We don’t need to be the ones to tell you: note-taking is essential to the sales process. But why?
- Well firstly, it’s impossible to retain all information discussed during a sales call, so notes ensure that no necessary information gets lost, maintaining clarity and consistency for all parties.
- It gives you something to refer back to, allowing you to process your meeting over time and spot things you mightn’t have in the moment, giving you a more enriched analysis of the call.
- All this information helps you prepare your follow-up meeting with the prospect, so you can not only personalise your pitch, but demonstrate that you actively listened to what they had to say.
- Having notes makes it easy to share with your team, whether it’s prospect insights with your sales teammates, product feedback with the product team, or active deal status with your manager.
- Another way sales call notes can benefit your team is by adding to your internal knowledge and helping improve your sales processes, by giving you concrete insights into your prospects, their needs, their objections, and more.
- Taking notes helps you learn and adapt. Thanks to the information you gather, over time you’ll learn what key pieces of information have the most impact in your sales process, which points to press upon to withdraw this information, and generally how to improve your approach to conducting sales calls.
All of this is great, but note-taking doesn’t come without its problems. It prevents you from giving your full attention to the discussion, there’s often human error involved when trying to keep up with the speed of the conversation, and it’s time-consuming to organise your notes after the call.
Below we’ll give you our top tips how to keep the issues above to a minimum, and maximise the impact of your sales call note-taking.
TL;DR: The real trick to mastering your sales call note-taking is using an AI tool. Not only will you be able to avoid the main pitfalls of taking notes by hand and obtain better quality notes, but you’ll benefit from an extra layer of intelligent analyses and insights.
7 tips on how to take better sales call notes
1. Create a template
Define what information you’d like to record ahead of time by breaking it down into sections. For example, you may want to use an existing framework, such as MEDDIC or BANT, and customise it to your sales process by adding extra sections. This will help you to cover all the important topics, distinguish between information that’s key versus nice-to-have, and maintain a consistent structure from meeting to meeting, making your notes more easily readable and shareable.
2. Keep it succinct
Avoid trying to write everything down, instead focusing on what’s important. And instead of writing word for word, find a way to cut corners to make sure you can keep up with the conversation, without losing the meaning of what you’re noting down. In saying this, it’s worth writing down a couple of direct quotes in the prospect’s exact words, that you can later share with your team.
3. Take note of action items
It’s key to make a note of every time either party mentions an action that’s to be taken after the call, whether it’s for you or for the prospect. These are the elements that are going to move the sales process forward, so be sure that every to-do item is recorded and clear for immediate action.
4. Note down personal information
Remembering personal information is key for building a good rapport with a prospect, and showing them that you’re actively listening to what they’re saying. Any titbits you can note down will help nurture your relationship and show that you care, and serve as a great icebreaker in follow-up calls.
5. Review your notes immediately
It’s imperative that you revisit your notes immediately after your call, while the context is still fresh in your mind. This will allow you to fill in the gaps, add complementary context and explanations, and make sure your notes makes sense to anyone else who might be reading them (trust us, it's often not the case).
6. Update your CRM
We know, we know… This is no one’s favourite part of the process. But we promise you’ll be thankful for it later. Your CRM is the best place to centralise all information related to each of your deals, and thankfully with the consistent structure of your notes thanks to your template, all you should need to do is copy and paste!
7. Use an AI call recording tool
Having covered all the points above, this one point might be the most important one that ties them all together. Call recording tools exist to make sure that you not only capture every interaction you have with your prospects, but also that you are able to apply an extra layer of intelligence in analysing them. The advantages are numerous:
- Guarantee consistent and more accurate note-taking, ensuring no knowledge gaps when it comes to your deals.
- Leverage the exact words your prospects use to fuel your understanding of their needs and experience.
- Give your prospect your full, undivided attention during the call, and improve the quality of your conversation.
- Gain additional insights into your call thanks to data-driven AI analyses, which could help make the difference in closing the deal.
- Share your call more easily, not only with your teammates but with your prospects, to improve transparency in your collaboration.
- Save an endless amount of time spent dealing with handwritten notes and give your productivity a major boost!
Try Rippletide’s sales call note-taking for free for 7 days
Sign up for our 7-day free trial to experience how our AI copilot can streamline your note-taking and save you precious time in your sales process. Don’t wait - start saving time and speeding every deal towards closing now!
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