Are You Tired Of Decision Makers Not Returning Your Calls? Here’s What You Can Do About It…
I’ve been reading a great book by Jeffrey Gitomer called The Sales Bible. It’s full of good information but one idea that really piqued my interest was what to do when you finally get through to the decision maker of an account you are trying to get and you leave voice mail after voice mail only to leave you wondering if they will ever call you back.
It’s not an easy task to get in touch with busy people and when you finally do, you want it to count. This is your chance!
So, you have the number in front of you. Your palms are a little sweaty.
You have in the back of your mind that all you are trying to sell on this first call is an appointment to meet with this person, nothing more. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? You pump yourself up a little and make the call.
Ring…Ring…
“Hi, You’ve reached Mr. Johnson and I’m out of the office right now, please leave your name and number and I will return your call as soon as possible”
Beep…
Crap… What do you say now? You didn’t really plan for this.. “Uh.. Uh.. Hi, Mr. Johnson, this is Anthony from Hood Cleaning Helper and I wanted to see if I could swing by to give you a proposal on your kitchen exhaust system”, you say.
BIG MISTAKE!
Mr. Johnson will probably never return that call and you have just blown a great opportunity. So, what is the right thing to say?
We all know that technology has it’s glitches, right? Let’s use this to our advantage. If Mr. Johnson is screening our calls, he will probably pick up instantly. If your message is in fact going to his voice mail, chances are he will get back to you ASAP.
Let’s try this:
Ring… Ring…
“Hi, this is Mr. Johnson…”
Beep…
Hi, Mr. Johnson, My name is Anthony and it’s important you return my call at 555-5555. I just got out of a meeting with the fire marshal and – Then just hang up!
As a restaurant owner or manager what thoughts will be racing through his mind? Of course, you will need a great presentation or some educational info that he will be asking about when he does call you back. Of course, you don’t want to lie either. If you haven’t met with your local fire marshal, go meet them. Ask them questions, get to know them. Do your research. Gather all kinds of market data that will impress or wow Mr. Johnson.
Hope this helps, please leave comments below of how you’ve used this technique and if it worked for you or not.
Ant
Anthony, you seem to always make be laugh when I read some of your posts on Grime Scene.
I think this would work but you are right that you must be prepared with data when you get the return call. I would think visiting or calling and asking the Fire Marshal what percentage, or number, of the restaurants on average (or for the last month)(do this each month) that they visit, failed inspection? With this number you can say to the caller, “About my message, What I was saying was I just met with(spoke with) with the Fire Marshal and he told me 30% of the locations in(city name)failed inspection last month. I was hoping yours was not one of them and wondered when the last time your exhaust system was cleaned for his inspection?”
Or “I just spoke with the Fire Marshal to confirm with him that every system we cleaned in the last month (year)(location) has pasted inspection and I was wondering when your location was last inspected?”
So Anthony, What do you think about these?
Hi Linda-
I think those are both pretty good ideas. I’m wondering how accessible the Fire Marshall Inspection “results” are, though. And also, what happens if a restaurant that my guys do DOES NOT pass the Fire Marshall’s inspection. What would happen? I’m very new to the field and I’m only the Administrator. I handle all of the before and after photos so I get to see the quality of our work, but what if we miss something and the client didn’t pass inspection. Other than going back in to fix something and/or re-clean the entire Kitchen, is there a way to correct a failed inspection? And do we get fined or cited or something if the client doesn’t pass because of something that may have been our error. Sorry, these are just a couple of the questions I have, but I’m not exactly sure where to go to get the answers. If anyone has any advice I would gladly accept it.
I like the idea. On the back side I would definately have the info for the fire marshall in what ever area you are targeting.
In all honsty a good working relationship with the firemarshall in your areas is a absoloute MUST. They legally can not refer you to clients nor clients to you but if they know you do good work they can most definately give you a reccomend for who would be good to do that work the best possible way.
How do you discard the collected grease from cleaning the goods?
Glenn Martin
http://www.greasetrap.ca
This really answered my downside, thank you!