When you are making a first sales call, you are pre-framing the fabric of a human relationship. There are few events in the selling experience that can match the excitement or anticipation of a first sales call. It is the first step in creating a new opportunity for you and your company. A winning sales call is the culmination of excellent planning and flawless execution. Here are five characteristics to a winning first sales call that you can focus on to help you master the art of the process:

You Design the Call
Write the words, "A Winning Sales Call on __________", in the center of a sheet of paper. Fill in the name of the prospect and their company in the blank. Draw a circle around those words and draw 5 small lines emanating from the circle. At the end of each line write a major topic you plan to cover in the call. They might be words like, "our people", "our equipment", "our services", "our history" and "major questions that can lead me to a sale". You could take the major topics from a corporate brochure if you want. Sometimes, it is easier to recall the pictures from a well-designed brochure in the middle of your presentation. Below each main topic write 3 key phrases to remind you of what you would like to tell the prospect or ask them in each section. Show it to your sales manager or another salesperson to make sure you have covered the true highlights of what is the unique value that your company can create for the prospect. Preparing in this way for a first sales call can change everything for you. It is the preparation step that will distinguish you as a professional. Highlight each main topic in a different color hilighter and then move to the next step.

Visualize Making the Call in its Entirety
Using your circular diagram, begin to use your main topics and key phrases to visualize what the sales call looks like in your mind. Since the main topics and key phrases came from you, your brain will use its own shorthand to construct the pictures required for this step. How will you look? How will the prospect look? How will you feel? How will you be making the other person feel? You should place the very best feelings and responses on you and the prospect. Ask your mind to do that for you. It will do a better job than you can. See your head shaking up and down in a positive and reassuring way. See the prospect responding to you in kind. Do not concern yourself with what the person or office looks like. Your brain will create both of these details for you, and you will replace the circumstances with reality when the event occurs. This step is a main key in reducing anxiety or nervousness about making a first call on someone you have never met before. If your mind has already made the call, then you are just repeating something your mind is convinced has already occurred. Once you have created an entire visualization in your mind, you are ready to rehearse the call.

You Rehearse the Call
You now have a plan for what you want to say and a picture of how you want to say it. Your mind already believes the event has occurred. It is time to rehearse. When I make a keynote speech, I do this in front of the wet bar in my basement. I even use the same type of diagram. When I sold printing, I rehearsed my sales calls there. Message? Find a mirror if you can. Using the prepared diagram, deliver the sales call into the mirror. It doesn't have to be a long drawn out affair. It just has to give you the opportunity to see how you look with the message. If you want to try a new way of saying something or a new way to punctuate something, this is a great place to practice. Remember, if you believe what you are saying, your prospect is likely to believe it as well. Many times, it is how we say what we say that makes all the difference. If there is no way to get in front of a mirror, then put your notes on the front seat of your car as you are driving and deliver your message to the driving public. You have probably seen some of my students on the highway. They are the ones giving the meaningful expressions and speeches to an empty car. The main point here is to practice out loud to create the sounds your brain needs to truly believe that this is old hat. Once you are happy with what you are saying and how you are saying it, you are ready to go sell something.

You Make the Sales Call
If you are driving to your first sales call on someone, play music on the sound system that makes you feel excitement. It could be a military march or Led Zeppelin. Listen to whatever gets you pumped. If anxiety is a problem before a first sales call, play ocean sounds and think about all the vacations you can take with the money you are about to make. Whatever you do, get into a mental state makes you feel "on top". Go make your sales call and keep your diagram inside of a folder so you don't forget any points. Make sure you cover everything you came to deliver as effectively as you did in your preparation steps. In my tape series, The Art & Science of PRINTING SALES, I give you mountains of ways to walk out of your first call with a selling opportunity. If you want the insights, you should listen to them. Your brain will be on automatic pilot, so take notes during the call to make sure you remember the salient points of the meeting.

You Critique the Call
Congratulations! If you followed the first four steps, you just made one of the better first sales calls you have ever made. I salute you. For anyone who thinks that this kind of preparation is unnecessary, just try it once on your next sales call. You don't even have to call me to let me know how well you did. The secret is that all high-earning salespeople already use some variation of these methods to make sure that every sales call counts. You should be doing the same. Winners do one more thing. They critique their work. Don't ever become so confident that you believe your sales call skills cannot be improved. That kind of thinking is limiting at the very least. Take five minutes to review the sales call. How did it go? What did I learn of importance? How must I follow up? What did I do well? What do I need to work on? Answering these questions can change your success rate for the better.

A first-rate sales person knows the power of the skills they possess. Don't waste any of yours. Using these methods, you can become a master at delivering the sales call and the sales.