Focus On The Phone For Your Business

Alexander Graham Bell didn't set a goal to invent the phone. It happened, kind of, by accident. His mom and dad were both deaf; and Bell was aboslutely focused with trying to invent a device that would somehow help deaf people speak and hear. He actually opened a school called The School of Vocal Physiology and Mechanics of Speech (one of his students was Helen Keller).

But, in his passion to create a device that would help the deaf hear he created the telephone.

The telephone was so secondary to Bell's overall focus that historians now widely believe he considered it an intrusion. In fact, the telephone was so much of an intrusion into his life's work that he would not have one in his study.

In the beginning, Alexander Graham Bell wasn't focused on the phone.

But you need to be.

The Numbers: Why the Phone is So Critical

In the internet world of SEO, SEM, Facebook Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, internet banner ads, websites, e-newsletters, cookies and pop-ups, is the phone still essential for your bottom line?

It is, for dozens of reasons: I give you three:

1. Around half of local buyers will call a business before they visit it. This is remarkable! Think about it: these are people who are calling you directly and seeking more information about your products. Usually this call happens after an internet search, after research and after finding your advertisement. If they call you, you can bet, they are ready to buy. They don't' stop by your business first, they call. In some industries the number of people who call is much higher—in the 70% to 80% range. Even in the modern world with all the tools available at the tips of our tiny fingers; customers still call. They still need to talk to an actual person before they invest money and order a product, or before they invest time and energy to visit your business.

2. That phone call is your first chance (your only chance if you mess it up) to actually talk to your client. It is also their first chance to actually talk to you. Maybe they've seen your ad in a coupon book or seen your listing on a website or in the phone book, either way they've decided to call you. This is your opportunity, your moment, to wow them. It may be the only chance you get. You have to be on your game. If you (or your employees) mess this phone call up, you have lost that customer.

3. You spend money to get that phone to ring. How much do you spend on advertising each month? For smaller businesses it could be just a few bucks or a few hundred bucks a month. Larger businesses are spending tens of thousands and even millions of dollars to advertise each month. What is the purpose of all that advertising? Why are you pouring money into a never-ending funnel of advertising? At least one of the answers is this: you need the phone to ring.

But here's the big question: How do you react when it does??

The Numbers: What We Have Learned

We've recorded tens of thousands of phone calls in the last decade. These are actual employee interactions with real people. We score these calls on a 0% to 100% scale. The calls that score closer to 0% are doing almost nothing a good rep/salesperson/employee should do on the phone. A call closer to 100% is doing most of the things a good rep/salesperson/employee should do on the phone.

Here are three things we've learned over the years:

1) Selling increases as the scores go up. For instance: if a salesperson is scoring above 80% on his phone calls, he will close three times more sales than someone scoring under 80%. Let me stress that again: if you are doing 80% of the things you should be doing on the phone, you will close triple the sales than someone who isn't. Holy cow!

2) In most sectors the initial scores we see are in the 15% range. They are terrible. They stink really, really bad. When our clients hear their employees' recorded calls for the first time they are usually stunned by how bad they are. Most reps/salespeople/employees are only doing 15% of the things they should be doing on the phone. And, not surprisingly, their sales rates on the phone reflect that.

3) Specific phone skills coaching works. When we record, score and coach employees on phone sales skills those employees show measurable improvement 90% of the time. The significant majority of them cross that 80% scoring threshold we talked about before. (Remember, three times more sales if they cross 80%). But to achieve those results the training has to be ongoing, and it has to be accompanied by recording and scoring.

Missed Opportunities

So if most of your employees would score in the 15% range on the phone right now, (remember, if they scored above 80% they would close three times more sales) how many opportunities are you missing? How many customers are hanging up the phone, never ordering and never walking into your business because your staff has never been trained properly? Ask yourself: Are your employees selling on the phone? Are they asking for the sale? Heck, are they even nice when a customer calls?

And remember: you paid money to get the phone to ring.

A Closing Analogy

Imagine spending money to buy ads. You put ads everywhere, in the newspaper, on TV, on radio, in the yellowpages, on a billboard—people see these ads and want to visit your business. But, as you see them approaching, you lock the front door. Only a small percentage of the people that show up at your door can figure out how to get inside.

That would be silly.

But consider this: is your business doing the same thing on the phone? Are your employees' sales skills on the phone locking that door? Is your ad money being wasted?

So even though Alexander Graham Bell wasn't totally focused on the phone, make sure your business is.