Thought Bubble - Three Ways to Ask for Business

 In this video short, Robert will talk you through three strategies to ask for new business. A must see for all agency owners!

Transcription:

Robert Craven  00:08 

Hello, I just got off a session a mastermind session, and I've been running and one of the things was asking for the business. And it just made me realise that maybe, you know, half and we all aren't so great at asking for the business. So I thought I'd just give you three, three scripts, three ways of asking for the business that we should be doing. So the first one really simple one is literally asking for the business way too often, what we do is we hand over the proposal. And then we shuffled away saying: Oh, if you could, no, that'd be really nice. But yeah, no rush, because things do not... That's entirely the wrong way to go around asking for the business. What I'm talking about is that you you in a pretty direct way, ask for the business.  

Robert Craven  01:00 

So you deliver ideally and personal, that's not so easy, right? Now you deliver the proposal, and you just look them in the eye, and you may have to do this over Zoom. But you look them in the eye and say, you know, here's a proposal, we're really excited about the idea of working with your clinic be really clear that as we put in the proposal together, all the guys and gals back back at the office, just recognise there's so much commonality, so many, many shared values between yourself and ourselves. So just want to make it really clear. So you actually know, you know, we would be really excited about the idea of working with you and look forward to starting a really successful and prosperous relationship with you.  

Robert Craven  01:45 

Now, maybe that's a little bit over the top, but my point is, is this, that you put your heart on your sleeve, the client, the client potential client doesn't know doesn't know what you think and what you feel. And most proposals are all very rational and not a lot about the the emotional and irrational. And yet we know we quote ourselves quite often by saying, you know, decision making is essentially an emotional reaction to something is not a rational thing. So that's number one, ask one number one, wherever asking for the business, put your heart on your sleeve.  

Robert Craven  02:24 

Number two is could be asking for referrals could be asking for the business again. It's dead straightforward. There's a handful of questions you ask someone. First question is, what is it you really love to just get a sense of what's going on in your business and our relationship? So three questions for you, please. First question, what is it that you really love about our business? And they'll say they love your creativity and your timeliness? And so on and so forth? And then you say: Okay. The second question, this is the real question, I wanted to ask you, Mr. Mrs. Client, is what is it you really hate about our business? And they say, well, we don't like the way you invoice, we still find the prices a bit rich, we sometimes wonder whether the social media stuff you do actually adds real value. And then you ask the real question, which is the real question which you really wanted to ask, which is, what is it? What do we need to do to get more business from you? What is it we would need to do to get more business from you? And the really interesting thing is, I tell you, they will say, if you could demonstrate that we got three pounds of sales for every pound we spent with you, then we'd spend more money with you. Or if they said, If you could demonstrate to us that we only needed to use three channels, then we'd invest more money with you. Now the alternative of that final question, what do we need to do to get more business from you? Will be what do we need to do to get some referrals from you? And again, similar process or to final so so number one is put your heart on your sleeve? Number two, he is just literally asked those questions around what what are we doing? Well, we're doing well, what do we need to do to get more business from me? And the final one is actually really asking for for the referral. Everyone talks about asking for referrals as if it's something that just kind of happens, but I think you actually need to put in place what I would call operation referrals and operation referrals means, you know, for a period of six weeks, we will ask every single one of our existing clients and past clients for a referral and you use a script and I'm going to give you a script, you can adapt and adjust because I don't think it's clever to have a script which you just rattle through dodo, dodo, dodo. But the questions go as follows. And my point is, this will generate referrals for you.  

Robert Craven  04:51 

Question one is brackets and you want them to answer every question with the word - Yes. As you know, If I were in a growth phases business, we're really trying to grow our customer base - Yes.And just to confirm, you weren't delighted with our product or service, and it did solve the problem that you had when we weren't when we started working with you. Now, you can only ask that question, if you've done the customer survey, which guarantees that you delivered on your promise. So they will say - Yes. So question one is, you know, a growing, that's a - Yes.  

Robert Craven  05:31 

Question two, if you're delighted with a product or service, they'll say - Yes.  

Robert Craven  05:35 

And question three is, you must know other people who had a similar set of issues and problems as you have when we first met you. Yes, they're getting slightly more nervous. They're wondering where this is leading. So the next question, question four is now. And presumably, you could actually write down the names of those those those people and they kind of go - Yes. So the next question is, now this would be really rude of us. And you'd be really upset if we just grabbed hold of that list, and phoned them up and kind of cold call them it'd be even more furious. If we mentioned your name. Am I right in thinking that? And they'll say - Yes.  

Robert Craven  06:23 

So this is what we'd like you to do. What we'd like you to do is think of on that list, think of who it is that has problems like yours, and that we could help. And this is a win, win, win. And what we'd like you to do is, give them a call, talk about how you had the problem, how we sorted it out, and asked if they would like to be introduced to us. This is a win win win on three levels. One, it's a win for their referral person, because they get access to us. It's a win for your client, because they're referring someone they're being seen as two good people, and it's a win for you. And the extraordinary thing is that nine out of 10 times people grab hold of their mobile phone literally in front of you and phone up or they start emailing in front of you. And here's, here's the rub. Okay, the rub is this is I said that it works. But I know that nine out of 10 of you won't bother doing it. And here's the the worry. The worry is that your competition might actually be doing this because the people who do this will get more referrals.  

Robert Craven  07:38 

So enough of the maths of whether you should or shouldn't do it and who's doing and who's not doing it. Let's just go through the referral script again. So as you know, we're in a growth stage of the business as you know, we're trying to grow the business. Are you happy with our product or service? When we did it, you felt it solved the problem? You must know other people who had a similar problem, you must be able to write down the names of people who had that similar problem, you would be upset if we approach those people cold calling. And it'd be even more upset if we mentioned your name without your permission. This is what I'd like you to do. I'd like you to phone up all those people. Tell them about when you had the problem, how we sorted it out, and ask if they'd like an introduction, this is a win win win. Everybody wins. I repeat, very few of you actually do this. But those of you who do do it will win. My worry is that your competition will ask for the business in that way.  

Robert Craven  08:30 

So three ways of asking for the business. Number one, if we go all the way back is just putting your heart on the sleeve. Number two is asking for the business just by saying what do we need to do to get more business from you? And number three is the referral script. I really hope you found that useful. I hope you're going to apply some of those tools and tips to your agency because I really feel these are things that actually work. Thank you very much for listening.