Checklist for an Effective Sales Pitch:

• Your salespeople must be prepared. In addition to conducting industry and client research, they must prepare for the sales process. In other words, they must know what questions they are going to ask to move the sale forward, not just questions about the technical aspects of their prospect’s current position or status. Your salespeople have to anticipate the suspect's answers to those questions and be prepared with their follow-up dialog. Too many salespeople take this step for granted, thinking, "I've been in the business for __ years." They also need to be prepared for the prospect’s questions and how to respond to them. Finally, they have to be ready for curveballs and know how to handle them. Prospects always throw them, and when salespeople are unprepared, they will usually miss the opportunity to score. As a coach, this pre-call time is essential. You should have time on your calendar devoted to reviewing significant opportunity pre-call plans with all of your salespeople. Download our Pre-Call Strategy Checklist.

• Your salespeople must identify clearly what their preferred outcome is. In the book Getting to Yes, the authors explain how defining a preferred outcome helps guide salespeople through any meeting. In selling, and specifically for the initial call, most salespeople define the objective of the first call as "to get a second call." We challenge you, as a sales coach, to help your salespeople understand precisely who their target audience is and to work to disqualify prospects instead of trying to qualify them. If salespeople focus more on finding qualified opportunities, they will waste less time on prospects who are not going to buy from them. So, one aspect of an effective sales pitch is not pitching to unqualified prospects!

• Salespeople have to demonstrate their credibility and value, not by what they say, but by how they conduct themselves. They must be different, and they will do this by the questions they ask, by their focus on the prospect and what is important to them, and by their reluctance to get into a sales pitch too early. Salespeople should demonstrate their knowledge of the industry through stories, analogies, and metaphors, especially by relating how they have helped others in similar situations with effective solutions. They also showcase professionalism by asking penetrating questions and by how they don't look, act, or sound like every other salesperson that has met with this executive. As a sales coach using this checklist for effective sales pitches, how do your salespeople rank in demonstrating their value and credibility? Make sure you listen and help them develop in this area.

• Salespeople have to have the courage to ask the tough questions and have honest and sometimes difficult discussions. Your salespeople should prepare to have initial calls asking tough questions like:

  • "When you told your current provider that you were unhappy with the current situation and you were shopping to replace them, what did they say?"
  • "How will you make this decision?"
  • "When do I meet the decision-maker?"
  • "If you don't have a budget, then how will you pay for this?"
  • "If you are shopping for the lowest price, what happens if I show up and I'm not the lowest price?"
  • "When I show up to make my presentation, I need for you to be in a position to tell me ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ What objections do you have to that process?"

• Salespeople need to leave their need for approval at the door when they leave the house or office in the morning. A strong leader can help them rewrite their mindset about how people buy in your industry. We all have a desire to be liked, to gain approval, and to feel a sense of camaraderie with our prospects and clients, but it can get in the way—especially if that need for approval is so strong that a salesperson cannot ask tough questions about budget and the current provider. As a sales coach, it is your job to practice these tough conversations with your salespeople. When they come back from a sales pitch and say, “I think they really liked what we presented,” ask them what that means exactly. Did they get a defined next step? What did they say about the decision-making process, etc.? Salespeople who have effective sales pitches on a regular basis recognize but manage their own need for approval and do not allow it to get in the way.

• Salespeople must follow a defined sales process to have consistent sales meetings that turn into effective sales pitches and then into long-term relationships. An effective selling system will guide a salesperson to fully uncover:

  • Does the prospect have compelling reasons to take action quickly? How much is the problem costing them?
  • Will they invest the time, money, and resources to solve a problem they have or the problem they see coming? Will they invest that time, money, or those resources in a timely fashion, or are they in the information-gathering mode?
  • What is the decision-making process exactly?
  • Will they move on from their current provider? Tip: Ask them to verbalize what they would say to the incumbent.
  • Will they be prepared to tell the salesperson “Yes” or “No” when the solution is presented? This is an agreed-upon step to avoid the “think it over” response.

• Salespeople have to close. That does not always mean closing the sale, but it does mean closing this step and securing a clear next step. There is always a next step, even if your salespeople are in a "one-appointment close" business. When salespeople master this step, they will have fewer meetings, and their close ratio will improve. Here are three strong closing questions that we recommend you practice with your salespeople:

  • "Do you think I understand your problem/challenge?"
  • "Do you believe I can help you with your problem/challenge?"
  • "Do you want my help?"

Want your salespeople to have more success? Follow this checklist for effective sales pitches!

These are the 10 top sales skills identified by OMG that measure the selling capabilities necessary to successfully find and guide potential customers through the sales process:

1. Hunting: Proactively and consistently look for new business by reaching out to targeted prospects.

2. Reach Decision Makers: Find a way to reach the person responsible for deciding to purchase the products or services offered, even at the risk of seeming "pushy."

