Off the Cuff: Convince People to Buy From You — Part Two

April 27, 2009

By Mark L. Venit, MBA, Contributing Writer

In Part One, we looked at how companies handle incoming inquiries on the phone and the first impressions people get when visiting companies in our industry. Now let's turn to improving your company's marketing identity, educating and informing your prospective customers, and improving the follow-up with these prospects.

Reinforce Your Positive Identity
How many firms in this industry confirm every price quote given over the telephone to a first-time caller in person in writing? According to surveys conducted by the Apparel Graphics Institute, about 1 in 50! And most apparel graphics companies rarely — if ever — confirm any quotes in writing.

Much more important than merely giving pricing information, a written quote indicates that you're a pro. It invites buyers who care about such things to compare how you conduct your business with how your competitors do business. Moreover, a price quote written on a professional-looking form clearly shows your company's name, logo, address, phone number, e-mail address and Web site address. Unlike information obtained from a competitor, your written quote is definitive and makes a good impression, which positively shapes your prospect's opinion of your company. A written quotation makes lots of advertising impressions and stands out among whatever data your prospect has written down for himself. You might not win the order this time around, but your investment in creating a good impression in the prospect's mind will likely pay dividends for you down the road.

Educate Your Prospects and Customers
It would be nice if every caller and walk-in had the time to hear you detail all the good things about your company and why he or she should do business with you instead of someone else.

The system I install in my own clients' businesses accomplishes this in several forms — via the showroom, in the companies' own short-form catalogs and price lists, on Web sites and through what I call "propaganda sheets."

A propaganda sheet is a quick recap of the key things a buyer should know about your company that's e-mailed or faxed with every quote, or handed to customers visiting in person. Think of a propaganda sheet as containing everything you would tell a customer if you could afford a full-page ad in the Yellow Pages. It reminds them that you offer screen printing, embroidery, promotional products, CAD-cut materials, laser engraving, digital printing, etc. It states your business hours, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, Web site, and that you welcome purchases via credit cards. It highlights your guarantees about quality, customer satisfaction, and standard turnaround. It brags about your in-house capabilities in graphics, digitizing, worldwide shipping and the breadth of product offerings. It's where you show off your local and professional affiliations, awards and sponsorships. It spells out the many advantages of doing business with your company, invites people to visit your showroom and welcomes challenging orders!

Used liberally, the propaganda sheet helps create educated customers and educated prospects, who in many cases will eventually become your customers.

Respond Quickly to Inquiries
Because most callers and visitors want — or expect — instant gratification, even for seemingly complex quotes, it's imperative to become efficient at quoting standard items in an instant. (Yes, you need to develop a real price list for your best-selling items).

My own clients give written quotes immediately for standard requests made in person and via fax or e-mail within two minutes of the termination of a phone inquiry, along with forwarding the propaganda sheet as well.

Follow Up
A few days after quoting a customer in person, over the phone or via Web site, call the buyer to ascertain the status of the pending order. You'll be pleasantly surprised to see just how dramatically your closing ratio rises as a direct result of promptly following up on an inquiry or quote. The worst you'll do is increase your chances of earning the account's business sometime down the road, if not right now.

And if you don't succeed at winning an order during the initial phase, don't give up on winning the account. Mail the customer some advertising materials from time to time, assign a salesperson or customer service rep to the account and see to it that the prospect is occasionally called or visited, and sent an e-mail . But if you don't harvest the data from the caller or the visitor, you can't follow up, can you? If you do get the data and don't proactively exercise any type of follow-up agenda, you virtually assure yourself of losing contact with your prospects and customers -- and eventually conceding the business to a competitor.

Cost
All of these initiative will not cost much, although I'll leave the specifics to you and how you view investing in your company's future. What's certain, though, is that the cost and effort to look good and keep prospects and customers informed and in your loop is far less than the cost of doing nothing, or doing business as usual. And how many times have you learned that the cost of keeping a customer is a small fraction of the cost of generating a new one?

The industry's best quarter of the year is just ahead of us. Re-energizing how you look to your customers and prospects NOW will pay dividends today, tomorrow and for years to come.

Despite the nation's economic challenges, this spring will be a good one, as always. Will you settle for merely getting what's yours? Or aggressively work to earn even more?

Best wishes for peak season selling.

Click to access "Convince People to Buy From You — Part One."

Mark L. Venit, MBA, president of Apparel Graphics Institute, Ltd., provides management and marketing consulting and proprietary research to apparel graphics companies throughout the Americas and Europe. Author of several books and nearly 400 articles on management and marketing, he also serves as chairman of the board of ShopWorks Software. You can reach him at markvenit@cs.com.