12 Golden Rules to Effectively Handling Enquiries

The more I show clients how to handle enquiries from new prospects over the phone, the more I find myself coming back to the same dozen 'sobering' truths … truths that help you understand the mindset of the caller.

These truths may at first appear negative.  They’re not.  They are simply a realisation that everybody – including your prospect - sees life through their own ‘eyes’.  And having an insight into how they ‘see’ (and feel) can help us to better relate to their needs.  So let’s consider the following:

1. The enquirer, regardless of what they say, isn’t just after ‘information’.  They HAVE a problem or a need.  Often a problem/s so complex they don’t fully understand it themselves. They crave to have it solved, and they’re looking for a solution.

2. Just making the phone call can sometimes be a big thing for them, because they have their own uncertainties and insecurities to contend with.  You need to be empathetic and make the process painless.

3. They’ve probably been disappointed by past efforts to find a solution.  So expect them to be distrusting until they know you are ‘real’.

4. They ARE going to buy.  Whether it’s from you, or a competitor, whether it’s today or in six months’ time, they WILL ‘buy’ something. Your task is to educate them to why your solution is best for them  (That is of course, IF your solution is indeed the best one for their particular circumstances.  Otherwise, you should guide them ethically to an alternative.)

5. They will have pre-conceived ideas of what’s ‘expensive’.  BUT on the other hand, when they find their ‘answer’, they will pay whatever it takes.  So it’s your ‘duty of care’ to ensure you ethically educate them to your solution, AND to show that your solution isn’t expensive, but is good VALUE.

6. They will initially have little or no concept of what your business does, and will tend to pigeonhole you with other firms who appear to deliver what you do.

7. They may nod in agreement at things you say in the initial discussion, but in truth, they’ll understand and absorb only a tiny fraction of what you have said.  Which means you need to go slowly, never assume.  And most importantly, through questions, do a regular ‘temperature check’ on their understanding.  CRITICALLY important.

8. When it comes to the Information Pack, brochure, or perhaps even DVD you send them, remember they have no basis for appreciating the VALUE, or of the decades of research and development behind this information. So unless positioned correctly, there is a very real risk it will simply sit unopened for weeks, until they’ve lost interest.   And when you try to follow up after their interest has waned, you become a ‘pushy’ salesperson, not a professional with the answers to their perhaps years of frustration.  What’s the solution?  You must position the value of the pack correctly UP FRONT before you send it.  Again, they won’t give any priority to the pack unless you position it correctly on the phone.

9. Remember that the person who has the information IS IN CONTROL of the transaction.  If you give it (the Pack) over to the prospect prematurely, without first gaining a firm commitment that they’ll review it, you lose the control.

10. Getting that firm commitment means getting their undertaking that they will go through it in a pre-agreed timeframe, in preparation for a follow up discussion.

11. Even after all the above, they’ll often say ‘yes’, but then nothing will happen.  In 95% of cases, you WILL have to follow up.  When you follow up, even after all the great positioning, there’s a chance they’ll say they can’t go ahead ‘just now’, for any number of reasons.  Often these reasons are NOT the real reasons.  You need to get as many of these potential issues on the table and out of the way as possible, before you hand over the information.

12. Remember that none of this is ‘manipulative’ or unethical.  It is simply acknowledging the foibles of human nature, and helping (ethically leading) people to come to an informed outcome.
 
Some of these 'golden rules' may not apply to your transactions with new prospects.  However, that said, I’d be very surprised if you didn’t get some real distinctions out of these 12 points for you and your own frontline people.

Let me know your thoughts …
Chris Newton

If you know anyone who would find value in reading this article, please forward (or tweet) this link on to them.

Do your profit cogs have teeth missing?

I sat across the desk from a business owner who has a great business concept.  His business should have been doing a whole lot better than it is.  

I could see this wasn’t because of any ‘financial meltdown’.   It was because some of the ‘cogs’ in his business that should have been producing profit, weren’t ‘meshing’.  And faulty cogs in a business chew relentlessly through profits that should be in the bank.

Now, I love bringing things down to their lowest common denominator.  So I pulled out my pen and asked him for a piece of blank paper ... And found him an extra 240% net profit.

I’ve been doing this for 28 years, so finding that additional profit was fairly straightforward.  It’s something I’ve done with hundreds of businesses. 

In this case …

I looked at his lead generation, and clearly it wasn’t working effectively.  In fact, it wasn’t working at all.  His ads had weak headlines. There was no call to action.  The ads did little to tell his ‘magic story’.  And they did even less for his image.


I showed him that by re-writing his ads, and by making some basic changes to his website, and by proposing a way to double his referrals … he would conservatively increase his sales leads by 85% … with very little effort.


