5 Reasons Why You’re Bombing Sales Calls

Tired of bombing sales calls? Let me ask you a personal question, how many sales calls have you bombed?

Me? I couldn’t even tell you how many sales calls I bombed… so many times I would get on the phone with a lead, full of hope and optimism, and by the end of the call, I would feel defeated because I just knew they weren’t going to sign on.

I failed sales call after sales call… until I didn’t anymore.

When you’re trying to sell a high-priced item like a website (re)design, you can’t just get on the phone, cross your fingers, and hope your charming personality wins them over.

Sales call as a web designer require planning and strategy. Without those two things you’re almost guaranteeing that you never sign a client (or at least one that pays well AND isn’t a pain in the ass to work with.)

Let me help you out a bit by telling you the 5 main reasons why you’re bombing your sales calls.

Reasons why you’re bombing sales calls

You Care TOO Much

A lead comes in through your email, your CRM platform, your website’s contact form, social media, or some other method that a business owner could reach you on. They reached out to you so you’re all giddy with excitement because clearly if they picked you from the thousands of other web designers out there, they must already know they want to work with you, right?

And because you just know they want to work with you, you start to care so much about landing the client. You start to depend on that money coming in because you already feel like it’s yours. Confidence is oozing out of your ears because you can visualize the money in your bank already.

Don’t get me wrong, visualizing the money in your bank account is good. The confidence is great. But if you think that client is already yours before even getting on the sales call with them, I’m sorry to break it to you but you’re wrong.

When you start to care too much and start depending on that money coming in, the pressure is so high. At times it’s too high and that causes you to not be your charming self on the sales call. Instead, you’re too focused on doing things just right that you’re balancing on a thin line of everything going totally wrong.

Now I’m not telling you to just not care. That wouldn’t be good either. But don’t depend on that income from the get-go. You’ll be much more relaxed and the sales call will be more fluid and less tense!

Don’t Know the REAL Problem

Sometimes you’ll get on a sales call and the lead will understand the importance of having a website. They’ll understand how having a website can help them grow their business. But other times you’ll get on a sales call and the lead won’t understand this. Or you’ll get on a sales call and they’ll understand that having a website is a normal business practice but they won’t think of it as something they need to invest in right then.

If at the end of a sales call, the lead isn’t ready to sign on with you then you didn’t explain to them how having a website could fix the problem they’re experiencing. Maybe you explained to them how a website could bring in more traffic but their problem isn’t getting the traffic to their website – instead, their problem is turning that traffic into leads. You spoke to the wrong problem NOT the REAL problem.

You’re GIVING AWAY Too Much Information

What is the purpose of a sales call? It’s definitely not to tell the lead exactly how to build a website. It’s also definitely not a time to tell the lead exactly what you’re going to do for them when you build them a website. Let’s dissect those two points!

Sales Calls are Not a Time to Tell a Lead How to Build a Website

Leads come to you for a reason – because they feel like they need or want someone to design and build a website. If you give them too much information on how to design or build a website, they may start to believe that they can do it themselves. Giving away too much information on how to process can quite literally make people NOT want to sign on with you because hey if you’re making it sound so easy then they can probably just do it themselves.

Sales Calls are Not a Time to Tell a Lead Everything You’ll Do for Them

Overwhelm is a real thing and you don’t want to contribute to that on a sales call. There is a fine line between not telling a lead enough about what you’ll do for them and telling them way too much. Giving too much information away can cause a lead to get overwhelmed. They may even start to believe that working with you would also be overwhelming. Keep the amount of information you share at an appropriate level so leads want to work with you!

It is You All Over the Place

Do you have a sales script? If not, there’s a chance that you’re all over the place when it comes to questions to ask and the order to ask them in. Being all over the place during your sales calls can cause your lead to become overwhelmed and confused. You also risk not asking the right questions to pinpoint the leads to exact problems.

Asking the WRONG Questions

This leads to the next reason why you’re bombing sales calls… you’re asking the wrong questions! In order to land a client, you need to ask the right questions so you can get the right answers from the lead.

Example of the wrong type of question to ask: “What do you want on your website?”

Example of the right type of question to ask: “What are your business goals for the next year?”

Recap

If you’re struggling to go from taking a lead through a sales call to turning them into a paying client, odds are you doing one (or more) of these five things wrong:

1. You care too much
2. You don’t know the real problem.
3. You’re giving away too much information
4. You’re all over the place
5. You’re asking the wrong questions

Sales calls are a skill that you can 100% master with a bit of practice so if you don’t quite have the hang of them yet, don’t get discouraged! Practice, practice, practice, and you’ll be turning leads into paying clients in no time!