3. Relationship Builder: Nurture and develop strong relationships by proactively and consistently talking with a customer until they become a friend.

4. Consultative Seller: Uncover compelling reasons for prospects and customers to buy from them by using active listening skills to ask good, tough, and timely questions.

5. Sells Value: Position themselves as a trusted advisor and provide the customer with crucial solutions unavailable elsewhere.

6. Effective at Qualifying: Ask about everything that could possibly derail an opportunity before determining that it is fully qualified.

7. Presentation Approach: Is very thoughtful about what to present, when to present, and to whom it should be presented.

8. Closing: Get a verbal agreement in advance of the expected closing call or meeting, and be certain of getting a decision.

9. Sales Process: Have a formal, staged, milestone-centric sales process that provides repeatable, predictable results.

10. Sales Technology: Daily user of CRM, frequent user of LinkedIn, and a regular user of video for sales calls and meetings.

Taking a deep dive into one of these top sales skills—Consultative Selling: How skilled are your bankers and agents at listening and questioning? Do they ask enough questions, the right questions, the tough questions? The Consultative Selling Competency means that your salespeople are doing a great job of listening and asking questions. Not only do they believe in asking questions, they believe in asking enough questions. They believe in asking powerful, robust, and crucial questions! These questions allow them to have conversations with prospects that other firms aren't having. At the end of the day, when your lenders or producers leave the call, their prospect is going to be thinking one of two things. One is, “I could have closed my eyes, and that could have been any advisor that I've ever talked to.” Or, your salespeople might cause them to think, “That was different. That was a conversation I haven't had before. And why isn't my current provider having that kind of conversation with me?” That's what it means to take a consultative approach.

What about the Qualifying skill? How thoroughly do your bankers and agents qualify an opportunity based on its ability to buy? The Qualifying Competency measures the degree to which your salespeople can sort opportunities into two different piles. The first pile is, “I've got little or no chance to catch this rabbit and win this business.” The second pile is, “I should pursue these opportunities. It makes sense, and I believe we have a shot at winning this business.” Qualifying comes down to answering a couple of different questions:

• Do we want to win this deal? • Can we win this deal? • How do we win this deal?

Great salespeople are great qualifiers. They rarely ever get fooled. They do not spend appreciable amounts of time on deals that they never ever had a chance to win. That's part of their mentality.

You can find out more about these top sales skills by reading our eBook, How Do You Know if Your Salespeople Will Sell? Click the button below to download the book for free.

There is zero doubt that being professionally and appropriately funny as can help your cause with prospects. Most prospects (like most people) have enough serious things going on in their life. They could use a smile or chuckle in their day. Of course, your use of humor must come at the right time and be received in the right way.

I see three key takeaways from comedians:

1. Preparation – We know that pre-call planning is important, which I define as you knowing the questions you will ask the prospect (and how they will likely respond), and also you knowing the questions the prospect will likely ask you (and how you will respond). If you watch a good comedian, you will see hours of preparation that went into their act. They would never get up on stage and wing it. Everything is planned. Just like a Navy SEAL, they plan their dive, and they dive their plan.
   
   
2. Storytelling – Any good joke is a story that builds to the delivery of the punchline. The story that tells the joke is building to that moment. The best jokes allow you to put yourself into the story and experience all the emotions that are typically present in a good joke. Great salespeople do the same thing. They present a story that allows the prospect to see themselves in the story… living with the same problems… finding and implementing solutions that solve those problems.
   
   
3. Embrace Failure – Most comedians started off not being as funny as they would eventually become… they had more than a few nights when they were met with a lukewarm reaction from a tough crowd. Perhaps they were even booed off a stage along the way. But they did not quit… they just kept going as they learned from their mistakes, and they chased improvement. When I am asked about the most important attribute that great sales performers possess, my answer is always relentless effort. They just keep showing up. They just keep making dials. They just keep going out to see people. It is hard to keep someone down when they keep showing up to work.

So, there you go… the next time you watch a comedian, ask yourself what you can copy into “your act.” After all, your sales success in 2025 is no laughing matter!

Once the process is completed, no one revisits the plan, and typically, there is a non-existent or poor plan of inspection to make sure the key elements of the plan are being executed (assuming there is a strategic plan to support the numbers). There is rarely a discussion about what happens if the plan isn't being executed or there is failure to hit certain benchmarks throughout the year that indicate success in hitting the goals. Also, the goals may be set, but they are negotiable, and usually, nothing happens when the producer is failing to do what needs to be done to hit the goal.

The worst part of most strategic sales planning efforts is that at the end of the year, if producers are between 85% to 100% of their agreed-to goals, they will probably avoid any corrective actions and keep their jobs. This renders the whole idea of establishing goals essentially useless. And the truth—most salespeople really are not motivated by the process... or the goals. Team goals are sometimes eventually met, but only because a few met or exceeded the goals (80/20 rule).

