Sales calls don’t have to feel awkward… but let’s be honest—they often do. In this episode, Brooke breaks down one of the most overlooked (and most powerful) parts of a sales conversation: setting expectations right at the beginning.

Because here’s the deal—when your potential client doesn’t know where the conversation is going, things get weird fast. But when you clearly explain the goal and the outcome? People relax. Trust builds.

And suddenly… sales feel a whole lot more natural. Brooke walks you through a simple, repeatable way to open your calls so you can lead with confidence, avoid awkward transitions, and actually move the sale forward—without pressure or sleaze.

And yes… it might feel clunky at first. That’s normal. Progress counts. And thank goodness for that.

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What You’ll Learn

• Why most sales calls feel awkward (and how to fix it in the first 30 seconds)
• The 2 essential pieces every sales call opening needs:
  • The goal (what you’re there to understand)
  • The outcome (what they can expect by the end)
• A simple, real-life example of how to set expectations naturally
• How setting expectations builds trust fast
• Why talking about the investment upfront actually makes things easier (not harder)
• What to say instead of “I’ll follow up later…” (you know… the momentum killer 😬)
• How to confidently transition into the rest of your sales conversation

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🔗 Resources Mentioned

1. Start of this mini-series: https://buildingmomentum.info/how-to-start-a-sales-call/
2. What not to do (aka the cringe-worthy examples): https://buildingmomentum.info/sales-calls-bad-examples/
3. Take the Sales Call Assessment: https://buildingmomentum.info/assessment

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💬 Join the Conversation / Subscribe

If this episode made you think, “Oh wow… I’ve definitely been skipping that part,” you’re not alone. And you don’t have to figure it out solo.

👉 https://buildingmomentum.info/matcha

Come hang out, keep learning, and build a sales process that actually feels like you.

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🤝 Connect with Brooke on LinkedIn

Want more practical, no-pressure sales guidance (with a little personality)?

Let’s connect: 👉 https://linkedin.com/in/brooke-greening

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P.S. If your sales calls have been feeling a little… vague, this is your sign. You don’t need a perfect script. You just need a clear starting point. And this? This is it. 💛

How to Set Sales Call Expectations (Close More Deals Without Pressure)

Brooke Greening: That is the whole goal. How do I build trust with my potential client? And how do I set us both up for success in the first couple of minutes? And so it's going to be clunky. It's not going to be perfect, but I want you to keep going.

So I usually say something along the lines of this thank you very much for meeting with me today. The goal for this conversation is for me to begin to understand some of the frustrations and concerns that you have in regards to your sales, your sales conversations.

I want to see if I can be able to help you, if I can. That'll be great. We'll talk about what that investment looks like, and if I can't, I want to be able to give you some other resources to give you the support that you need. I'm going to just start with a few questions. Is that okay?

We're going to talk about the goal and we're going to talk about the outcome. Those are the things that have to happen in setting expectations. Let them know the goal, let them know the outcome. Those are it.

If you do not share the investment, you're not moving the sale forward. And if you don't tell them that you're going to do that in the beginning of the sales conversation, it gets really awkward.

Scott Greening: Welcome to another episode of Sippin' Matcha and Helping You Make More Sales. I am your host, Scott Greening, and I'm privileged to have my wife join me, our resident sales expert and sales coach Brooke Greening. And I just want to thank you, Brooke, for the influence this podcast is having, at least on our children.

A fun tradition that we have in our family is that we often celebrate sales and new clients that you bring on. Yep. As a sales coach with a celebratory Milkshake, and I know this podcast is having,

Brooke Greening: which our kids are going to be diabetic actually.

Scott Greening: Right, right. We may have to, may have to rework that a little bit, but, I know that

Brooke Greening: every week you're like, yes,

Scott Greening: I know this episode. I know you're having an influence because our youngest who we call Bizzy, she's five. Mm-hmm. When we, when it comes to milkshake time, she is genuinely like, has to wrestle with, do, do I want like a chocolate or for her, like strawberry strawberry's, her favorite flavor Yes.

Of just anything, but mm-hmm. Or do I want a matcha milkshake with, yep.

Brooke Greening: With mama,

Scott Greening: with your, with mom. If nothing else, this podcast is helping our five-year-old appreciate matcha.

Brooke Greening: There we go. And our kids to understand sales are important.

Scott Greening: Yes. Yep. There we go. So we've been having a great conversation over the past couple episodes on setting expectations.

We mm-hmm. We talked about how setting expectations is, letting people know what's going to be in the conversation, and then that allows them to kind of relax. And engage, which is super important. Mm-hmm. And then last episode we talked about the spectrum of examples from non-existent all the way to doing a really good job with that.

And you can find the links to those previous episodes in this show notes. Today we're going to focus on implementation and helping people put this to work, uh mm-hmm. In their business. So what. What encouragement would you give people as we get started?

Brooke Greening: Yes. So it is probably going to feel awkward in the beginning, and that is okay.

When I'm working with my clients and we're helping them think through things. We don't really want scripts all the time, but there are certain sentences that we want to feel comfortable being able to say, and so it's going to feel clunky. It's going to feel weird because you don't necessarily do this on a regular basis, and that's okay.

