Advice on setting appointments

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Permalink Reply by Skip Anderson on June 10, 2008 at 8:01pm

So your biggest challenge is getting them on campus, is that correct? So you're "selling" the campus visit on the phone, right? Could you tell us about the phone call and how the prospect finds you or you find the prospect? Please describe the process.

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Permalink Reply by Ricardo on June 10, 2008 at 8:53pm

The prospect contacts us via the internet, television commercials, mail or walk-in. During the phonecall I ask them what interested them in the school and why they want to go to college at this time of their lives, find out what they currently work at and what their long-term goals are. Once I know what they are interested in I ask them about their work schedule to set an appointment.

Some of the usual objections I get are:

"It's too expensive!"
"I'm not looking to go until next year"
"Can't I just get a certificate?"
"I'm not sure what I want to do"
"I don't know if I really want to go to school"

I do the best I can to answer their questions, but I have been told I rush too much through the conversation, which I am actively working on resolving. But other than that, I just don't feel that I'm connecting with the customer or that they feel a sense of urgency about furthering their education. Please help. Thank you.

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Permalink Reply by Skip Anderson on June 10, 2008 at 9:14pm

I understand the sense of urgency issue. The status quo is a powerful force within consumers.

If indeed you are rushing through the conversation, I agree that this is an issue that needs your attention. You must engage your prospect, meaning they must be actively participating in your process.

One of the issues you raise is handling objections. Here are some suggestions:

IT'S TOO EXPENSIVE: "You are absolutely correct on one thing: it is expensive to go to school to a good school. But let me ask you this...why do you say it's TOO expensive?" (get the prospect talking- your goal will be to get him to realize that NOT going to school is too expensive, but he has to talk it out with you first)

I'M NOT LOOKING TO GO UNTIL NEXT YEAR: "I completely understand, congratulations on planning ahead! So that you are prepared to look to go to school next year, let's start by having you visit our school to see if it's something you'll be interested in next year, okay?"

CAN'T I JUST GET A CERTIFICATE: "That's a great question, and I've heard it many times before from students who thought they wanted just a certificate, but then realized that a degree was what they really needed. Which do you think would earn you more money in the longrun, a certificate or a degree?"

I'M NOT SURE WHAT I WANT TO DO: "I understand completely, and you don't have to be sure. It's perfectly okay to explore your options without know exactly what you want to do. While you're deciding what to do, a great starting point is to have you visit our school; Do you think that might help you decide what to do down the road?"

I DON'T KNOW IF I REALLY WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL: "I appreciate your honesty, Nancy. Being honest about your educational desires is an important step. The fact is few people are sure that they really want to go to school, and that's okay. Do you think visiting our school might give you some insight into how interested you really are in getting a college education?"

These are just suggestions, of course. But you'll notice that all these responses have two things in common: (1) the objection is validated first; and (2) You're asking a closing question next (it doesn't have to be a closing question, actually, it can be any kind of closing action).

I hope these suggestions are helpful.

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Permalink Reply by Colin Wilson on June 11, 2008 at 1:33am

Ricardo

What I have picked up from the thread so far...

Your goal is to get appointments, getting your prospect to visit campus. You are having difficulty doing this. Prospects find you, they make the first move. You don't feel you are connecting with the customer. You don't feel they have any urgency in furthering their education.

I can't give all the answers, but here are some things to think about.

First and foremost... all buying is based on emotion... what I mean by this is if it doesn't 'feel' right then the customer is unlikely to buy... your job is to get it to 'feel' right for the customer... knowing this is the easy part, achieving it is a little harder!

Secondly the prospect is going on a journey... the end point for you is the end of the degree, the end for them is what they can achieve with their life by having the degree. The start of the journey is making the call to you. You now have to help them plan their journey. They can get off at any time. The journey for prospects will all be similar, but some small details may be different. The next major part of their journey will be the visit to campus.

You need to connect with the customer. Get on their side and you do this by understanding that you are not selling, but helping them to buy. Getting a degree involves commitment, sacrifice, time, money, hard work, etc, etc... I am sure all of this will be in the prospects mind. Committing to a campus visit may make them feel they are committing to a degree... help them on the journey, they only need to make one step at a time... and they can get off at any time.

You have already mentioned the thing that is stopping them from making the next step and that is their lack of urgency in furthering their education. A part of helping them on this journey is to make the furthering of their education an imperative for them. However, having said that, they have to make it an imperative for themselves... you can help them by asking questions.

Unleashing the Imperative
I'll provide the framework, you need to work on the details. You can construct an hypothesis to be used with your prospect and then help develop the real thing for them, with them. The final output from this exercise is one piece of paper... only one piece, no more.

Hopefully there is a picture below showing the framework....

Life Without a Degree... write down what life is like for them now, work, social, money, etc.

Life With a Degree... write down what life would be like for them in the future. What job would they be doing, how much money, social life, etc.

What Needs to be Done... write down the steps of the journey. The decision to think about it, the campus visit, deciding what degree, arranging the money, etc, etc.

The Detriment of Doing Nothing... this is pure pain, pure emotion. What will happen if they stay as they are. The pain has to relate to what you have written in the life without a degree.

The Benefit of Having a Degree... this is pure pleasure, pure emotion. What are all the benefits in life they could achieve with a degree. The benefit has to relate to what you have written about life with a degree.

