Sales Notes to take during and after the sales call [Infographic]

A sales call isn’t just a medium to reach your customers, but it also holds a wealth of information that can help you in closing a deal successfully.

The human mind cannot store all this information for long; there are chances you might forget it.

Albert Einstein rightly said, “Why should I fill my brain with facts I can find in two minutes.”

So be smart and jot down every important point your client mentions on a sales call. Creating sales notes eliminates the odds of missing crucial insights.

Think about this, don’t you get annoyed when in a restaurant the waiter doesn’t take note and serves the wrong dish.

Like you, even your customers get infuriated when they are asked to repeat the same thing. By referring to the sales notes, you can easily continue the conversation from where you left last.

Must-have sales notes

Notes are crucial for sales. However, to ensure you don’t waste your precious time, you must develop effective note-taking practices. Be selective in deciding what should be there in your sales notes.

Here are five sales notes that you should make during or after a sales call to recall everything you require for progressing the sales.

Take notes during the sales call

1. Details about your deal or contact

People get promoted or change numbers, so you need to create notes of such information. Prospects will inform you about such updates only when you build a good connection with them.

Don’t hesitate in asking personal information like the birthday or work anniversary dates to send greeting emails. As per research, birthday emails are a great investment for any company; they have 481% higher conversion rates compared to promotional DEMs.

Note their LinkedIn or Twitter usernames and follow them to stay abreast of their activities.

• Taking notes of such personal details will help in building a healthy customer relationship
• Keep yourself updated with the necessary contact detail changes for staying connected with your prospects
• With social media details, you can explore the prospect’s network and spot opportunities

2. Key bits of sales information

While communicating with sales prospects, there are high chances of getting various ‘buying clues’. So, stay attentive and make a note of all those crucial details.

Show curiosity in knowing more about them by asking relevant questions. Pay attention to each answer and pick the vital points. 84% of customers are frustrated when sales professionals don’t have the correct information.

• The prospects might speak about their expectations, business challenges, bad experiences they had with your competitors.
• The information noted during the sales conversation comes handy while building strategies or plans of action for converting the deal.
• Such notes are even useful when sales reps handling the account leaves the organization and a new rep needs to replace them

Take notes after the sales call

1. Actionable commitment and follow-up tasks

There are chances of losing a deal when you fail to keep a commitment you made to the client.

Once the call ends, you need to create a to-do list to stay on the right track. Reflect on the sales call and ask yourself what you need to do next.

• Did you commit to giving a discount?
• Has the prospect asked you to call them after three days?
• Did the prospect ask for a product demo?
• Do you need to email them any specific details of the pricing plan?

Take note of all these tasks to follow-up in real-time and adhere to the commitments for providing a good buying experience.

Research shows that 55% of consumers are willing to pay more for a guaranteed good experience.

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2. Where your solution fits in

Present your product as a solution to your prospect’s business problem for stimulating their interest in your offering. To do that, you must write down their key concerns and problem areas.

Have a good understanding of their business pain points and tailor your solutions to their needs. 76% of consumers expect organizations to understand their individual needs.

• Extract information about their business process to learn where your offering will provide value.
• Analyze the data you noted about your prospects and put yourself in the buyer’s shoes to think from their perspective about the reasons for investment.
• Plan your next call by listing the problems and solutions as per their level of importance.

3. Post-call analysis

Constant improvements are necessary for reaching your sales goals. There is something to learn from each conversation you have with your potential sales prospect.

Conduct a post-call analysis to find out if anything is lacking or going wrong. 41.2% of salespeople said their phone is the most effective sales tool at their disposal.

After each sales call, you need to note down the following points:

• Was the call successful?
• Did the client have any negative remarks?
• Did you cover all the strengths of your product?
• Is there anything more that you could do to improve communication with your prospect?

Embrace technology to maximize efficiency

If you have decided to take notes for your sales call, then why not do it the smart way? Technology like CRM software can make your work easier.

Modern CRM systems are powered with a built-in virtual phone system. So, you can not only make calls and manage your sales from one platform but also take notes and assign tasks on the spot. Efficiently manage all the above tasks in a CRM system.

• Collect the deal’s details and systematically organize it in a centralized location for quick reference.
• Access the prospect’s profile in your CRM during the call and create notes about the vital sales information instantly.
• Get the notes on your dashboard as soon as you log into your CRM account to know what tasks you need to do for the day.
• Automatically log calls as activities in your CRM
• Record calls to find out the prospect’s business problems as well as to evaluate your performance.
• Set workflows and automate the follow-up activity.
• Set activity reminders and get notified on-time.
• Put important dates in your calendar and schedule tasks.

Tips for note-taking:

• Review your sales notes and enhance it later to make sense out of what you’ve written.
• Your sales notes should be readable (that’s why it is recommendable to take notes in a CRM).
• Don’t just create and ignore the sales notes, but use it wisely.
• Use a consistent method to make notes like a diary or a CRM to ensure you don’t misplace any information by storing it in different places.
• Add date, time, and topic to the notes to stay organized.
• Keep your sales notes brief; just summarize points.
• Make sure the information you add in the sales note is important and actionable.

Final thoughts

Sales notes are of great worth if you put them to the right use. You need to be careful while taking notes.

Don’t just create a verbatim script of what your prospect says instead take notes of the pertinent information and use them to push the deal through different stages of a sales cycle.

A CRM like Salesmate can also be very helpful in converting a deal. You can quickly make notes and streamline information to take timely actions.

Everything you need is easily accessible to connect, qualify, nurture and close a deal quickly. Take a free trial of 15-days to see how can it help your business.