I want you to lean into that and be able to do that, but more importantly, I just want you to continue to keep thinking about, okay. But do I have the right pieces in here in regards to being able to set the expectations that will be clear to my potential client and that will help us to be both set up for success.

That is the whole goal. How do I build trust with my potential client? And how do I set us both up for success in the first couple of minutes? And so it's going to be clunky. It's not going to be perfect, but I want you to keep going.

Scott Greening: Yeah, I know there's always, when we're learning like a new skill or trying something out, there's always like that awkward feeling of, I don't know how to do this well.

I'm, I'm pretty sure I might not do it perfectly. I hear Brooke and she like, these things just like flow out of her mouth seemingly very easily. I like, that's not me, but. It can be with just a little you just gotta get a couple of, at batch, you gotta get a couple of practices, right?

And then you'll start to feel comfortable with it and you'll start to, to do that. And it'll, it may start where you have to basically memorize it and be ready. And then you can start to just respond. It'll start to sound a little more natural and all of those types of things.

So just,

Brooke Greening: and as. Yeah, jump in, try

Scott Greening: it out.

Brooke Greening: And as you're doing with what we're telling you to do in regards to these next two steps we're going to give you, then it will start to feel more authentic to you and your business. So yes, it's going to be clunky in the beginning, but then as you realize, oh, this is literally what I'm trying to say, it will start to flow and it will become easier, and that's our whole entire goal.

So. Yes.

Scott Greening: All

Brooke Greening: right, so let's dive into it.

Scott Greening: Towards the end of the last episode, you gave your sentence that you are a couple of sentences that you use in setting the expectations. Why don't you like, give that out to us real quick and then tell us like, there's two steps that basically, that accomplishes to make it really simple.

And so tell us. So give us the sentence real quick. Yeah. Then give us the steps of where you're going.

Brooke Greening: So I usually say something along the lines of this thank you very much for meeting with me today. The goal for this conversation is for me to begin to understand some of the frustrations and concerns that you have in regards to your sales, your sales conversations.

I want to see if I can be able to help you, if I can. That'll be great. We'll talk about what that investment looks like, and if I can't, I want to be able to give you some other resources to give you the support that you need. I'm going to just start with a few questions. Is that okay?

Scott Greening: All right. So I know people were furiously taking notes and trying to get that down.

You can go back and replay it or listen, we're going to go through it again in just a few minutes, a little slower just to, to give you a chance. But really it boils down to two big steps mm-hmm. Or movements that you're doing there and setting the expectation. So what are those, Brooke? Yeah.

Brooke Greening: We're going to talk about the goal and we're going to talk about the outcome. Those are the things that have to happen in setting expectations. Let them know the goal, let them know the outcome. Those are it. And so you'll notice when I'm saying it, it's specifically to our business and that's what I'm going to encourage you to do as well.

It if you're an accountant, like, Hey, what are some of the things you're facing in the accountant world right now? Like we make it personalized to who we're talking to.

Scott Greening: Yeah. And just to, we're going to keep talking about it, but just to make it clear to differentiate. 'cause you can maybe say, well, goal and outcome are sort of like synonyms and that's true.

But like goal is the goal is understanding. So I want to understand, you said something like, I want to understand more of the frustrations that you're facing regarding sales or sales conversations. Like the goal is understanding where, what caused them to. Do this awful thing of getting on a sales call with somebody, and then the outcome then is what you're going to provide.

So either you're going to let them know, Hey, here's how you can work with me. Here's our next steps towards that. Mm-hmm. Or you're going to say, you know what? This has been great. Here are some resources, here are some referrals. Here are some other people that I think could actually probably help you to solve the problem that, that we found the, like you actually have.

Brooke Greening: Yeah, and so another example is I am. Getting ready to do a speaking engagement. And I do that. People reach out to me and they ask me to do speaking engagements. And so I wouldn't necessarily say, Hey, I want to know the goal you have, like your frustrations of speaking of speakers, sorry, I tripped over my words.

But I would say, Hey, I want to truly understand what it is that you're looking for in this next event and how I might be able to help if we decide this is a great fit, that's awesome. We'll talk about what that investment looks like. If not, maybe I can give you some other resources as well. You're literally asking yourself, what is the goal in any of these sales conversations?

Scott Greening: Great. So let's go back through on a little slower, just pace. And if you want to pause and highlight like, oh, hey, this is why I'm saying this or that as you go through it you can do that. If you're listening and you want to pull over the side of the road and write down, this is your warning.

So she's going to go back through this.

Brooke Greening: All right. Thank you so much for meeting with me today. My goal is I want to learn about some of the frustrations that you're facing in regards to your business and specifically your sales conversations. I want to see if I can be able to help and if I can, that's great.

We'll talk about what that investment looks like, and if I can't, I want to be able to give you some resources that can be able to help you. I'm going to ask you a few questions. Is that all right?

Scott Greening: All right. So what how did we set the goal? Let's go back to the, your steps. Yep. Like how did you set the goal in that. Explanation.

