FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q1. How can I be sure that using the coaching services of an outside organisation would really benefit my business growth?

A1. We all know that nothing is certain. However, if you need your revenues to significantly increase, there are just three courses of action open to you:

(i) Pull the blankets over your head and pray! Not really to be recommended for unfortunately the problem won’t go away, but it certainly can get worse.

(ii) Try to solve it yourself. But isn’t that what you have been trying to do – with disappointing results?

(iii) Invest in some professional help. We didn't want to hand over our hard-earned cash to e.g. graphic designers, but we just had to face up to it, our initial attempts at designing our own brochures in the early days, were hugely time-consuming, pretty amateur and goodness knows what our prospective clients must have thought of them!

Like you, we hate spending money unnecessarily, but it’s taken us many years to come to terms with the fact that if we have specialist needs, we must bite the bullet and invest in advice from specialists - who know what they’re doing!

Q2. Why should I spend this money, when I can get all the information I need from the bookshop and the Internet?

A2. Good question - one that the behavioural scientists have been scratching their heads over for years. We believe it all comes down to Time, Money and Discipline.

How much Time and Money are you prepared to put aside for:
(i) researching all of the marketing and sales material that’s available;
(ii) analysing it to ascertain what’s likely to be appropriate for your business development needs;
(iii) paying for the selected materials;
(iv) reading, absorbing and making notes;
and (v) finding opportunities to test out your new knowledge and skills?

And then, if you find that a new tactic/strategy isn’t giving you the results you were hoping for, who do you turn to? And why should they get you back on track without being paid?

As far as Discipline is concerned, hands up all those who’ve bought Open Learning materials and not got around to completing them.
Why do we do this? In our case, either the materials have disappointed us, or more commonly, we ’ve started with a flourish, but then life just gets in the way and we rarely get around to completing them, even though we know they'd benefit us!

However, if we're obliged to report back to someone we ’ve paid, we ’d feel embarrassed (and out of pocket) if we didn’t make the progress that we ’d promised him – and so, we do it! It’s called Discipline - and it’s extremely difficult to apply it to oneself!

Q3. This sounds all fine and dandy, but it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll have an in-depth understanding of my business, which really is quite different from other professions.

A3. It’s not just unlikely, we’d say it’s nigh on impossible - unless you’re in Human Resources or Sales & Marketing, where we do have solid, professional, practical experience. However, over the last 20 years we’ve built up a very clear and comprehensive understanding of how people and businesses buy services in a wide variety of sectors.
You see, we don’t need to understand the intricacies of Nuclear Physics or Homeopathy to know that people and businesses will not even consider buying your services, if they can’t see how you’ll address their needs.
But we do know that they won’t even glance at your promotional materials if they haven’t been written to woo them.
We do know the best way to compile and utilise a database that’ll give you the best possible results.
We do know the best way to get an appointment and how to control the agenda when it takes place.
We do know why you should resist submitting a definitive Proposal until as late as possible.
We do know how to find out who really makes the decisions and how we should modify our behaviour to get them “on-side”.
We do know how to respond when a prospective client says “It’s too expensive” or “I’ll get back to you.”
We do know why “Customer Satisfaction” is a false goal to pursue.
And so on!

You see, we’ve spent many, many years selling services and, at the cost of much blood, sweat and tears (and money), have found what tends to work and what doesn’t.
Where is the logic in your taking a similar time (and at a similar cost) to re-learn all the knowledge that we’ve acquired, when we could immediately recommend tactics and a strategy likely to substantially increase your success?
Draw from our experience!

Q4. But are your recommendations likely to require me to invest substantial additional amounts? I really can’t afford to put in major cash injections.

A4. Of course, if you want a Rolls-Royce, it’ll have to be paid for! However, there are so many small, inexpensive – and often FREE – actions that you can start applying today.
It’s surprising how small changes can make significant differences. For example, the majority of successful sales tactics simply require you to change what you say and how you say it.

When the waiter asks “Would you care to order wine with your dinner?”, you’re likely to answer “Yes” or “No”.
But just think how you’d be influenced if he were to ask “Would you prefer to have a red or a white wine with your dinner?"

In the first example your choice is limited to “Yes” or “No”: whilst in the second, a “No” reply has almost dropped out of the equation - the assumption is that you will be ordering wine, and the only question to be resolved is which wine you’d prefer.

Bearing this in mind, when selling professional services, one should not ask “Would you like to go ahead with this?” because you’re inviting the Prospect to say either “Yes” or “No” - it's 50:50. Instead, one should ask “Would you prefer to start with the admin or the warehousing staff?”

So, no, it’s by no means essential that one has to put in large dollops of cash – instead, we advocate learning from the experiences of others and applying rational thought and intelligent persistence.

Q5. I have a very valuable and well functioning team. I want to know if your coaching would be acceptable to them.

A6. No problem - listen to the following podcasts. The first is a 15 minute presentation to a group of service suppliers discussing how to judge the best time to "close" a sale. Just "left click" the link and it will play automatically.

http://media.libsyn.com/media/horizontalview/Brian_Seminar_2_edited.mp3

The second podcast is the audience reaction after hearing a presentation on the role of Tele-Sales when selling services..

http://media.libsyn.com/media/mukauminutes/BrianFeedback7.mp3

Website: sellingservices.co.uk Phone: 01460 239 020
E-mail: info@sellingservices.co.uk