Then I focused on his current conversion of enquiries to sales.  His gut had been telling him this was a weak ‘cog’.  In fact, his people were way worse at converting sales than he, especially over the phone.  They’d take names, send brochures with a form letter, and THINK they were selling.


A simple role play of what NOT TO DO, and an explanation of some supporting sales collateral, and we agreed he would, at the very LEAST, improve his sales hit rate from the present 3 out of ten to 4.  That was ultra conservative.


And while that doesn’t sound much, that small improvement represents a 33% increase in sales.  I believe we can lift it to 6 out of ten personally.


Then I looked at his pricing. He had been way too wary of putting his prices up, but with the new presentation and sales collateral I described, agreed it’d be a snap. I reminded him too that sellers will often have more problem with price than the buyer ever will.


At this point, I stopped the exercise.  I knew that if we continued to add in more ‘profit factors’, his profit potential would look unbelievably huge.  But even that little exercise took his sales from $2,850 a week to some $6,500 a week. And his profits from $950 to over $4,000 … a week.


Here’s the really interesting part in all this...


He’d been holding back from taking his ‘hot business concept’ to other parts of the country, because the profits were too thin.  Now, he could see a whole new profit ‘engine room’ that will allow him to expand gradually, but with absolute confidence.


You know, it’s this pencil and a blank sheet of paper exercise that has kept me buzzing all these years.  In some cases, I see such huge potential, I may well get involved in a JV with the client.  And in this may well be the case here.  


Not every venture qualifies to that level.  But there are some amazing ‘sleepers’ out there with profits waiting to be unlocked.  


In a similar exercise several weeks prior...

By phone this time, I identified the missing ‘cogs’ for an importer of industrial equipment. 

Fixing his processes will take his business from under $2 million to over $6 million in the next twelve to eighteen months.  With an 800% increase in his NET profit line.

Look, before I go on, I've got to say something...

As I write this, I get the sense that it sounds like gratuitous trumpet blowing.  But in truth I'm only stating the facts.  And if I don't tell you the sort of things that I do, it won't get your attention, and that will serve neither of us.


Frankly I see all too many business people missing these opportunities.  They don’t measure the key performance indicators that flag these problems, so they don’t know it’s happening.  Or if they do, they haven’t been able to find ‘marketing’ people who understand that their business IS a piece of machinery, let alone who have the skills to fix it.


I’ve worked with literally hundreds of businesses, doing this.  I’ve owned retail businesses, had equity in a national trade service franchise, worked with professional firms … and I’ve done it over and over again. 


In my seminars, I’ve worked through my examples … such as a lead generation ‘information based’ strategy for a retirement village client that produced a 3,000% increase in enquiry. 

And wrote an ad that produced a 280% increase in sales for an automotive aftermarket company.  And I developed a sales training video program for a national tyre group that DOUBLED their forecourt sales.


For the trade service national franchise group, I developed a selling presentation script which increased the success in conversions to sales by better than 80% for some of the operators, and increased their revenue performance by an average 120%.


My case studies fill my manuals, e-books and online resource library.


Why am I telling you this?

I’d like to offer you an opportunity to have me (and my team) do it for you.
Normally, unless it’s on a profit share basis, I don’t consult one-on-one anymore … but this is different.


First up, I’ve been really taken aback by the overwhelming response we’ve had to this blog. 

One blog entry a few weeks back was featured in the New York Times business blog and a U.S. Chamber of Commerce blog...

But more than that, I've been impressed by the comments coming back from my subscribers and readers. 

There’s clearly a lot of pain out there, and a lot of businesses looking for help.  And for a small window of time, I can provide it.


Second, I’m doing it as an advanced training exercise for my team over the ‘down time’ between now and the end of January. 

So I am looking to do a number of small projects.  For those four to five weeks, we’ll roll our sleeves up and work on the ‘cogs’ for clients’ businesses … helping individual businesses get geared up for a blockbuster 2012.


Third, my experience tells me that in one or more of the projects we’ll review, there will be another ‘sleeper’ … a business 'super success story' waiting to happen.  


If that turns out to be your business, there might be a JV opportunity, ramping up your business to a whole new level, in return for an agreed profit share.


Either way, this is a once a year opportunity.  If you want to take it, you can simply contact us, briefly outline your business and tell us what ‘cogs’ you feel are missing that hold you back from making it a goldmine.


And if we agree it has potential, we’ll roll our sleeves up and get down to the nuts and bolts of how we’d work with you.


How much will having us work on your project cost you?   As a ballpark, it could be in the region of $2,000 to $12,000 … depending on what is entailed.  


But let’s be very clear on something. 

