I’ve been urging all of my clients to make “How’s Things” calls for years. Let me break it down for you, so you can start using them in your business!
The “how’s things” call
The how’s things call is one of those techniques every businessperson should use. It works beautifully for anybody who is serious about making their business successful. In fact, if you’re not using it you should be.
To make it happen the bottom line requirements are simple:
- An investment of 15 minutes every day by you.
- In that 15 minutes you make one phone call.
If you make that one phone call each day it is virtually certain that by the end of the year you will have doubled your results with very little extra overhead… almost pure profit. So it’s substantial. How does it work? Very simple:
- You rule off 15 minutes in your diary each day at a time to suit you for your “how’s things” phone call.
- Then you telephone an ‘A’ or ‘B class’ client that you don’t need to phone to simply ask them “how’s things?”
This is the classic that has helped thousands of people understand the nuts and bolts of basic business. If you haven't heard it, this is one you must get now.
How to turn your business into a Money Making Machine
That’s all there is to it. You see, most times we are reactive rather than proactive. No news is good news is the general axiom; we don’t phone people unless we have to.
Yet the biggest complaint clients and customers have is that “they only hear from us when they want something.”
So if you want to change your relationship with clients to give them a perception of value, simply phone them occasionally and ask “how’s things?” Then listen intently. Just listen.
You see many of us suffer from another disease called “motor mouth”. We can’t wait for the other person to shut up so we can show them how much we know.
And yet what most clients want from us is to just listen to them. In fact we should listen for around 80% of the time. Remember we’ve got 2 ears and 2 eyes which are used for taking information in and 1 mouth for giving it out… a ratio that suggests 80% listening to 20% talking.
And to keep the client’s conversation going as you listen, remember to ask the “W questions”. They are who, when, which, what, why, where and how?
Clients will sing like canaries.
They’ll tell you about their plans, ideas, and problems and about colleagues and competitors. Much of it they would never have thought to tell you about. Certainly they wouldn’t have thought to pick up the phone and tell you.
For you it means more business or referrals.
So when it’s your turn to talk (your 20%), select something they’ve said and hit them with a big, juicy W.I.I.F.M.
If you do, 6 out of 10 times it will mean more business for you. And over 50% of the time it will be business (referrals, services they didn’t know you provided) that you never would have gotten.
Why not start making those ‘how’s things’ calls today?
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