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Selling Your Services |
Your Phone is the Lifeline of your Business.by Lee Ann Taylor
One of the main concerns of a new or smaller sweeping service is how to compete with the larger, more established companies. I started my sweeping service in 1987, and remember very well the victories as well as the mistakes during those rough first years. Here are some of the discoveries I made while building up my company's business and professional reputation. First, don't confuse being 'big' with being 'professional.' Many large companies lose clients exactly because they have handled their business unprofessionally. The property managers and owners that I deal with on a daily basis are all looking for exactly the same qualities in their venders: reliability, courtesy, and accountability. Remember that every time you are in contact with a client, you have the opportunity to demonstrate that you and your company have these desirable business traits - or that you don't. With every contact you make, always keep in mind that you are creating an image in your prospect's mind about you and your capabilities as a business person. Is that image a professional one that demonstrates how informed you are about the services you provide? Remember, the image you create is totally controlled by you! There are three basic methods of communication with a client: by phone, mail, and in-person. Each of these approaches will be covered in this three-part series, starting with this article which emphasizes phone contact. Your initial contact with a client is frequently by phone. It is also the main avenue of continuing client contact after a business relationship has been started. It's of foremost importance that you develop a pleasant telephone voice. Monotone and high-pitched voices are hard to listen to, which causes the listener to 'close-off' from the conversation. Practice with a tape recorder until you hear yourself speaking with a clear, understandable voice (do not tape record actual client calls without their consent, since this is illegal). Using a tape recorder will allow you to evaluate yourself, however, as well as detect undesirable speaking traits that you may not even be aware of. Examples of these are such as saying 'yaa' for 'yes,' and 'naa' for 'no.' Another undesirable habit is making annoying sounds such as 'aaaa,' 'ummmm,' or 'uhhh' during conversational pauses. During these pauses, silence is the best tool to use. Making noises gives the impression that you are fishing for a reply, whereas silence demonstrates that you are forming a deliberate, well thought out answer. Also, try to avoid clichés as much as possible. Using too many clichés results in your conversation becoming boring and predictable. What you say when you answer your phone is very important. People generally do not really hear the first 3-5 words spoken, so keep that in mind when you develop your greeting. Make your first few words give-away words, such as "Good morning, you've reached..." or "Thank you for calling..." This gives your customer a chance to get oriented in the phone conversation. Another difficult greeting for a caller to handle is the phone being answered with just the company name, without any sort of greeting at all. If you start out abruptly with the name of the company, there is a good chance that the caller will not register what you are saying, causing them to be momentarily confused. This also creates an atmosphere of unfriendliness, and demonstrates that your company is not there to give a real level of assistance to the caller. Keep in mind how what you say is perceived. Answering the phone "How may I help you" is nice and personal, but gives your caller the impression that you are a small company. Answering the phone "How may we help you" gives the caller the impression that they are dealing with a larger company, one with many individual talents and capabilities at their disposal. In many of the larger cities, phone companies give free or low-cost seminars on phone techniques. Call your phone company's customer services' office and make inquiries. You may be surprised at how much professional information and training is available. One large problem with a new company is determining whose duty it will be to answer the phone. After working all night cleaning lots, or doing employee follow-up work, not many people in this industry can be up all day answering the phone. There are several ways to handle this dilemma. One is to hire an answering service. This is an excellent bridge between you and your clients, since there are still many people out there who resent answering machines. These individuals may hang up on your machine, yet will gladly speak with an answering service. This is especially true of someone who is calling several sweeping services to get bids. Remember, it is much harder to hang up on a person than a machine. Another plus in using an answering service versus a machine is that the answering service will call you at home if there is an emergency you need to handle. Also, with the computerization available in this field these days, it's often hard to even tell that an answering service is being used. A solution that I used successfully when I was getting started was to install two phone lines into my home. One had the advertised number of my business with a machine on it, the other was my personal home line. The message on that machine informed callers of my business phone hours, and asked them to call back then. The hours I chose to answer the phone were from 8:00 am to 12:00 noon, because I received the greater number of calls during those hours. I also gave my personal phone number to clients. They could call in an emergency, since I always answered that phone. If you decide to use this method, be sure to be available during the hours quoted. Another form of communication that I could not do without is my pager. All my clients have my pager number so that I can be contacted day or night. Another plus of having a pager is that if you need to be away from the phone during your 'phone hours' you can use the call forwarding feature to forward calls to your pager number. Have your pager message inform the caller that they have reached your pager, that you will be notified of their call immediately and that you will return their call as soon as you can. To go along with this, you may want to take the plunge and purchase a car phone (another of my 'can't do withouts'). Now I can generally return any calls immediately upon being paged. My eleven drivers also carry pagers so that I can contact them at any time during the evening. This is another selling factor I can use to encourage clients to choose my company over another. If you haven't yet done so, it's time for your office to have a fax machine. I am called upon more and more these days to fax my bids to my customers, and they are now faxing information to me as well; site plans, job specifications, etc. Fax machines have become so prevalent that you will chance losing credibility if you don't have one. Automatic fax detection switching devices are now available, both as stand-alone devices or built into some fax machines, which means that you need not even add an additional line for your fax. If you simply cannot afford your own fax machine, get the number of a local public fax to use. Most copy shops have one. This way you can be ready with a fax number when a fax request is made. Your clients will probably never even know that they are faxing to a public facility. When making cold (or unsolicited) phone calls, remember to keep your conversations as brief as possible. Stay professional and on track: Identify yourself and explain the reason for your call, make arrangements for any follow-up needed, thank them for their time, then get off the phone! The only exception to this rule is when the client is talking. Then be the best listener in the world. Do not add more than a comment or two to their conversation. If you find yourself doing the majority of the talking, you are talking too much. The prospect may seem to be listening and interested, but the chances are that they think you are wasting their time. This same rule applies to follow-up calls. Remember that your clients are busy, and that they expect that you, too, are busy if you are a professional. Once you have a business phone, you will have the opportunity to advertise in the yellow pages. I have found having an ad there to be helpful, but have learned that the ad itself is what is important, not the size. A large splashy ad may give the impression that your company is too big and impersonal, and that you are more involved with getting business than providing service. They also can be very expensive. A small, well-planned box ad is often the better choice. When writing your ad, don't waste your valuable advertising space stating the obvious. They found you under sweeping services, so you don't need to waste space about that in your ad. Instead inform prospective clients about your quality points, and any other services you provide. If you also do steam cleaning, janitorial and landscape work then let prospects know that in your ad. Bold headings and a smattering of red ink also helps readers locate your ad quickly. Keep in mind, however, that your best advertisement is you. When I receive a bid request from the yellow pages I know that I am in competition with every other advertiser in that book. When I target a parking area that appears in need of my services and I go in-person to the owner or manager, I am their only contact. Keep this fact in mind while listening to the advertising pitch made by the yellow pages sales representative. Remember that the size of your ad is reflected in their commission check! By the way, my personal experience is that advertising in other private phone books has not given me satisfactory results. That's the telephone information I have gleaned from my experience in the sweeping business. It's a wonderful industry that has been most rewarding for me and, if you practice professionalism, it certainly can be for you, too. |
 © 2005 - 2012
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