Brooke Greening: I literally said, my goal is to understand the frustrations that they're facing right now in their business and sales conversations. So for whoever's listening, we want to know, okay, are we going to talk about their frustrations, concerns they're facing in what?

In your accounting. In your law practice, whatever it is that you do and that you help with, that's what we're bringing in. Like where are you struggling in this area? That's the first piece that is our goal, and that is the whole part of the service framework. It's not just line for setting expectations.

If you actually understand the problem that they're having, that's how we're able to continue to make more sales. It's not just. Align. It's literally the whole entire service framework.

Scott Greening: Yeah. And then the other part was like the setting the outcome or explaining mm-hmm. The outcome. Where did you do it?

In your

Brooke Greening: Yep. So in the outcome, we're going to say, see if I can help, if I can. Great. We're going to talk about that investment and if. If not, if I can't help you, then we're going to give you some other resources. So in that's where we're setting the outcome. So they know, okay, Brooke's going to ask questions.

'cause she's trying to understand where I'm coming from and what's going on in my business. And I can expect that she's going to let me know what the investment is, if this is a good fit. And if it's not, she's going to help me with, she's going to help me in a different way. So everybody's going to win in this sales conversation.

And we were able to do it in about, I. 30 seconds for them to start to see that. So the goal, literally, what are we trying to accomplish in the conversation? That's to uncover their problems, frustrations, make it personal. The outcome is, I'm going to tell you about the investment, if we feel like this is a good fit, and if it's not, then I'm going to give you other resources that is the outcome.

And then I always ask, can I ask you a few questions? Because now I'm taking it, I'm going to lead it and we're going to start, we're going to start the conversation.

Scott Greening: Yeah. Great. So I know that you've interacted with lots and lots of people at this point, and almost all of them have at least tweaked the start of their conversation after asking you.

So one of the things as we work through these different parts of this framework that we're going to do is we're going to try to like, tell some stories of that, show the transformation that's helpful and Yeah. And instead of we're going to, and like we don't have the. Pixelated, blurry, like artificial voice from actual clients.

Brooke Greening: Right.

Scott Greening: We're going to protect the innocent and we're going to use, I don't know, let's, we'll take my name. So we'll call this person Scott, and as we go through, you can tell us from your coaching experience, like mm-hmm. How you've seen this play out with real people, and Scott will be our Guinea pig to take the story and move us through.

Brooke Greening: Yeah, so this is the very first piece that we talk about. So we, in our sales lab, masterclasses, different things like that, this is the very first thing I'm always working with my clients because like we said, it sets you up for success. And so this is usually a big piece where people are adapting to it immediately into their next sales conversation.

So with one gentleman, he realized. Because he wasn't actually telling them that they were going to talk about the investment, he wasn't setting the expectation at all. It was getting really awkward to move onto the next piece. So like in that situation, they were having like a masterclass and then he offered to have a session with them.

But in that session, he never set the expectation to tell them, I'm going to help you to know how you can work with me if that's what you would like to do. These are like very simple things that you can say. A conversation that then, like what Scott had talked about previously, it gives you that accountability to then actually say and to share the investment so that you can be able to move the sale forward.

If you do not share the investment, you're not moving the sale forward. And if you don't tell them that you're going to do that in the beginning of the sales conversation, it gets really awkward. No one really knows exactly what to do. And it usually just ends that it was a great conversation. I'll call you, I'll send you a proposal in a week, and like you've lost all of the momentum.

So for this particular client, he literally started making sales the very next day because he had never set the expectation before. And as soon as he started doing that, it was easier for them, for him to then say what that investment was, and for them to say yes to that on that call instead of it going forever and ever.

Scott Greening: All right. I know Scott is very thankful both this one and the he actually,

Brooke Greening: he's doing quite well.

Scott Greening: Right? Right. So, so that's great. Just to remind people and let people know this is part one of your service sales framework and you have an assessment. If you're like going in, you're like, holy smokes.

I didn't know there was even that much to like mess up in the first couple of minutes. Um, maybe taking the assessment might be a good idea and you can do that at building momentum info slash assessment. And it is, it's really fun. Like it's not, you, won't it. Well, maybe really fun is a bit of an oversell, but like we tried to keep it as light as possible while also being No, we

Brooke Greening: did, we

Scott Greening: did, we did.

Being meaningful and all of that. If you compliment Brooke on her cheeky little like markers on the spectrum, she'd appreciate it. But I would, I'd really encourage you to do that. The other thing as we wrap things up is so we've just. Indicated, Hey, we're moving to a new section, right?

So you, whatever you end up saying for setting the expectations you recommend ending with, is it all right if I ask you a few questions? And so that's where we're headed next. And we're actually going to talk about establishing rapport and I. I like this because like your way of doing this is not reverting back to chitchat.

That might have happened before you did this, and so we'll just leave it there as a teaser. So come back and find out what real establishing rapport is as far as a sales conversation in a way that builds trust and helps you to do that. So that's where we're headed in the next episode.

Brooke Greening: Sounds great.

We'll see you

Scott Greening: guys soon. Alright, thanks everybody. Have a great day. Enjoy that matcha or coffee and we'll talk to you next time.

Brooke Greening: Bye-bye.