Written by: Dario Cucci, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
“Make the customer’s problem your problem.” It’s been said that a smart individual learns from their mistakes, but a truly wise person can learn simply from watching others’ mistakes. Certainly, there is a learning curve when any salesperson or business owner is just starting out, but by learning from the stories in this book, my stories and the stories of others, the time it takes to learn and implement customer service centric sales will be significantly lessened. Aside from working for companies such as 21st Century Education, Empowerment, and Universal Events, I also worked with clients on a one-on-one basis doing Skype coaching calls where I would help them grow their business and increase conversions by focusing on interactions with individual customers.
One of the clients that I worked with was a marketing strategy consultant. When we first started working together, her biggest challenge was that she struggled to obtain new customers for her marketing consulting services. In fact, it took her an average of one to two months to get one new customer that paid her an average of $250 per hour.
Her problem was that the entire structure and process of how she went about looking for new clients was far too long-winded. She had trouble asking potential clients to agree to her terms and finalizing the details for each and every offer.
This is what her process looked like when she first started her marketing consulting business:
First, establish trust through email marketing campaigns.
Then, call the potential customer to arrange a meeting.
Next, meet up with the prospect and discuss how she could assist them.
Then, after the meetup, send the prospect the outline of the work together with a quote.
After that, she would wait patiently for her prospective clients to respond to her outline.
If she got no response after a week or so, she would do a follow-up call with the prospective client.
If the prospect were unsure, she would then arrange a second meeting to handle any objections and get them on board.
If she still didn’t get a confirmation after that, she would do another follow-up call to confirm that they were on board...
I don’t know about you, but I was already getting a little frustrated just reading her SOP! (standard operating procedure). This is a very long-winded process, and she was chasing down her prospects to convert them into paying customers for her services when what should be happening is the prospects are chasing her down with offers, practically begging her to work with them! I asked her for an example of how she held discussions with her prospective clients in person or on the phone, and soon after listening to her pitch, I realized her problem right away. She wasn’t selling the value of a product to deliver to prospects. Also, she did not get the prospect to confirm their purchase. Instead, she left it wide open. To put it another way, her sales pitch was dead in the water. I was amazed that she was getting any business in the first place because if I were her prospective client, I would turn around and run in the other direction. But, hey, if you pitch to enough people, eventually you’re going to get someone who pays for your services out of pity. I talked her through what needed to happen and instructed her on exactly what to say over the next 90 minutes. Then it was time for my favorite part of my coaching calls – we did a role play in which I get to be the stubborn, frugal, and unsatisfied customer and she had to try her best to make the sale.
When it comes to sales, role plays such as these are perfect for honing the cornerstone of customer service-based sales skills. It prepares salespeople with a worst-case scenario in terms of a client you are trying to sell to, and in this case, the stubborn client will break character and give you advice from time to time. While that is definitely something you shouldn’t expect when trying to make a sale with as real client – especially a “worst-case scenario” client – it prepared her for the worst and gave her the confidence to apply a new, communication-based sales strategy.
The final test is for her to call up all of the prospective clients who had all but refused her sales pitch. These were the ones that she had already given her weak pitch to and were basically too polite to tell her “no”. One by one, she spoke with each of them with a newly refined confidence and sales strategy.
What happened during those next phone calls was no surprise to me, but for her, it was a modern-day miracle. The following week, we got together to discuss the results of those conversations and how she was applying this new, customer service-focused sales strategy. She practically broke down in tears.
“Dario, I won five new customers within the last seven days because of what you taught me.” I could hear the emotion in her voice. Even over a Skype conversation, I could practically hear her beaming from the other side of the phone. “My average income increased from $250 to $750 an hour. Thank you so much for helping me with that.”
Of course, I am very proud and happy that a client of mine has applied what I taught her and got such great results, which is why whenever I coach clients one on one in person or via Skype, I can pretty much guarantee that when they apply what I teach them, they will increase sales revenue by at least 300%, if not more.
Dario Cucci, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dario Cucci, is an International Speaker, Bestselling Author, and Holistic Business & Sales to the Professionals. He discovered that many Professionals, Experts & Coaches out there struggle to get repeat business, due to their Mindset, Communication Skills & Business Strategies in place, to support their growth.
His career in Sales started within the Self Development & Events industry over 20 Years ago, back in Australia when he worked with the Ton Robbins Team as a Sales Executive, based on commission-only income. During his first year working with them, he generated over 1 Million additional Sales Revenue for the Company.
7 years ago he started his own Company “Entrepreneur Growth Ltd” that focuses on providing Training & Coaching, with a unique approach to help them shift their Mindset, improve their communication skills, customer care structure & sales strategies, to help small Business Owners, breakthrough their limitations, boost sales & build a stellar public reputation with their customer care service.
