing this, if they’re taking control, if they’re confident in what they’re doing, they must be an expert. So it shows you know what you’re talking about, it shows that you are the experts. Now a few things are going to happen when you show that you’re an expert.  

First, they’re going to want to know more, they’re going to want to learn from you, they’re going to believe in you, they’re going to trust you. But it’s also something where they’re going to feel like they want you as an advisor. People want experts on their side, if you’re growing a company, if you’re doing anything you want to improve, you want to know who knows what’s going on. And so if you can prove that you’re the expert, Wow, good things are going to happen for you. So structure sales calls, you’re going to be able to demonstrate that expertise, they’re going to see that you make Wow, they know what they’re doing.  

Okay, number three. Number three is it gets you what you need. When you go through the proper structure, you make sure you’re not gonna miss anything, you’re going to be able to get that qualification information, you’re going to be able to educate your buyers, you’re gonna be able to show your product the right way. And you’ll be able to set up the next steps. So you’ll know exactly what’s going to happen, the prospect will know what’s going to happen, and you’ll be able to close some deals.  

So it’s super, super important. And by the way, when you do it all like that your prospect is absolutely going to love it. Think about it. If you’re going to buy something and the person that you’re buying from, they don’t really know what’s going on and they kind of just like, wow, I don’t know what kind of wishy washy to kind of jump around, it’s chaotic and it’s hectic. that’s frustrating. If you’re buying something you don’t want that but if they say okay, here’s what’s going to happen and then I’m going to show you this I’m going to make sure you get this taken care of and make sure I do this for you. that feels so much better. So your buyers, they’re going to love it. So make sure you structure because it’s going to get you what you need.   

another one, it’s going to feel better for them. They want you to take control, they want you to take the lead, it gives them clear framing, clear guidance, they know what’s going to happen. And every now and then that prospect gets out of line. It’s totally okay to take the lead, take charge. It is your sales process. So I like a firm but friendly attitude. Okay, so you don’t have to do it as a jerk. You don’t have to be mean about it. firm but friendly is a nice way to follow close.io says this really nicely. While prospects don’t want to be strong armed into a deal. Neither do they want to work with unopinionated doormats. It’s very true, it’s frustrating if the seller doesn’t know what they’re doing.  

So if you’re selling, make sure that you’re taking control, it’s going to feel better for your buyers. The other reason why you want to do it, it’s going to close more deals. When you do it this way you handle everything that we just talked about. If you’re doing all of that, you are going to close a lot more deals, that structure is going to lead to more revenue, more money in your pocket.   

The other great piece about it, this is scalable. Once you have a structure, once you have that process set, and it’s clearly defined, you know what’s happening at every stage, bingo, you can scale now you can bring someone else in, they go through the process, here’s another, here’s another. So I know it’s going to make it so much easier for you to grow.  

Okay, so putting a structure in place before you dial is like empowering yourself with GPS to collaborate, to calibrate the best route to get to your desired destination cloud test said that really, really beautifully. So please make sure you have that structure in place, and that you’re taking control the calls. But wait, what about this, we’ve always been told the customer is always right. Isn’t that true? No, that is wrong. The customer is not always right. I get this question a lot from my clients. They say, Well, actually, this time I’m talking to a fortune 100.  

They’re a big company, I should just probably just do what they want to do. Don’t do that. Okay. I asked them I asked my clients, whenever they say that, let me ask you. How many times has that fortune 100 company that contact gone through your sales process? Well, none. This is the first time Okay, how many times have you gone through your sales process? Well, hundred, 200, 500, 1000. There’s your answer, you’ve gone through the process many times they have never done it take control, you take the lead, you make it happen. Okay, the customer is not always right. That’s a fish tail. 

All right, the makings of a great demo. Now this is good. I want to go through this really quickly. This also applies I said before, it applies to a great sales call as well. I know I want to make sure I fit this in. So let’s go through this quickly. You need structure, you need content, and you need delivery. Well, you do need all three of those things. Because if you only have structure and content with no idea how to deliver it, it’s going to be boring. If you only have structure and delivery with no content, it’s empty.  

And what we’re talking about today, if you only have content and delivery, but no structure, it’s going to be chaos, it’s going to be chaotic, that’s yucky. So you do need all three of those. Now, we are only talking about structure today. But I work with my clients on all of these. And they’re all very, very important. So make sure you have them. In fact, when you get all three of these, that’s the magic right there in the middle of the diagram.   

And I want you to do a real quick self assessment with yourself. For each of these structure, content delivery, make sure you give yourself a red, yellow, green, red, if you don’t have it, or you don’t do it, well yellow if it’s there, but it’s not quite great. And green. If you’re doing it really, really well. That’s going to give you a really good understanding of where you need to focus. So give that little self assessment right now or at the end of this presentation. And then you can know what to work on.   

So how do you structure a sales call or a demo? Well, there’s four steps to doing it. Number one, don’t skip discovery. Discovery is the most important product part of the entire process. It’s really where you’re going to be able to gain a good understanding of all the things that you need to know about your prospect. You need to know their pain and what’s going on their challenges. You need to understand their goals, where do they want to be? And it is for qualification as well.  

