The Ultimate Sales Call Evaluation Checklist for Inside Sales Managers

Tell me if this sounds familiar: a newly hired sales rep spends a week or a few studying your sales playbook, then jumps on a phone call. The call is terrible. When so much is wrong with a phone call, do you address style, substance, personalization, opening remarks, the ask, closing remarks, or what?

And here’s what happens next – the poor sales rep walks away with 40 notes. Guess how many of those items actually improve by the next day? As the proverb goes, “One who chases after two rabbits won’t catch even one.”

When it comes to giving constructive feedback on sales calls, a lot of otherwise savvy sales managers simply don’t know where to begin. That’s why I’m so excited about our handy Sales Call Evaluation Checklist to help managers and reps improve calls. And speaking of focus, this version is aimed primarily as SDRs, since they are often the least experienced members of the team.

Your reps are like anyone – they can only learn if if the feedback is targeted and incremental. That’s why we’ve drilled down into specific categories. When evaluating new reps, I strongly recommend that you help your reps improve in one category at a time. Don’t try to improve everything all at once, or performance (and morale) can quickly degrade.

Use our cheat sheet to:

• Identify areas for individual improvement
• Discover areas for team improvement
• Find “model” sales calls that can be used to train new reps

Remember, every sales activity is leading up to one thing: a phone call. Not surprisingly, reps that have the best phone skills are almost always the ones that exceed quota.

And if you’re looking to use calls to improve your entire team, you’re not alone. In our ongoing mission to help sales teams be more productive, smarter and successful, I’ve noticed a stark uptick in the number of managers who are using call recordings for training. Some do just what you’d expect with call recordings – carve out a few minutes each day to make sure their new reps are on message, and deliver tips for improvement. Others use call recordings as a team exercise, going so far as to hold weekly call contests that the entire team listens to, complete with prizes.

Good luck with your cheat sheet! Get it here.