This 10 Word Sentence That Will Close More Clients For You
I don’t usually do this and ‘steal’ blog content, but this email I received struck a cord with me about some of our recent dealings in our carpet cleaning business. Particularly relevant to commercial cleaning at the moment this was an email from a marketing forum I subscribe to Timothy Castleman
Here’s Tim’s email. If you get anything from it why not visit his site and subscribe too, it’s free advice.
Tim says…
I hate buying a new house.
It’s not the new house that’s so bad – it’s all the new stuff that we have to buy for the new house.
I’m still new to all of this, but from what I been told (by my wife) nothing in the old house is going to work in the new one.
That means some new furniture, new appliances, and much much more.
So that means that yesterday, while it was 82 degrees outside, I got to go store to store looking at furniture.
Yay me.
Here’s what stunned me.
The lack of hustle in salespeople.
The first place we went was actually a return visit to bedroom furniture store we had bought from previously.
We had been there a few weeks ago and met a salesman named Eric.
He quickly gave me his business card along with his cell phone number to get a hold of him if he wasn’t at the store.
He also pointed out that he worked on commission so if we needed anything, please buy it from him so he could get paid.
Guess what he did next …
Disappeared.
We’re talking David Copperfield vanishing act.
Next thing I know we’re settled on a bedroom set and new dinning room table.
We have to hunt this guy down to tell him and get pricing, delivery dates, etc.
He acts if he could care less.
When he tells us the total I start asking buying questions:
– Is there a lower price if I pay cash?
– How much of a discount can I get if I buy today?
– Will he throw in free delivery if we buy it all at once?
No, No, and No.
Here we are, recovering from one of the greatest rescission of all time and I am a customer who wants to spend money with them.
A repeat customer no less.
With cash in hand.
Ready to buy.
And this guy won’t budge an inch to get my business.
He won’t hustle to make a deal and earn a commission.
And before you think “he can’t”, he can.
Furniture has a HUGE markup and there is plenty of room for both profit and commission.
I’ve never once met a manager who couldn’t adjust the numbers a little for a customer or at least attempt to help.
The last time I bought from this same store they reduced the price and threw in free delivery for me.
This guy wanted none of it.
So guess how much money he got from me?
None.
In fact we went over to another store a bought a bedroom set from them instead – because of the sales person.
The only thing we have to get from the original store is a dinning room table and chairs.
And when I do buy it I’ll be sure to use another salesperson so this guy doesn’t get a dime from me.
So what does this have to do with you?
Well ask yourself this – are you willing to hustle to make a sale?
Are you willing to help out a customer and turn that prospect into a client?
No, I am not talking about selling your soul and dropping your price to rock bottom.
But could you add an additional service, maybe throw in something else, or give a slight reduction in price in exchange for X?
Of course you could.
The next time you’re having trouble closing a client ask them this simple question:
“What do I have to do to earn your business?”
Trust me, they’ll tell you exactly what they want/need in order to buy from you.
If it’s within reason and you’re ok with the terms why not adjust a little bit to accommodate them and get a sale in the process?
What happens if their demands are to great or totally out of line?
Tell them. I can’t do that but here’s what I can do and lay out what you’re willing to do.
If they say no thanks at least you know you did everything in your power to try and close them.
It’s like buying a car.
You want it to pay $1,000, they want $60,000 for it.
Chances are you’ll meet somewhere in the middle at a price or situation you both can be satisfied with.
You can do the same.
Remember, all you have to do is hustle.
Well, what do you think?
I’d love to hear your comments – just hit reply and let me know if I’m off my rocker or not.
Talk soon.
Tim
PS: By the way, I love sharing a providing content with you – what I hate is when I hear crickets in return. Let me know if you get anything from this so I know to keep sending stuff like this.
Allan here again. So what did you think? It made me realise I used to use a similar phrase a lot, but over time have stopped for some reason. Did it make you think about any tenders you’ve submitted recently? It did for me. So much so that I made a phone call to a recent potential client and asked “I know we’re in the mix with others, but What do I need to do to earn your business?”, the answer was “Can you include the few chairs in the Staff Room?”, HA HA! My calm reply was “Er, yes, if you make sure all the chairs are together before we arrive.” their reply “Oh of course, we’ll bring them all into the main hall and then return them when they’re dry.” The lesson here for me was that we had priced these to clean the chairs in each individual room, moving the kit from one to the next, now by asking “What do I need to do to earn your business?” we were going to clean a few extra chairs, but they would now all be in thmain hall and we’d be quicker over all now. RESULT!.
So, if you want to subscribe to the emails from Tim you can here Timothy Castleman