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The other day I was in an auto parts store buying an oil
filter. It was on a Saturday morning and there were only
two workers on duty. The place was packed and the
line to purchase goods was long and most of the people
were getting impatient.
Suddenly, the phone started ringing and the worker
seemed very irritated. Finally, after about 10 rings he
got frustrated and answered the phone. He was rude
and brief while he reluctantly answered the caller’s
question. As soon as he could, he slammed down the
phone and resumed his behind- the-counter duties.
This episode occurs millions of times a day around the
small business world. It’s not only confined to the retail
world but the professional world as well. Too many
small businesses see phone calls as interruptions
rather than opportunities.
* * You Pay Good Money to Make Your Phone Ring! * *
A ringing phone is the result of your marketing efforts,
which you pay good money to develop and implement
and the fact that your phone rings indicates that you’re
marketing is working. Don’t squander your hard-earned
marketing dollars (and reputation) by underestimating
the value of each phone call.
The following are several inbound and outbound
telephone marketing practices that you can use to
make your phone one of your most powerful marketing
weapons.
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Stress the Value of Each and Every Phone Call
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1. Know Your Costs
Calculate your cost of an inquiry by dividing your total
cost of advertising by the average number of calls you
receive. For instance, if you spend $5,000 monthly on
advertising, and get about 500 calls, each call cost you
$10.
To further stress the value of each phone call, attach a
$10 bill to the handle of each phone unit to remind your
employees how important each and every phone call is
to your business and that each call could result in
cash.
2. Recognize Good Work
Give a “golden phone award” to the employee who gets
the full contact information of the most inbound callers.
Spray paint a phone gold and give it out at an employee
meeting with a free dinner for two or weekend at a local
hotel.
3. Train Employees
Include telephone training in your sales meetings. Ask
employees (rather than you) to give the training.
Supply your employees with access to professional
telephone training systems for reference.
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Get Each Caller’s Full Contact Information
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The value in any business is its customer and prospect
list and the fastest way to build that list is to ask for
contact information.
1. Are They a Customer?
Ask to know if the caller is a prior customer. If they are
then say, “Mr. Customer, we are updating out customer
list. Would you mind giving me your address and phone
number so that we can update our records?
2. Are They a Prospect?
If the caller tells you that they are not a prior customer
then handle the phone call and at the end of the call
say, “Mrs. Prospect, I’d like to send you a free report
that you’ll find very interesting. It will help you … If you
give me your address and I’ll send it out to you today.”
3. Get They're Email Address
To get a customer or prospect’s email address (critical!)
offer the customer a second free gift that you can email
to them right away and then ask for their email address.
Getting prospect and customer email addresses is
important because it will allow you to market to them
absolutely free.
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Have A Reason to Call Prospects
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Have you heard - - cold-calling doesn’t work - - but
“warm-calling” does. Warm-calling happens when you
call someone who has already had some type of
experience with you. Whenever you call a prospect,
have a valid reason to call.
1. Direct Mail Follow Up
Send a direct mail piece to a prospect or customer and
follow up by asking them about, “the free report you
sent them three days ago” or the “newspaper article
you recently sent them.” You can even call them up in
advance just to let them know your direct mail piece is
coming (this is better done with voice broadcasting).
2. Use a Familiar Name
Try to get the name of someone familiar that you can
use to open the conversation. For instance, “Hi Ms.
Prospect, my name is Denise and I’m calling from Spa
City USA. I was speaking with John Richter yesterday
and he mentioned that I might want to call you… (Hint:
always get permission from the referrer to use their
name)
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Listen Carefully While On the Phone
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People call you because they want something. Let me
say that again, people call you because they want
something. They might want a price, an explanation, to
report a problem, to speak with a manager etc.
Whatever the case may be, they want something.
The key to selling is to give people what they want.
What better time to listen to what somebody wants
than when they call you up? If you listen well enough,
your prospects will tell you just what you need to know
to sell them your product or service.
1. Ask Open-Ended Questions
Questions such as, “Why are you looking for (product
or service)?” evoke free wheeling responses that contain
valuable information. Ask questions that start with,
“Why…”, “What are your thoughts…”, “Tell me
about…”, or “What was your impression…”
2. Wait For a Response
A common mistake with phone marketers (inbound or
outbound) is that they feel the need to talk.
Remember, when you’re talking the customer isn’t.
You should do 20% of the talking while the customer or
prospect does 80% of the talking. Don’t be afraid to
leave dead space on the phone while you’re waiting for
a response. Ask an open-ended question then be quiet
and listen.
3. Listen Carefully for Pain, then Quantify It and Solve It
People have a natural tendency to complain about
problems. As a marketer, this is your key to success
because the reason people are complaining about
problems is because they’re looking for a solution, even
though they don’t ask for one.
Listen for a problem that is causing your prospect pain,
then try to quantify it. Find out just how bad the pain is
by turning it into numbers. For instance, your prospect
tells you she has back pain. Your response could be,
“On a scale from one to ten, ten being excruciating,
how bad is your back pain?”
