Over the past couple of weeks, I have spoken with several folks about best practices for a first-time sales call.  This group was more than just rookie sellers launching their careers.  It included a couple of experienced sellers, a sales manager doing a “sanity check” on his gut-level feelings, as well as a seller in an expansion territory.  Based on this phone traffic, I would guess many others are also wondering about first-time sales calls.  With this thought in mind, I decided to weigh in on the topic personally. Quoting one of these conversations, “Years ago my first boss insisted we all carry a line card and present it to every new customer or new contact at an existing customer.  The line card was his baby; printed on high-quality (and laminated) card stock.  He even made us practice presenting it through role-play exercises in his office.” This gentleman’s comment about his boss’ pride and devotion to the line card caused me to recall my early ...