It’s not just to serve your own purposes, but you do need to know Are they a fit for you, you do not want to be bringing in any bad clients that would be ugly, ugly. So make sure that you’re getting this information. There is a lot more we can dive into and discovery that I’m not able to do today because of time. But there is some very important stuff but this gets you the big stuff. So pain, get the goals. Make sure they’re a fit.   

Number two, step two, you need to educate your buyer. But on what what do you educate? I’m glad you asked. Because you need to educate on four things according to Forrester, first, a company history. Why and how was the company founded? This is very important. You want to make sure you’re connecting on a high level so that they know why the company even came to be. They don’t want to be thinking Are you Don’t want them thinking about the company as this big corporate money grabbing thing. But more of a founding story, there was a problem, we needed to solve that problem.  

That’s why we’re here. You also need to tell them about you, people buy from people, it’s very important for you to be able to explain who you are, and why you care so much about what this is your product or solution, why are you doing this? Very, very important, and they will be drawn to you, they will be attracted to you, if you can show them why you also make sure to share relevant case studies, other customer stories, things that are applicable based on this customer. And then also a big industry shift a cultural shift, something major that’s happening, that’s something that you want to be able to educate them on. So you can get them to understand they need your product. So educate your buyer really, really good,   

you then want to associate your solution, really understand which pain points that your customers might have, that your market has, are solved by which pieces of your solution. So if they have a pain pain, a it’s solved by solution a pain B by solution B and pain c by solution See, really important, because if they say it in discovery, you’ve got to be able to show it to them and explain how you’re going to solve it. And this is what it is, you can’t just show them the feature, you need to make sure to remind them of the pain because they’ll forget it through all your presentation, you’re doing all this stuff, they’re gonna forget it.  

So make sure you say something like, Hey, remember, you said you were struggling with efficiency. We’ll watch this. That’s really really good, that’s gonna grab it in their mind, they’re gonna say, wow, I get it solution covers the pain Got it really helpful.   

And then you need to lead to the close. Assume the sale, one of the best things you can do. Remember, the prospect wants to be led, so be that leader go over the next steps, just assume the sale. This is said really, really well by Thomas Phelps. The wonderful thing about the assumptive closing technique is that it is very low pressure. Instead of trying to convince a prospect to do something you assume that they want to and agree with moving forward. This only works if you’ve done your job thoroughly and each sales step and have the right to assume the sale. So not just at the very end, can you say some magic words and the clothes, you’ve got to make sure to do something at every step. That’s why your sales process that’s why the structure is so critical.   

Okay, so to recap, there are four steps to a well structured sales call, do not skip out on Discovery. So, so important, make sure to educate the buyer associate your solution to their pain and their goals, and then lead to the close. Okay, you do those things, it’s gonna work out great. In fact, let me show you how great let’s do a case study. Real quick.   

I want to tell you about Greg Gregory students from planless.io really cool product. By the way, it does amazing things. It basically plans out your entire work. It’s really, really slick, take a look at it. But he was one of my clients. And he had this to say before he started, I had lots of leads, but very few closed. I didn’t know why he was frustrated. I saw it in his eyes, I could hear in his voice. So we went through the training. He learned the perfect deal process. He learned the structure, he implemented it, he worked hard to make it happen. And guess what? Greg was a success. He quadrupled his close rates just like that. He said in two or three weeks, he closed his biggest deal ever two or three weeks.  

That’s all it takes. Once you learn the structure, once you learn exactly how to do it, bingo, you close deals. He also saw 273% revenue increase. It was incredible. Greg said it was the best decision ever to implement this process. So kudos to Greg and this is the type of stuff that we see all the time when you have the right structure. It just works.   

Okay, when you structure your calls, they’re going to be much more efficient. Your prospects are going to enjoy it and trust you more. And you’re going to be more confident to go along with the deals that you will close. It’s awesome. It’s so much fun. Now we have a SAAS sales founders coaching program. So any founders who are in software if you like, I have a coaching program specifically for you. It allows you to kind of learn the roadmap and bypass get a shortcut past all the yucky struggles trying to learn what to do all the trial and error. It makes it really really easy. I have a coaching program that shows you exactly how to do it. Copy, paste, put it in, boom, you’re off and running. 

 Now if you want to join you can join If you join within a week, you’re going to get two bonus one on one sessions directly with me, I will work with you to make sure that you get to where you need to be. If you want to sign up, it’s very easy. Just go to SAASsalesmastery.com there’s the website, SAASsalesmastery.com. Go there, you do need to talk with us go and book a call, we’ll chat with you. We’ll figure out if you’re a fit or not. We want to make sure that you’re going to fit and it’s going to work for you. And then if it does, we’ll get you started, you’ll be off and running.   

So I hope this helps structure your sales calls follow this process, and I think you’re going to see a lot of great results. If you want to know more, go ahead and hit that up SAASsalesmastery.com. I will teach you I will show you exactly how to put in each of those pieces into your process. But that is all we have for today. So thank you for coming to my presentation. Thank you for coming to the Demand Gen Summit. And I will see you later. Take care.