Is Another Million Dollars Hiding in Your Business Too?

Just finished up a Coaching Call that has me panting slightly, just like the coaching members who heard it. Longtime client Buddy Smith runs Russell’s, a neat and profitable $ 5M contracting business in Virginia. Though it was running well, Buddy’s mind began to wander.

He’d hear one side of phone conversations as he walked past the CSRs. “They seemed polite and professional” he said. He’d get the appointment set-rate spreadsheets. He’d see the sales close ratios that resulted. All seemed okay. Then one day it hit him,

“What if I increased the set-rate from the same number of leads, and even had the same sales ratio, my sales would go from…” and he tapped out the numbers. “Whoa” he thought. And the process to uncovering $880,000 in sales in one year, without an extra dime in marketing dollars or sales dexterity began. “It was amazing” Buddy said. And here’s how he did it.

Buddy pounced upon a theme we explore a lot in SMI and in coaching: “Stretching the topline.” The theory is simple but profound.

Most contractors focus on either lead generation or sales closing ratio. But there’s a “missing” link in there.

I often coach that there are two sales in every phone call. It’s not just the actual sale at the house, but the appointment that precedes it. If you don’t get the appointment, you’ll never get the actual sale. Amazingly, the contracting industry largely ignores this “first” sale.

Buddy’s idea was to “stretch” the number of appointments out of the same lead count in two distinct ways:

1. Record the calls to determine if where, and how often appointments were being missed.
2. Train his CSR s for maximum phone effectiveness for one goal: Book the call.

He figured if he could stretch the topline of appointments, he’d have to sell more. What he didn’t realize is the volume of appointments being lost by otherwise very adept CSRs.

Biggest Problems Were Also Easiest to Correct

In recording the calls, he found two problems that were “killing his leads before they had a chance to buy.”

First, his call volume by time of day peaked during lunch. This is precisely when the CSRs would take lunch, leaving them short-handed or depending on untrained call takers. “I could see on our data log that 3-4 calls a day were hanging up from too many rings or were too long on hold. This was over a thousand leads a year!”

Second, “giving away” information on the phone that didn’t land the appointment. “We had people call asking, ‘So how much is a pound of Freon, how much is your trip charge, or how much is a furnace?’ and being nice contractors, we’d often answer … and the customer would say ‘Thanks’ and hang up!”  He calculated this happened roughly 30-40 times a month, or another 400-500 possible appointments gone.

“Without call recording, I’d have never known these problems were vaporizing nearly 1,500 leads a year!”

He began training CSRs with top-quality scripting to help prevent these ; plus, he sharpened up:

1. Staffing during peak times, staggering lunch breaks.
2. Answering consistency. We have one greeting by everyone who touches a phone.
3. Call handling. Russell’s trained to eliminate the 'Frustration phrases' for customers “…which drive customers straight to the competition!” (Get a no-cost list of these at the end of this article.)
4. Appointment setting scripts. “We now know the key phrases to use that get commitments from customers.” (Another no-cost report at the end.)
5. Call ending. “This was great. We used to just end our calls with ‘See you Tuesday’ or whatever. Now we make sure to ask, ‘Is there anything else I can help you with?’ and we pull thousands of dollars of sales using this one technique.”

As a bonus, Buddy was able to change the culture of his call handlers and improve the image, while differentiating his customers. “I almost used to cringe hearing what we’d say on the phone to customers. Now – though we still have room for improvement – I feel like we sound as good as the best nationally-trained CSRs out there. And that’s a great feeling.”

Not just a great feeling, but adding nearly a million dollars in sales has helped his cash flow, company morale, staff incentives and commissions, while boosting the customer count for the company. Even more amazing…

“I feel like we have another million dollars in sales waiting for us next year!” And with Buddy’s electric enthusiasm, I feel he’ll find it.

How You Can “Find” a Million Dollars in Hidden Business

1. Call Recording: Buddy used “Call Source” but there are other competing companies.
2. CSR Training: Buddy uses Power Selling Pros. These are on-site and off-site “live” training sessions.
3. Alternative CSR Training: The CSR NitroPack. This is a pre-packaged CSR training that includes scripts, objection handling, upselling, transitioning phrases, how to hire the ‘right’ CSR and even tests to help grade your CSRs for maximum performance.

TWO NO-COST Resources to help you get started:

1. Common Phrases that Drive Your Customers Crazy, plus...
2. “The Missing Link in Your Contracting Business.”

Simply request the reports by sending a polite email to: coaches@hudsonink.com or call 1-800-489-9099 to get them.

Coaching Clients: Make sure you listen to the entire call. You’ve already been sent an audio link and workbook.

Happy Selling. This may be the best Christmas present you get!

- See more of Adams articles here