Some may consider this sort of a strategic sales planning rant, but it is really just the truths I have observed over the years. Now let me share with you what I know is the key to this.

Your organization is perfectly designed for the results you are getting today!

Truthfully, our goal here is to prompt you to begin thinking about the results you are getting from your current strategic sales planning process. If you take a look at individual as well as collective results, are you happy with the outcome? Is the outcome as good as it could be if everyone hit their goal? Is everyone hitting the goal? If so (now this may appear to be contradictory), then maybe their goals are too low. If too many people are not hitting their goals, then maybe there is something wrong with either the process or the people. Regardless of the cause—if your team is not a high-performing sales team that consistently outperforms the previous year, then something is wrong!

Here are 10 truths that will help you improve your individual and collective strategic sales planning results:

1. "Motivation is an inside-out job" (Mark Victor Hansen)
2. Your salespeople, unless they own shares, don't care about reaching goals that help drive shareholder value.
3. Your salespeople have individual dreams, aspirations, and financial requirements that they do care about and want to achieve.
4. If you have the right people, their own drive for success will always exceed any goal/quest you present to them.
5. People want to have extraordinary lives—but they need the chance to define what extraordinary is!
6. People have to know what it means to be successful, and they need to know, in advance, what it means to fail.
7. If you raise the bar, the right people will work to clear the bar.
8. If you give people minimum standards for performance, 80% of the time they will perform to the minimum standard rather than to the goal.
9. If you take the time to have personal goal discussions with your people, then take the time to:
   
   1. Have supporting activity discussions
   2. Schedule time to revisit the plans—regularly
   3. Find out to what level they will manage themselves
   4. Get permission to coach them the moment you see they are failing
   5. Set the bar for extraordinary and clearly discuss that anything short of the agreed-to objective is failing
   6. Discuss the disciplined approach you will take to help them succeed
10. Catch them early. At least 80% of your salespeople, maybe even all of them, at some time in the year, will begin to fail in executing the plan. Catch them early, address it, agree to a plan of action, and then take action.

It is early in the year, and now is the best time to make sure that your strategic sales planning is based on a strong foundation of truth. Let us know how we can help.

Think about it: What do you need your salespeople to do in the field? Most leaders would say: sell consultatively to build long-lasting relationships. What better way to build that competency with your sales team than to demonstrate it with consultative coaching?

According to Google’s AI tool, “Consultative sales coaching is a type of training that helps sales teams learn how to understand their customers' needs and offer solutions.” Isn’t that exactly what you want your people to do in the field? Think about the individuals on your team and those who consistently produce beyond the expected. There is something more than just their skills that drives their behavior and success. There is the Will to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals and the skill to execute.

Consider this example:

• A lower-performing salesperson without developed consultative skills will present earlier in the sales process than is prudent, before learning about the prospect's problems, consequences, and reasons for buying from them. They likely receive many "think-it-overs" from their prospects after presenting, and their pipeline is full of unqualified prospects.
• A high-performing consultative salesperson uncovers compelling reasons for prospects and customers to buy from them by using active listening skills to ask good, tough, and timely questions. And they do not present solutions until they have a deep understanding of the problems and know that the prospect both must and will fix the problems.

Now let’s apply this to consultative sales coaching:

• A non-consultative sales coach will typically not spend enough or any time debriefing with their salespeople on key meetings. They do not have established coaching hours on their schedule, and they do not know the personal goals of their salespeople, so they do not really know what motivates them. When they talk to a salesperson about how a prospect or client meeting went, they are likely to tell them what to do instead of asking consultative questions like, “What did they say when you asked them what their current provider has done to help them fix the problem?” or “What did they say when you asked them how long the problem had been going on?”
• Sales managers with consultative sales coaching skills will ask many questions and help the salesperson understand what they have not yet uncovered about the opportunity. They demonstrate consultative conversations with their coaching.

Consultative sales coaching matters because it is personal, based on the salesperson’s situation, drive, hopes, and dreams. Sales coaching is crucial for every organization because salespeople who report to a manager with strong consultative coaching skills tend to have 26% more closable late-stage opportunities.

Most sales coaches move up through their company because they are good producers and, because of that, are adept at selling themselves. However, they may not be as skilled at coaching their salespeople. Sales managers need a coaching system so they know when and how to intentionally and effectively coach their salespeople.

Here are the 9 Skills in our Consultative Coaching Skill Development Plan below and the link will take you to a landing page with 9 short audio clips to help you build your skills.

1. Debriefs effectively after significant calls
2. Effective on joint calls
3. Asks quality questions of their salespeople
4. Understands the impact of a salesperson’s Sales DNA
5. Can demonstrate an effective sales system
6. Is effective at getting commitments from salespeople
7. Consistently coaches skills and behaviors
8. Understands the impact of a salesperson’s Will to Sell
9. Is effective at onboarding new salespeople

Find out more about how to be a consultative sales coach here.