The document discusses preferences between in-person and phone sales presentations, emphasizing the benefits of face-to-face interactions and the challenges of phone communication. Based on a study by Gong, it outlines five data-backed tips to enhance phone sales effectiveness, including maintaining a good talk-to-listen ratio, discussing pricing strategically, and asking targeted questions. Additionally, it highlights the importance of interpreting prospect responses and using collaborative language to improve win rates.

1. by: Rebecca Matias
Marketing Director
Callbox Inc. (www.callboxinc.com)

2. Let’s start off today’s post with a quick poll. When doing sales
presentations, which format do you prefer: in person or over the
phone?
My experience tells me that salespeople tend to be evenly split
on this one , but they somewhat lean slightly toward meeting
prospects in person.Face-to-face meetings let sales folks put their
people skills to use and allow more time for conversing with the
prospect. More importantly, in-person presentations enable
salespeople to read prospects and get to know them even better
from visual cues.
When you’re meeting prospects face-to-face, it’s fairly easy to
get a feel for how interested (or disinterested) they really are. Once
a prospect slumps down onto the chair with eyes wandering and
chin resting on one hand, these are dead giveaways you’re losing
your prospect’s attention—and that you better
switch gears or risk blowing up the deal.

3. You obviously won’t get this level of visual feedback
during phone-based presentations. Sales meetings done over
the phone only provide salespeople verbal clues on whether or
not a prospect is really into your conversation.
That’s a huge information gap, considering that 93% of
communication is nonverbal.
Still, phone presentations play a key role in the selling
process. There’s just no substitute for the convenience and
efficiency that phone calls deliver. In some cases, for example,
the telephone remains the most viable option for many
companies that can’t afford their own field sales team or
businesses whose target prospects are too far away.

4. That’s why it’s crucial to refine your phone-based
presentation strategy. Conventional sales wisdom offers a ton
of useful advice on substance and delivery that you should
definitely pay attention to. But data to support (or disprove)
these best practices are hard to come by—until now.
The data scientists at Gong, an AI-enabled language
platform for improving sales team performance, crunched the
numbers from over 25,500 sales calls earlier this year. Their
analysis found some surprising things about many of the sales
profession’s time-honored calling tactics. Among other
findings, they uncovered several qualities that the best sales
calls have in common.
Here’s a rundown of five actionable tips based on Gong’s
study that you can (and should) apply to improve results from
your phone-based sales presentations:

5. 1) Listen 1.3 times more than you talk
This is prospecting 101,
but salespeople seem to
have forgotten this lesson.
Gong’s research finds that
the average sales rep takes
up 65% to 75% of the total
call time with prospects.
Even more importantly, the study reveals that talk-to-listen
ratio impacts win rates:
The ideal talk-to-listen ratio for the most productive sales calls is
43:57.
Increasing the prospect’s talk time from 22% to 33% significantly
improves opportunity win rates.
The numbers speak for themselves. Let your
prospects do more of the talking. Just listen.

6. Gong’s analysis also uncovers a
strong correlation between the
number of times pricing came up
in a sales call and the likelihood of
closing the deal. They find the
sweet spot to be between 3 and 4
times:
2) Talk about price 3 to 4 times, but
build value first
When reps mention pricing less than three times or more than
four times in any given call, win rates decline.
If price comes up three or four times in a call, that’s a buying
signal.

7. Moreover, there’s the right time to talk about price in a
sales call. High-yielding sales calls tend to bring up price-
related discussions around the 40- to 49-minute mark. This
indicates that top-performing reps build value before talking
about price, while low-performing and average reps mention
pricing throughout the call.

8. 3) Ask (11 to 14 questions) and you
shall receive
In another analysis (this time
involving 519,000 sales calls), Gong’s
data science team concludes that
there’s a clear relationship between
the number of questions a rep
asks and his chances of closing the
deal.
Asking 15 to 18 questions during a call is “only marginally more
effective” than asking 7 to 10 questions.
The most productive sales reps ask 11 to 14 questions in a sales call.
So, what type of questions should a rep ask? The research also
identifies that questions about your prospect’s
business pain points exert the most impact
on win rates. Elementary.

9. 4) Distinguish between caution and
hesitation
Needless to say, prospects’ responses indicate a sales
call’s likely outcome. But some remarks appear to be more telling
than others, particularly the following replies to timeline questions:
Responses that indicate caution can imply that your
prospect is seriously considering your offer. Responses
that suggest hesitation, on the other hand,
can mean a lack of interest.
If a prospect uses “probably” in a
response like “…probably in 2 weeks”, the
forecasted time horizon is 73% accurate.
Answers that resemble “”We need to
figure out…” are negatively correlated with
win rates.

10. Every sales rep knows that their style and tone matter as
much as the message itself. Gong’s findings seem to support this
idea. Some specific words and phrases apparently influence a
rep’s chances of closing the deal.
5) Use language that embraces and
soothes
Top-performing reps are 10 times
more likely to emphasize
collaboration than low performers.
The most productive salespeople
are 5 times more likely to use words
and phrases that focus on
mitigating risk than other reps.
In other words, reps who focus on
collaboration and inspire confidence tend
to close the most number of deals.

11. So there you have it, five practical ways to improve
phone-based sales presentations backed by solid data. Most
of you are probably already following some variations of
these best practices, and the study findings cited here only
serve to vindicate your calling methods. The most important
results, of course, are those generated by your own
campaigns. What other tips and tricks do you apply that are
supported by hard numbers?
The Takeaway

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