If you’re looking for a sure-fire way to turn yourself into an unstoppable selling machine, then I can tell you the fastest way to do it - record and listen to your sales calls. I guarantee this is the quickest method you can use to dramatically improve your sales results.

Think about all the things you have to do while you’re selling over the phone – you have to remember all the key points your prospect is telling you, then you write these down while listening to what they’re now saying. You then have to think about your next question or answer AND make sure you’re still on track to get the appointment or sale you need.

So is it any wonder that you don’t have any time to actually listen to how you’re sounding when you’re on the phone? It’s just not possible to get an accurate picture of all the things you do well when you’re on the phone, or pinpoint the little areas that need to be improved.

Not many people like the sound of their own voice, and you may feel the same. But trust me; you will quickly get over any initial shock of hearing how your voice sounds to everyone else. After that, you’ll learn more about how to improve your sales technique than any other way you can think of.

When you listen to your calls you will be amazed at some of the things you do that you’re completely unaware of. As an example, most of the people I train are completely oblivious of how many times they say “umm” and “errr” during their calls.

Usually they say “umm” and “errr” because they’re not feeling confident they know the answer to a question their prospect has asked them, or they’re trying to fill the silence while they think of what to say next. They may be unaware of doing this, but their prospect will definitely notice it and either consciously or sub-consciously they’ll feel less confident about doing business with this salesperson.

I’d recommend that you record all of the calls you make in a week, then pick 3 calls to listen to again. Make sure you play back your best call of the week, and two calls where you were really struggling to get the results you wanted. Go for duration when choosing which calls to listen to; the longer the call, the more you will learn from listening to it again.

Take ten minutes to create a scoresheet you can use to rate each call you listen to. This will be great for you because it will help you focus on the areas that you need to improve. Here’s an example of a simple scoresheet you can use to rate your sales calls:

Rate how you perform in each section out of a maximum 5 points. You should only award yourself the highest score in any section if you have completely nailed it and simply could not do any better if your life depended on it. Getting someone to listen to your calls with you will help you stay objective. Plus they may spot little things that you won’t, which will also help you improve your sales technique.

Write down at least two things you do well in each call you review, and at least one key area you want to improve. Start with the most obvious first. Keep working on your first key area of improvement until you can’t improve it any further, then pick the next most important area and work on that one.

Recording your calls will also prove how important the tone of your voice is in helping you build rapport with your prospect. I’m going to bet you right now that when you’re playing back your best call of the week, you’ll notice that your tone and pace of speech will gradually start to mirror your prospect’s.

P.S. If you work in a call centre then you will probably have the technology available to listen to your calls; most call centres record all their calls these days. If you don’t, then you can buy a special digital recorder, like the CTI Pulsar Plus. It’s a good low-cost product you can buy to record your calls and play them back on your PC. It’s easy to set up and lets you record up to 250 hours of calls.