5 Phrases Top Salespeople Use to Engage Prospects on Sales Calls

Prospecting is one of the most challenging parts of sales. Finding qualified leads that match your ideal customer profile is hard enough. But even once you have a list of good-fit prospects, you still need to capture their interest and keep them engaged long enough to hear you out.

The most effective salespeople rely on a handful of tried-and-true phrases and techniques to hook prospects early in the call and guide the conversation toward a sale. Here are five key elements they incorporate into their prospecting calls:

1. A Credible Introduction

First impressions matter immensely in sales. Within seconds, your prospect will decide whether you‘re worth talking to. A weak, generic introduction will likely get you hung up on:

"Hi John, this is Sarah from Company X. Do you have a minute to chat?"

Why should John give Sarah his time? She hasn‘t given any compelling reason to keep listening.

In contrast, here‘s how a rep with a strong intro might open the call:

"Hi John, this is Sarah from Company X. I‘m calling because I noticed on LinkedIn that you recently started a new demand generation role. I‘ve helped marketing leaders like you at B2B SaaS companies increase lead flow by 50-200% in 6 months. Thought this might be relevant to your new position — would you be interested in a quick chat about how I could potentially help you hit your lead gen targets faster?"

Sarah‘s intro is effective because it:

• Shows she‘s done her research and knows something about John‘s role/goals
• Instantly establishes her credibility by mentioning past relevant successes
• Hints at the value she could provide in helping John achieve a desirable outcome
• Directly asks if he‘s interested in continuing the conversation

With an introduction like this, John is much more likely to agree to chat than brush Sarah off. He‘ll be curious to learn how she‘s gotten such impressive results for similar people.

Some other ways reps can establish credibility and provide value in their intro:

• Mention a referral from a mutual contact
• Reference a relevant piece of content the prospect recently engaged with
• Share an interesting industry insight or statistic related to the prospect‘s business
• Offer a specific suggestion or piece of advice that could help the prospect

The key is to quickly demonstrate that you understand their world and have knowledge or ideas that could be valuable to them. You want to give them a reason to keep listening.

2. A Business-Oriented Value Proposition

Once you have the prospect‘s attention, you need to hold it by clearly articulating your value proposition. Too often, reps launch into a long-winded description of their product and all its bells and whistles. But the prospect doesn‘t care about your product‘s features — they care about the business outcomes it can help them achieve.

A great value proposition translates product capabilities into tangible business results the prospect cares about. Here‘s an example from sales expert Jill Konrath:

"We help large companies reduce the cost of their employee benefits programs without impacting benefit levels. With the spiraling costs of healthcare today, this is a critical issue for most businesses. One of our recent clients, a large manufacturing company similar to yours, was struggling with how to reduce spending in this area. We saved them over $800,000 in just six months. Plus, they didn‘t have to cut any services to their employees or make them pay more."

This value prop is effective because it:

• Starts with a clear, concise statement of the business outcome provided
• Connects that outcome to a high-priority issue the prospect likely cares about
• Provides a specific example of the impact/value delivered for a similar company
• Mentions additional positive outcomes (e.g. not having to cut employee benefits)

When crafting your value proposition, always put the business outcomes and impact front and center. Use case studies and examples to make those outcomes tangible and relatable for prospects. And keep it concise — you can always go into more detail later if they express interest.

3. Rapport-Building Questions

People buy from people they like and trust. But in a short prospecting call, how do you build that all-important rapport with someone you‘ve never spoken to before?

It starts with doing your homework. Before each call, reps should thoroughly research their prospects, looking for commonalities, shared connections, and personal details they can reference to create affinity. Here are some examples of rapport-building questions:

"I saw on your LinkedIn that you attended UC-Berkeley. I grew up in the Bay Area and have a lot of friends who went there. How did you like it?"

"Looks like you‘re a fellow Boston sports fan based on your Twitter feed. How long have you been following the Red Sox? Did you catch the crazy ending to last night‘s game?"

"I read your blog post on the challenges of scaling an SDR team. We‘ve faced similar issues with turnover as we‘ve grown our team. Have you found any good solutions? I‘m always looking to learn from other sales leaders."

The goal with these questions is to find genuine points of connection and shared interests that you can bond over. It provides an opportunity to shift the dynamic from "sales rep and prospect" to two people having a friendly chat. And the more you can learn about the prospect, the easier it is to tailor the rest of the conversation to what matters most to them.

4. Second-Level Questions

Of course, building rapport isn‘t just about finding things in common — it‘s also about showing the prospect that you‘re truly listening to them and engaged in the conversation. The best reps demonstrate active listening by asking thoughtful second- and third-level questions:

Prospect: "We‘re definitely struggling with long ramp times for our new sales hires. It‘s taking them months to get fully up to speed."