What Will Stop Them... pull out all the objections. The stoppers have to relate to the journey you have written in the What needs to be done.

Pain Questions - develop questions that the prospect has to answer about the pain. These have to be great questions... they have to get the prospect thinking for 30 seconds before they can answer. The thinking makes it real fro them.

Benefit Questions - same as pain, but for benefit.

Stopper Questions - same again.

If you develop an hypothesis you can use this as the base to talk people through. If you can develop one of these sheets you can then send it to them. Or send them your hypothersis and tell them it's a typical life before / life after.

All the above is very brief and possibly a little rambling. If you believe the Unleashing the Imperative is a good idea and you want a little more coaching then I would be prepared to hook up by phone and take you through it in more detail. I have many customers who use this approach and get great results.

The above approach involves the customer and helps you connect with them. You are also helping them to buy and not selling... you are building trust.

That's it, got to rush, hope it helps.

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Permalink Reply by Tim Rohrer on June 11, 2008 at 7:21am

Ian and Colin have provided some great advice. Let me just add a simple selling technique that you might include.

Ask the last ten visitors to your campus to:
- name their two or three favorite aspects of the campus (e.g. "I loved how easy it was to walk to everything I'll need." "The students all seemed really friendly." "The campus is so beautiful.")
- name the one thing that surprised them the most. Since everyone has a preconception each visitor should be able to remember something that surprised them (e.g. "I was surprised at how many new facilities there are at such an old school." "I couldn't believe the weather was so nice in March.")

Armed with this information, you can engage your prospects on the phone by quoting testimonials. Remember that you are the seller and the prospect is the buyer. In every buyer/seller relationships there exists a tension borne from the distrust that a buyer has of a seller. Everything you say will be questioned (but not always out loud). By having testimonials, you are effectively delivering the message without being the messenger. The buyer will be less suspicious and more open to the possibilities.

Let me know how it works out!

Tim Rohrer
timrohrer@comcast.net
http://www.salesandmarketingloudmouth.com

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Permalink Reply by Ricardo on June 11, 2008 at 9:32am

Thank you everyone for your feedback. I will incorporate some of your advice into my work the rest of this week and I will post my experiences with my customers next week. I really appreciate your willingness to help me. Thank you.

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Permalink Reply by Ian Brodie on June 11, 2008 at 11:16am

Some further thoughts Ricardo:

You can combine Skip and Tim's ideas about overcoming objections and getting testimonials by asking some of the current/previous students about their thoughts on the objections.

That allows you to respond to objections by referring to what others have said (e.g. "You know, I can understand why you might feel that way, a lot of our students were initially worried about that but found that....in fact I was speaking to one last week who told me that ....."). Like the testimonials, hearing the objections overcome by other people's words rather than your own is stronger.

I would also make sure you avoid turning "objection handling" into an argument. This initial call is too early for a detailed discussion of their objections - you haven't yet built up a relationship with them to allow you to be persuasive. So quickly move from an initial testimonial based objection response to something along the lines of "You know, that's the sort of thing we discuss in detail when you come to the campus visit. We want to make sure we fully explore all the areas you might be concerned about and show you all the benefits of....." - and move back on to the agenda of inviting them to the visit.

I wonder also whether it would be possible to increase the percieved value of a campus visit in their minds. If there was something you could do or give to them on the day that would have value in its own right, then they might see the visit as being worthwhile even if they eventually decide not to sign-up. It lowers th risk of a wasted day and travel for them. I'm thinking here of maybe something like "training" them in how to select a college, or something that itself is intrinsically valuable to them. Using Colin's framework for getting inside their heads will help here.

Another thought is looking to see if the qualification of the prospects could be a bit better. Given that they have contacted you, they must have some degree of interest. Since many of them then seem reluctant to visit the campus, it's my guess that in the initial "hooks" used to get their details so you can call them or get them to call you, that they're not made aware that a campus visit is the next step. Perhaps if this aspect was made more visible early on (e.g. on the website or TV ad) then although you will get less people calling, they will be more qualified - more willing to visit the campus already because they were aware that was the next step when they called you or gave their details.

This one is a fine balance - say too much up front and you might scare off people who you might have persuaded to come when you got to speak to them. But say too little and get too much unqualified traffic and you end up wasting a lot of time on people who have no chance of signing up in the first place.

Best of luck,

Ian

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Permalink Reply by Nesh Thompson on June 11, 2008 at 11:25am

I don't have much to add to what has already been said and I am by no means at all experienced enough in this area to give advice. There is some quality advice here that I think will get you on track. What I would add is based on my hazy memory of making the same decisions when I decided to go to university. For most people this is the first time they are going to be away from the home environment and it is a scary prospect, especially at an age where emotion can play a heavy role in decision making. I know in a lot of cases, teenagers who are making this decision will have already a large "influencing" factor called "parents" who may or may not have extolled the virtues of going to college (and also the negatives of not going). Parents will almost always underestimate the influence they have on their children and their advice will always be "for the best", yet this area of influence can be of great pressure on some.

As Collin points out, they are on a journey and they can get off at any time, in so helping these people to arrive at their own conclusions I would try and avoid anything that may sound parent like. When I was deciding to go to college, I really appreciated advice that informed rather than instructed. You are already building rapport with these people so in all probability you are doing this already. Good luck in the future and would love to hear how you get on.

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