Or your prospect’s inventory is being stolen, a possible
response may be, “What is the dollar cost of inventory
that is missing per store? How many stores are
experiencing this same problem? Then this problem is
costing your business $XX dollars”
Now solve your prospect’s problem by keying in on the
solution to their pain. “Ms. Smith, most of our
customers experience back pain just like yours, some
even worse. Most have found relief within 30 days or
less using (product or service).”
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Turn Price Checkers Into Value Seekers
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One of the most common challenges to telephone
marketing is how to handle price checkers, people who
call you up just to get a price. This is especially
dangerous if they have not yet received enough
information to determine value.
It leaves you to compete price alone. This leaves you
at a disadvantage unless you sell a bottom-end, cheap-
as-dirt product. If you do, hopefully you have a cost
advantage over your competitors.
Perhaps the most detrimental result of giving out your
price over the phone is that you have just taken away
the single most powerful motivation for people to come
into your business and speak with you personally.
You’ve just set yourself up to be price shopped.
1. Ask Probing Questions
The secret to handling price checkers is to ask them
open-ended probing questions. For instance,
Caller: “Hi, what’s your price on the platinum pool?”
You: “Well, what type of pool are you looking for?” or “It
depends, what types of features are you looking for?”
These responses lead you into “value discussions” that
help you to build the value of your products or services
in the mind of a prospect. Remember, if you can’t build
value then all you have to compete on is price, and this
is rarely a winning proposition.
2. Use the Compare / Contrast Principle
Earlier I told you to quantify the pain your prospect is
experiencing. If you’ve done this right, the dollar
amount of the pain will be very large compared with the
price of your product or service. In comparison, people
will perceive the price to solve their problem very little in
contrast to what their problem is costing them.
Remember: If you feel the need to give out a price or
estimate over the phone, do so only AFTER you’ve had
a conversation about value using the compare / contrast
principle.
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Always Ask for An Appointment
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A phone call without an appointment is like building a
website and not getting visitors. Why work to make
your phone ring if you’re not going to try and get an
appointment? You should ask for an appointment on
most every call.
1. Give Your Caller a Reason
It’s much easier to ask for an appointment when there
is a valid reason to meet. You might say, “I’d like to
show you one specific technique we use to reduce
costs that many of our customers are getting great
results from. I’d like to meet with you this week to
demonstrate how this technique works.”
2. Be Sensitive To Their Time Constraints
People are busy and don’t want to be bothered so you
always need to openly recognize the value of their time.
For instance, using the previous example you might
say, “I’d like to meet with you this week to demonstrate
how this technique works. I know your time is valuable
and I want to honor that. Our meeting would only last
for 15 – 20 minutes.”
3. Tie Down a Time By Limiting Their Options
Give your prospect only two options for meeting times.
First of all this forces your prospect to think about
WHEN they can meet rather than IF they want to meet
with you. Secondly, it makes it a simple no-hassle
scheduling process.
Again, following up from the last example you could
say, “Our meeting would only last for 15 – 20 minutes.
I have a time slot open on Wednesday at 3:45 pm or
Thursday morning at 11:15 am. Which is better for
you?”
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Use Benefit Oriented After-Hours Voicemail
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There’s no better time to market to somebody then
when they are waiting to speak to you. Instead of
telling the person waiting on the phone about how great
you are, help them to solve their problems. Here is a
typical message that I hear often: “Thanks for calling
ABC Pools, our store hours are from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00
p.m. Please call back during our normal business
hours. Thank you.” Click.
1. Offer a Free Report
Consider putting a recording similar to this on your
message system:
“Thanks for calling ABC Pools, with the only pool that
provides a maintenance free sparkling pool water
system. If you’ve reached this message we are
probably gone for the day. We apologize and want you
to know that you are important to us. Feel free to call
our 24 hour free recorded message at xxx-xxx-xxxx to
hear “The Six Secrets to Building Your Own Pool.”
Leave your name and number at the sound of the tone
and we’ll call you as soon as we possibly can. If you
don’t leave your name and number we won’t be able to
enter you into our drawing for a free trip to
Las Vegas. Thanks again for calling ABC Pools.”
2. Send a Postcard
Another idea is to talk to your phone company about
hooking up a caller ID so that you can get their phone
number with a reverse phone number look up that can
be found on the web.
If you get their address in this manner, immediately
send a postcard out to them thanking them for their
inquiry and inviting them to come in or receive a free
report. If they are calling you and they are a prospect it
means that they are in the market and will probably
make a decision soon so the postcard needs to go out
quickly.
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Conclusion
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Your telephone can be a powerful marketing tool if used
correctly. With some know-how training you’ll be able
to see results immediately. A great website for learning
more about how to use your phone to make profits is
www.BusinessByPhone.com owned by Art Sobczak,
an author and expert in telephone marketing.
Now pick up your phone and start dialing for dollars!
David
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David Frey, President, Marketing Best Practices Inc., a
Houston small business consulting firm. To get your
lifetime FREE subscription to the web's leading small
business marketing newsletters just send an email to
subscribe@MarketingBestPractices.com or visit
http://www.MarketingBestPractices.com
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