Rep: "Wow, I can imagine how frustrating that must be, especially in this market where every day of selling time counts. You mentioned long ramp times — how long are we talking on average? And what do you think is causing the slow ramp?"

Prospect: "On average it‘s taking new reps 4-5 months to consistently hit quota. I think a big factor is that our sales training program frankly isn‘t very good. It‘s way too product focused vs. teaching them how to sell."

Rep: "Got it. So it sounds like the core issues are 1) reps taking 4-5 months to ramp due to 2) inadequate sales training that‘s too product focused and doesn‘t teach selling skills. Do I have that right? I‘d love to dig into this more — tell me a bit about what your sales training program covers today and where you think it‘s falling short."

In this example, the rep isn‘t just robotically asking questions. They‘re demonstrating that they‘re processing what the prospect is saying, summarizing it back to them, and probing deeper into the core issues. This makes the prospect feel heard and helps them open up about their challenges — giving you valuable information to tailor your pitch later on.

5. Positioning Statements

Finally, top performing reps use positioning statements throughout their prospecting calls to continually build credibility and steer the conversation in the right direction.

A positioning statement generally takes this form:

"In working with other [type of company/industry], one of the key challenges I consistently hear is [key issue that your product/service addresses]. Is that something you‘re experiencing at [prospect‘s company] as well?"

For example:

"In working with other B2B SaaS companies in growth mode, one of the key challenges I consistently hear is that they‘re struggling to find enough high-quality leads to keep their sales team busy. Is that something you‘re experiencing at Acme Co. as well?

Positioning statements serve two purposes:

1. Demonstrating your experience/authority in the prospect‘s specific industry and establishing credibility that you understand their world.

2. "Teeing up" a conversation about a challenge that your product is uniquely positioned to solve and qualifying whether the prospect is a good fit.

If the prospect answers "no, we aren‘t struggling with that issue," then you‘ve likely disqualified them and should politely end the conversation. But if they say "yes, that‘s definitely a challenge for us," you‘ve just created the perfect opening to tell them how you can help.

Here are a few other examples of effective positioning statements:

"I talk to VPs of Sales every day and right now the #1 thing they‘re all focused on is improving rep productivity. Have you been thinking about that as well?"

"A common challenge I hear from marketing leaders like yourself is proving the ROI of their campaigns and activities. Is measuring marketing impact something you‘re working on at Company X?"

"When I speak to other healthcare IT executives, HIPAA compliance and data security are always hot topics. How are you currently ensuring that patient data is fully protected?"

Putting it All Together

The five techniques above are some of the most powerful tools in a sales rep‘s prospecting arsenal. But they shouldn‘t be used in isolation — the real magic happens when you put them together into a cohesive flow.

Here‘s how a rep might use all five elements in a single prospecting call:

• Start with a strong, tailored introduction that shows you‘ve done your research
• Smoothly transition into rapport-building questions to learn more about the prospect‘s role, goals, and challenges
• Ask second-level questions to dig into their key issues and show you‘re really listening
• Succinctly state the business outcomes you help companies like theirs achieve
• Use positioning statements to demonstrate your industry expertise and get them talking about the specific challenges you solve
• Wrap up by reiterating the potential value you could provide and asking about next steps

Of course, you won‘t be able to follow this flow verbatim on every call — you need to be prepared to adapt based on where the prospect wants to take the conversation. But if you consistently weave in these five elements, you‘ll be well on your way to having more productive, engaging prospect conversations.

The key is preparation and practice. Before each call, research your prospect thoroughly and plan out the key points you want to hit. Then role play with a colleague, testing out different phrases until they start to feel natural.

Remember, your ultimate goal is to get the prospect excited about the potential outcomes you can help them achieve, and to commit to a next step, whether that‘s a discovery call, a demo, or a proposal. Everything you say should be in service of guiding the conversation toward that end goal.

Master these five phrases and techniques, and you‘ll be well on your way to prospecting like a top-performing sales pro. Want to see more examples in action? Download our free sales script template for 25 proven prospecting, qualification, and closing lines.

Conclusion

To quickly recap, the five key elements of a successful prospecting call are:

1. An introduction that builds instant credibility and value
2. A business-outcome-focused value proposition
3. Genuine rapport-building
4. Probing second-level questions
5. Positioning statements that demonstrate authority and highlight relevant challenges

Weaving these together into a natural conversation takes practice and preparation. But it‘s a skill any rep can master with the right guidance.

Now it‘s time to put these techniques to work. Download our free collection of sales call script templates to get 25 plug-and-play examples from top reps. Then make them your own, practice delivering them until they‘re second nature, and watch your prospect engagement and conversions soar.