Over the years this issue has come up a number of times and it pains me greatly to see business people spending literally tens of thousands of dollars on advertising (Yellow Pages in particular) only to see their staff “bomb out” after the first question which your prospect, responding to the advert, asks.

You know what it is: “ Can you tell me your price on <product>?”

To which our hapless, ill-trained, don’t-give-a-damn staff member says, “The price is $X”.

Sheesh! Pull the chain on another opportunity that has cost you considerable money to obtain!

Besides, you know that the minute this phone call concludes, your staff member will go back to work thinking that s/he has just spoken to another inconsequential “tyre-kicker” – no big deal, because it’s not their money or their opportunity, or their business!  Pay day is still pay-day.

Perhaps I might be a little bit harsh here, but truly this is an issue we all need to heed.

But back to the phone call from the price-shopper.

You know that once the prospect has concluded the call to your business, s/he will immediately phone one of your competitors.  Think about it, you are educating your prospects to become price shoppers!  Is that really what you want?

This is happening all the time and if it’s happening within your business then you, dear reader, may care to do something about it.

The answer lies in the question!

If nothing else, implement the following phrase and make it mandatory for every staff member to use when you get the call that starts off with “Can you tell me your price?”

“So that I can help you best, may I ask you some questions on that?”

Got it - it’s as simple as that.

When the prospect says “Yes” (which they do on 95 per cent of occasions), the issue of price has been deferred and your sales staff member now has the opportunity to probe for needs and wants.

Now I won’t bore you with follow-up questions because every subscriber will have a different slant on this, based upon their products and services, but surely it is imperative that each business has a written list of probing questions that deal with each product or service that you represent.

But here’s a tip: the probing questions you ask are designed to help people solve their problem and truly, their problem isn’t finding out what your product costs.  So, think of your probing questions with the Magnificent Seven in mind (hey, you can tell I’m a Baby Boomer can’t you when I can remember a movie that old!).

Instead of Yul Brynner and company I’m talking about – what, which, when, where, how, who and why.

And in case you need further motivation, consider the case of a recent client of ours. Before we got involved they had a conversion rate of enquiries/quotes to sales of  10-20 per cent.  After some coaching that conversion rate lifted to 50 per cent. Of course, there was more involved that what I have shared here, but don’t fool yourself … this is a huge area of opportunity in business and even more  in the current economic times.

Not sure where to start, that’s ok, we can help.  Why not drop me a line at priceissues@rightteam.com.au

So, is phone price shopping an issue for your business?  Yes or No

If yes, who is responsible for implementing a solution and when will this occur?

Who………………………………………….

When………………………………………….

Examine your phone answering standards

I’m reliably informed by Daytimers, the diary people, that on average it takes 3.6 phone calls for two parties to finally get connected.  Wow, what a waste of time, energy and money, not to mention the build up in frustration.

Sure, we can use the voice mail facilities that are to be found on most good phone systems or we could send an email instead, but I honestly believe that the phone-answering habits of many receptionists have slipped a notch or two, and maybe we need to examine what’s happening in our businesses, in this area, right now.

In many instances, this deterioration has occurred because of a lack of training, and if this is the case at your business, please think about re-training your receptionists. It mightn’t be the best system possible but here’s what we do at The Right Team.

Let’s say you call for me, and I am interstate. Our staff are trained to answer like this:

“Paul is interstate at present and will be back <state day>.  In the meantime, perhaps there is some way that I can help?”

Now, that one line expression “In the meantime, perhaps there is some way I can help” is what is largely missing these days and it’s a pity, because many minor matters can be attended to at this stage.

Even if a person must speak directly to me, it’s mighty handy when the receptionist goes the extra yard and gathers information for me as follows:

“So that Paul can properly attend to your matter, may I ask you two brief questions?”

The questions are:

“Please provide me with a brief outline of the matter that you want Paul to consider and when is the best possible time for him to contact you?”

Go on, use this article and this time to examine this very important “window to the world” of your business.

Finally, for those of you who like to read something of substance that will help you in your daily life I can’t recommend enough the book titled, The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. You can order at your local book store or via Amazon