Are You Easy To Do Business With?

Make it Easy For People to Do Business With You!

This really amazes me, how hard people make it to do business with them! Here is the thing they don’t even realize that they’re making it hard.

Let me give you a few examples.

#1 – Making it hard to pay you.

Scenario 1 is a prospect was on a call and ready to get started. The vendor we were using said that they don’t like to take credit cards they like to accept check. I get not wanting to pay the credit card fee of 3% plus, but it killed the deal. 3% of $18,500 would have been $555 a fee that sucks, but it would have been a great convenience for the prospect and guess what?

The prospect never sent the check and we have been chasing him ever since. The cost was not $555 it was $18,500!

I have been working with another firm who send me an invoice. I asked them repeatedly to just send me a link. What has transpired for them has cost them.

The first time they sent their sales guy to my house to pick up the check. This took calls with the owner, another person and the sales guy to arrange the pickup. What are they paying all those people? The second time they sent me a Qickbooks online link. The third time it was like I never asked for a link to be sent. The owner has called, text and emailed me about paying the bill. Again, I asked for a link to be sent over.

#2 – Not making it easy to set an appointment with you.

I have seen numerous times people go back and forth on email or on a phone call asking…

“What time is good for you?”

“I don’t what is a good time for you?”

“No that doesn’t work.”

The conversation continuous on for a few more minutes and one says I’ll just email you.

#3 – Not making the sales process easy.

Do you have a sales process that has Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)?

How many meetings does it take to close business?

What happens in between those meetings?

What happens when prospect is ready to pay?

What happens when they become a paying client?

#4 – Not setting proper expectations.

I recently had someone tell me in the first month he was going to introduce us to 3 prospects. When month two came he said he never said that.

I was recently on a conference call with a prospect. The guy who set up the call had to stop the call because he only had one conference line and somebody else had to use it.

He ended the call abruptly and didn’t get the next commitment from the prospect. He just left it as we would follow up.

WHAT?

You need to set the expectation of what is coming next and schedule what is coming next.

The best way to make it easy to do business with you is to make sure you have Standard Operating Procedures for everything.

What happens from the first contact to the time someone doesn’t need your service?

Your receptionist should be trained as a sales person. What happens if a prospect comes in? What happens if a prospect calls in? Is the person trained properly.

What do you do as a sales person when you set an appointment with a prospect? Who sends the calendar invite? Who confirms the meeting? Who sets the agenda? Do you have scripted questions, presentation and close?

The bottom line is you need to continuously rehearse and simulate the process and the success of the process.

What are your SOPs?

Does your staff know your SOPs?