Stick to your guns. You can answer -

"I can't give a ballpark until I know specifics of your situation. Would you mind if I asked a couple of questions to find out about your XYZ?"

Or

"Actually, I can tell you exactly what fee will be for your project (or coaching or ... fill in blanks with your service) once I understand exactly what specifics are of your situation. May I ask a couple of questions to figure that out?"

Now, I know grammar in these examples is not textbook perfect. It's not meant to be. Our written English is quite different from way we speak, so I've written them as you would say them, not to win a grammar contest.

But let's get back to what happens if your almost-client is insistent you name a number they can hang their hat on.

Don't do it. Yes, I know this takes a bit of courage but here is what I believe: There is no way I can give an honest answer without first understanding person's situation. And honesty is a critical value for me. I bet that honesty is a critical value for you too. So from a position of honesty, it becomes easy to stand your ground - firmly, calmly and with utmost respect.

Here is a tip - match your words and your tone of voice to person's level of insistence. I remember well how a woman who owned a Medical Billing company had a Physician's Office Manager insist she give her a quote right away. Her answer? In firm tones and with confidence she replied, "I can't give you an honest answer until I know how your office runs. Every office is unique, including yours. May I ask a couple of questions to find out how your office functions?"

Use this simple strategy and you'll never fall into trap of giving away price information too soon again!

Now it's your turn!

Making offers to your customer database is often referred to as "back end" in direct marketing jargon. But every business should cash in on huge potential of existing customers by simply making frequent offers to them and giving them more opportunities to do business with you.

5. Management has no method of accurately measuring results from its advertising investments. This is especially so with so-called image advertising.

Solution: The way this is done is to seek a direct response in each promotion. This can be a coupon, telephone call or store visit. Code each promotion. Then when an order is received or a customer visits your establishment, you can propriately trace it to particular promotion.

The coding system can be numbers or letters. If you use telephone you can utilize separate telephone numbers for each advertisement. Or you can simply ask caller which ad or letter they are responding to.

6. As many companies begin to enjoy some early success, many develop a disease that I call "Big-Company-Itis." They start having endless, non-productive meetings. They become bureaucratic. They move as slow as molasses.

Instead of continuing to insist upon a high level of employee performance and keeping a close watch and control over costs, management takes its foot off brake. Costs can spiral out of control. Employee morale can suffer. Soon company is in deep trouble.

Solution: The secret is to think big but operate much like a small business. Well-managed, large organizations that are highly successful are run more like a small entrepreneurial business. Managers have profit center responsibility. Their job is to help increase revenue or reduce costs, or both. They are held accountable. They maintain financial controls and quick response of a lean and mean small business.

7. Management has no systemized upselling procedure in place to upgrade both new and existing customers to a larger sale. Result? Lower sales volume and lower profits than otherwise could be obtained.

Surprisingly, companies I've observed that market direct to consumers, such as mail-order businesses, tend to be incredibly poor at telephone communications and upselling.

Well-managed and properly trained customer service people can add 30%-60% in added sales volume without any increase in marketing or administrative costs. Your only cost is cost of goods sold. Best of all, your customers are beneficiaries of more value and variety for their money. Everyone wins.

But here is where it becomes really interesting. Your gross sales will be much higher. But your net profit will increase by a huge multiple. I've helped companies achieve huge increases in their net profit just by learning effective and professional telephone techniques. It's not unusual to increase profits as much as 5 or even 10 times!

Effective telephone communications and upselling are main reasons for huge success of my own companies. My clients for whom I conduct training of their customer service representatives have experienced similar results.

Solution: Develop a strategy which includes following:

A. Create an incentive compensation plan for your customer service representatives (CSR's) based on added sales. Depending on your profit margins, this can be for example 5% to 10% of additional sales.

B. Run a daily special offered as an "add on" that provides great value for customer. For example, you can offer a new product at half price.

C. Prepare a verbatim script on how to present special.

Tip: The selling price. Your special offer should not exceed 30% of your average order. This makes decision to accept special an easy one.

D. Provide your CSR's with some basic telephone training. This should include principles of active listening, voice pitch, pacing, learning to present things in a hearable way, and some gentle closing-the-sale techniques. A big factor is learning secrets of boosting sales without any pressure whatsoever.

Yours truly,

Ted Nicholas

P.P.S. "The secret to success, in life and in business, is to work hard at margin. Relentlessly. It's as powerful as compound interest, eighth wonder of world. Those little marginal extra efforts will inevitably grow into something big." -- Bill Bonner

Little things mean a lot

"God is in details"

Copyright 2003 Nicholas Direct, Inc.