If You Sell Over the Phone - Two Simple Questions to Stop You from Being an Order-Taker
Even the decent inside salespeople revert to being order-takers about half the time.
What does this mean? When someone calls up, the salesperson gives them exactly what they want. Nothing more. They respond to the question(s) asked, and that's it.
What's wrong with this? They're missing out on getting the complete picture. Is this prospect serious? Or are they just a tire-kicker? Is the call purely about price-shopping? Or is there a way to sell value here?
Order-takers never find out. They just dispense the info requested and get off the phone. And I'll bet there's not much difference between what these people are doing and what you're doing.
So what can YOU do to avoid being an order-taker?
Continue to ask questions.
Even just two simple questions asked after the point the prospect thinks that the conversation is about to come to an end--and you think the conversation is about to come to an end--will help:
> did you have a budget in mind for this project?
> do you have a time frame in mind for when you'd like to see this up and running/installed/completed?
The prospect's responses will tell you a lot about their level of commitment and urgency for this project.
If you don't think you're commonly forgetting to ask these two straightforward questions on your incoming calls, try recording them and find out.
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Philip Dwyer