February Newsletter:

This issue will deal with Getting Business

Everyone is looking for business - to win is getting tougher and tougher.

Plus, the cost of getting a new account or client is upwards of $500.00. This could be higher - or lower - the fact remains that it is costing more and more to get new business.

A business owner needs to be even smarter now than they were yesterday and better than their competition, as well. From the Harvard Business Review: 65-85% who rate you satisfied or very satisfied will switch.

So what? This is nothing new? The wheels of commerce go round and round. This is old news?

Why then do I keep hearing the same old answers to the business questions that I am asking? Why aren't business owners realizing the value of getting and using information to help them remain competitive?

To advise a company about sales and marketing, which is what I do while I explore the penetration of the telephone to help them to grow their business, I am asking pretty routine questions:

• How do you get new business?
• What is the lead time?
• What is an average order value or what does a first order look like?
• How many active clients do you have?
• How often do you reach out to your clients?
• How much of your clients business do you have?
• When do you contact your clients - when you feel like it or when they might need you?
• What is their own buying cycle? What are their plans?
• What is an average order vale for you clients?
• Where do you get your business from?
• Who do you talk to at your client's office?  Who should you talk to?

I am shocked how often a client or potential client cannot answer these basic questions for me. 

How to Contact Me

Phone (727) 421-8818
kathy@telephoneeffectiveness.com

An Hour with Kathy will motivate all of your sales people. She knows how to make the telephone
SING - YOUR TUNE!

If your company has regular sales meetings or a 'lunch and learn' then you should bring Kathy in to start an interactive thought-provoking session!

THE RIGHT QUESTION AT THE RIGHT TIME
The most under trained and mis-used sales skill

At a recent client training, when the sales people were asked to write down their 3 commonly used questions... EVERY ONE of them was a closed question. 

Closed questions used incorrectly shut the conversation down and can strip confidence!

Contact Kathy now participate in the next  3 hour session to build a confident, effective and nosey sales team - who will get the right answers to the right questions!  This works for those who use the telephone and those who are in the trenches!

 For an investment of $159.00 you will be rewarded many times over!  kathy@telephoneeffectiveness.com

If you haven't met Kathy, you are in for a real treat.  She has international experience that pioneered the use of the telephone for many businesses

http://www.telephoneeffectiveness.com/testimonials.htm

It is more than ever necessary for a company to use a multi-marketing or multi-sales approach to get business.  The Internet has made it easier to identify a target company; some of that leg work has been minimized.

As an organization you must look at how you can pro-actively reach out to these businesses and what the results are.  The results bear a direct relationship to cost of getting and doing business.  65-85% who rate you satisfied or very satisfied will switch. Harvard Business Review.

You know that this article is leading to the use of the telephone.  The power that the telephone brings to your organization is often ignored.  We spoke about the cost of getting new business.  What is your cost for both keeping AND growing that account? Do you even know? 

Some of my clients think it is easy.  Put some people on the phone and have them talk to clients and prospects.  Give them product training.  They need to know every detail backwards and forwards.  Better yet, pay them just over the odds and give them a tiny incentive and that'l make them happy.

What is your business worth?  Or, what is a customer worth?  We know what it cost to get them?  Yet you are willing to put your future in the hands of untrained, unskilled, unmotivated individuals?

To impact your sales and marketing the telephone can be a very effective tool and, used correctly, it can save you money as well as build your business.

Face to face selling, or relationship selling, has been the way to get business since before Christopher Columbus convinced Queen Isabella to give him the ships!  How do you measure up?

Let’s look at this matrix?  I can feel your pain! 

Think of the opportunities that you have for impacting your sales with well thought-out and well-measured telephone activity for your business? 

Using the telephone strategically can confirm, enhance and even build on the knowledge that is publicly available about a company to determine whether or not it is a prospect. By talking to people you can find out WHEN and WHO and this will certainly affect the sales cycle! TRADITIONS  In keeping with tradition, and using my background which is direct marketing, I do not want to leave this out of the business mix.  I recently came across this survey.  While the printed medium is still strong, the use of the telephone as part of the mix is powerful. One of my clients increased his response by ten fold by creating a high quality mail/phone business to business campaign.

Target Marketing surveyed direct marketers to find out what gives the best ROI (return on investment). They asked what was best for "Customer Acquisition" (getting new customers) and what was best for "Customer Retention" (keeping the customers you have).

Here's what the direct marketers reported:

Other includes: direct response radio, direct response TV, fax, insert media, mobile marketing, Podcasts and webinars.

Some of the traditional ways of getting and keeping customers are still strong. Some newer techniques are being implemented and are somewhat effective.

TRICKS

Let your phone ring 2-3 times before you answer it.  Give yourself and the caller a chance to 'connect' and be ready to engage in a conversation. 

When you are next speaking to a prospect, ask:  who else, besides yourself, makes the decision about X or Y!

Change your voice mail message from:  I am away from my desk or on the phone Immediately!  Tell the caller when to expect to hear from you and how they can help you.

When you leave a phone number, pause AFTER the last number.  You don't want to talk over that number. 

Your Essential Quote of the Day

"People create their own success by learning what they need to learn and then by practicing it until they become proficient at it."

Brian Tracy

Kathy Pabst Robshaw
The Total Telephone Effectiveness Company
"The Telephone Nanny"
www.telephoneeffectivenss.com
727 421 8818