Obviously, it’s important for your sales reps to have great conversations with prospects. But without a truly thoughtful post-call formula, even great calls might fail to yield new pipeline or opportunities. All too often, sales reps churn out massive waves of outbound communication without stopping to truly reflect upon whether the needs of the customer or company are being met before moving on to the next stage. Without considering the context of each sales opportunity and incorporating that into the deal strategy, there’s very little difference between a human sales rep and marketing automation software.

So how can reps truly stand out? As the founder of a sales communications platform for inside sales teams, I have had the opportunity to work with top sales leaders and learn about their ideal sales workflow. I’ve realized what reps do directly following sales conversations can have a dramatic effect on their overall success. But it’s not enough to simply go through the motions, since not all customers or accounts are the same. The formula you can use to discover follow-up steps can be honed, replicated and personalized.

Here are three rituals that all sales reps should do immediately following sales calls in order to slash sales cycles and win more deals.

Practice Sales Mindfulness

Directly following sales conversations, sales reps should take a few minutes to reflect. Listen to one or two key moments in the call recording over again, taking note of any significant details, especially the potential customer’s responses. Then, assuming the account is qualified, reps should ask themselves three questions.

1. What are the emotional, functional and fiscal needs of this potential customer? List all that you’re certain about, then list other items that you suspect, or are curious about.

2. What specific items discussed elicited the most passionate response from the customer? Make a note of any particularly positive or negative responses, whether to specific value, concepts or features discussed. Those are clues as to how your solution might or might not be an answer to the customer’s problems.

3. Did I accomplish my objective? Every sales call should be made with a specific goal in mind. For some lead response reps, that goal is sometimes as simple as seeing whether an account is truly qualified. For others, it’s gaining access to other stakeholders, setting up a formal product demonstration, or getting the information needed to create a custom quote.

Tailor Next Steps to Fit the Prospect

Based on your post-conversation reflection, decide on follow-up steps. A lot of reps go on autopilot here, treating all prospects more or less the same, and using a generic template to get the deal to the next stage. This often leaves prospects with the feeling that they weren’t really heard during the initial sales conversation. In B2B sales, nothing scares off a prospect more than a sales rep that didn’t adequately discover and address their individual needs.

For example, if you’re selling software that integrates with a highly customized CRM, it’s common for a prospect to raise integration concerns. A typical sales response is to assure the prospect that everything will be just fine, and press to move to the deal to the next stage. Unfortunately, that does nothing to build confidence. A wiser course of action would be to have a sales engineer or CRM analyst carefully investigate the integration use case and report back. This, paired with a case study showing how a similar customer achieved integration success, actually strengthens the relationship. And remember, in B2B sales, relationship and confidence are at least as important as features and value.

Schedule Individualized Reminders for Follow-Up Tasks

Don’t let yourself be crushed by your own success. The more mindful your sales process, the more successful conversations you’ll have, and the easier it is to let follow-up tasks slip. Even if you’re using a templated prioritization or cadence tool to guide you through a highly structured sales process, don’t be overly reliant on it. Let context be your guide, even when it comes to follow-up steps and timing.  

The most successful reps diligently schedule reminders to execute important follow-up tasks (this behavior so important in fact, that we decided to enable reps to set reminders in our own product). Whether that’s sending a follow-up email, scheduling the perfect time for a demo, calling back in three days, or reaching out to another key stakeholder, reps should create reminders. Logging these reminders help reps stay “zen” even during the busiest of days.

In my experience, great sales reps—the ones that consistently push deals past the finish line—always see the end of one sales activity as the beginning of the next one. But they also ensure that the next move is right for all parties. By focusing on practicing mindful sales, reps can ensure that they are working diligently to propel deals past the finish line, while maintaining constant awareness of the needs of the customer and what it takes to move the deal forward.

Howard Brown is the Founder & CEO of RingDNA, a Sales Acceleration and Enterprise Voice Communications Platform.