If we do take a project on, we will have VERY clearly mapped out in advance what the potential outcomes will be for you … at best and worst case.  And if it doesn’t show potential to rapidly return you your investment in multiples of net profit increases, we’ll politely decline.


Importantly too, I’ll be personally involved … at every stage.  Including the creation of ‘marketing collateral’, scripting of sales presentations, redesign of websites, providing of sales training tools.  Whatever it takes to make success happen.

As well as identifying those ‘cogs’ that are going to get the ‘business machine’ running at its peak, and that produce the quickest and biggest impact on profits.


And importantly, we will do the actual ‘where the rubber hits the road’ stuff that’s required to IMPLEMENT …


So there you have it … if you’re interested in having us work on your business in our down time between now and the end of January, use the contact button below and we’ll be in touch.


Don’t procrastinate however.  This isn’t a contrived ‘while stocks last … free set of steak knives’ offer.  It’s an honest and straightforward fact that we can ONLY take on a small handful of projects.  We’ll give our all to those projects … but those who aren’t quick to respond will simply miss out.


And without sounding too cute about it, 2012 is going to be a year where businesses will struggle and flounder if they try to operate profitably with ‘inefficient cogs’ … or they can take affirmative action and get solid marketing strategies in place, to guarantee they’ll roar into life in 2012 and produce windfall profits, while others are battening down and pulling back and wondering what hit them.


Again, to flag your interest in this opportunity, use the contact button below and we’ll be in touch.


Either way, my kindest regards.  All the best to you and your business, now and 2012 …


Chris Newton

"To say the meeting got off to a slow start would be an understatement..."

Many years back, I had travelled to Munroe, Wisconsin in the US, to visit the headquarters of The Swiss Colony.  This company is one of the legends of mail order and online catalogue marketing, and still mails tens of millions of catalogues every year.  After some perseverance, I had secured an appointment with the head of marketing and his team to learn how they do what they do, explaining I was researching for a business venture back home.

To say the meeting got off to a slow start would be an understatement.  Perhaps they wondered WHO this guy from the antipodes was, and why they should even give up their valuable time to tell ME their secrets.  And I don’t blame them.

But just when they were glancing at their watches, something changed the whole dynamic of the meeting.  It was a tide-turning ‘event’.

I asked them why they’d dropped a certain feature out of the inside front page of their catalogue.

It’s as if they all froze.  Then the head of marketing turned to me and said, “You know, that has been a subject of heated debate around here.  Some of us battled to keep it, some insisted it had had its day.  But you know, you’re the first person who has picked up on that.  What do YOU think?”

From that point on, they leaned in and asked if I’d mind going through other pages with them. They confided with me on their strategy.  And I was invited to tour closed off areas of their operation. I walked away with far more than I’d ever expected.

The instant change in mood was SO profound, it has stayed with me all these years since.

As far as I can see it, the meeting which they had agreed to, was initially an imposition on their time.  A PR exercise perhaps.  But when I asked a question that got right inside their heads, the walls came crumbling down.  And the more questions I asked, the more we became collaborators with a common purpose.

I fervently believe that business people just don’t ASK enough questions.  Or more to the point, they don’t ask the RIGHT questions.

Asking the right questions might seem simple.  But there’s a trick to it. It’s...

PREPARATION

You see, before I travelled to The Swiss Colony, I had studied their current and back issue catalogues like an archaeologist deciphering the Rosetta Stone.  I had studied what I thought was great about their marketing, and where I felt their weaknesses were.

Which meant, when I got in the room with them, I suspect I knew a lot more about their business than a lot of people they meet who are trying to SELL to them. And they responded positively.

Most businesses just don’t teach their people the awesome power of preparation and of asking questions.  It’s that simple.

How many times have you had someone trying to sell something to you and you know in the back of your mind that they know nothing about your needs? 

Their interest in YOU is superficial.  Their true agenda is to SELL something to you.  Often they don’t ask you questions at all.  Or if they do, they’re not listening, but rather just thinking about what they’re going to say next.

Selling … in ANY form … has to be about asking the right questions, which means diligent preparation before the interaction.

True professional selling is about ‘helping people make informed decisions to buy’.

And that can ONLY occur when you know what they want … and you’ve figured out how you’re going to give it to them.

Sounds ‘motherhood and apple pie’ … but it IS the key to earning more business, at better margins, and building long term business relationships.  Let me say it again …

Most businesses just don’t teach their people the awesome power of preparation and of asking questions. Those who do enjoy the fruits flowing in abundance from the 'cornucopia' of business-waiting-to-be-had.  Yes, especially in the toughest times.

Unitl next time...

Chris Newton