How do I know if the customer has seen my quote?

How Do I Know If They’ve Seen My Quote?

If you’re wondering whether the customer has seen your emailed quote, you may be asking the wrong question.

In today’s Question of the Day, I challenge you with a bigger idea: Are you an order maker or an order taker?

The real solution isn’t better email tracking—it’s presenting in the home so the customer can make a decision while you’re there.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why in-home presentation eliminates the “Did they see my quote?” problem
• The difference between creating decisions and waiting for them
• Common obstacles that prevent salespeople from presenting in the home
• How to work through challenges like complicated solutions, complex processes, price books, and spouse objections

If you want fewer unanswered quotes and more decisions made while you’re present, this episode will help you rethink your approach.

Have a Question? - Submit your questions to chrish@nexstarnetwork.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to the question of the day. Today's question is from Bill in New York. And Bill asks, How do I make sure customers read my quotes? Great question. And actually, I'm going to answer with a question back. And this isn't to be funny. This isn't to be cute. This isn't to be cheeky. It's a serious question to consider. So I want you to really internalize this question and think about this question. But my question back is when we ask, how do I make sure my customers read my quotes? My question back is, are you an order maker or an order taker? Are you an order maker or an order taker? Because there's a difference. Anyone, anyone can deliver quotes. My kid could deliver quotes. Like I could put quotes together, put a sign around their neck, have them show up at the house and deliver a quote. I I could get somebody minimum wage to deliver quotes. And there's a lot of companies that do just deliver quotes. That's what they do. But that's an order taker. You're just delivering the quotes and then taking whatever comes in. Now the opposite is the order maker. Now the order maker creates value. Value in the company, value in the solution, value in in themselves, the individuals, the people. An order maker creates value. They create a sale where there wasn't one. They create opportunity. When you watch them, they're order makers, they create opportunity in everything they touch. They build value in everything they touch. So there's a big difference. Are you an order taker or an order maker? Because in our industry, an order taker is just gonna email the quote. And then yeah, this would become a problem. Then I'd be sitting there going, like, well, did they read it? Gonna follow up. Like, I wouldn't know what to do next. I'm just sitting duck. But an order maker is going to present in the home. Every customer, every time. And then they don't need to worry about this. This is a non-issue. I don't need to be sitting there going, did they read it? Can I follow up yet? Because I presented in the home. I know they saw it. I know they understood it. I answered all their questions. And so an order taker, you're just going to deliver the quotes. You're going to email them. And then this is an issue. Yeah. But an order maker, you're going to present in the home, and it's a non-issue. Now, the thing is, there's no reason not to present in the home. And I've heard all the reasons. I get all the pushback. Like, there is absolutely almost every time, no reason not to present in the home. So some of the reasons, I'm just going to rattle off some of the reasons that I've heard from companies over the years, that it's too complicated. You don't really understand like our stuff here. It's too complicated. Either the equipment itself is too complicated or the process itself is too complicated. Like whatever. Something's too complicated. Simplify it then. Other companies are doing it. Other companies in your space are doing it. Somehow they figured out how to simplify the equipment. Somehow they figured out how to simplify the process. And that's why they're outselling you. Simplify it. So if it's too complicated, figure out how to simplify it. If you can't figure out how to simplify it, bring somebody in that figures out that specializes in this to figure out how to simplify it. Simple is always the best. Figure out how to simplify it. Now I do want to say too, like this, this should work like 95% of the time. No solution is going to be 100%. I'm not, I'm not going to come into your industry and say 100% of the time, but at least 95%. And that leaves me with the 5% that are unique, are complicated. But that that shouldn't be everyone. That shouldn't even be common. If I have a process that's simple, equipment that's simple, if all this is simple 95% of the time, and then I just gotta like figure out the other 5%, that's great. That's fantastic. I'm thrilled with that. Okay, so if it's complicated, simplify it. Another uh common pushback I get is well, we don't have a price book, or our price book is always incorrect. Great, fix it. Fix it. And I know all these, I'm making all these sound really simple, but this is really it. Like, fix it. I went out to a company, I rode along with this company, and they were talking about their I asked, do they have a price book? And they were talking about their price book and how great their price book is and how long the general manager sat down and worked on this price book, and it's fantastic. Okay, and they showed it to me. And I thought it was kind of ugly and complicated. I didn't say that at the time, but I was like, okay, we'll see. Now, then I got in the field. There's three salespeople I rode along with. The first salesperson sheepishly admitted to me, I kind of use the price book, but I adjust it because it's always wrong. It's like, okay. Second salesperson I rode with completely just made up his prices on the spot. Like didn't use the price book at all. And he claimed it was always wrong. Third salesperson, he was the best. He was using his price book from the previous company that he worked at. So he was using the competitor's price book to price his work with this company because he said the price book was wrong. And this is all it took to fix this. Okay, so this had been going on. I don't even know how long this has been going. Months at least, this had been going on. And nobody knew it because nobody was riding along. All it took from me was three ride-alongs, one with each person, to identify nobody's using the price book, and then asked that question, well, why aren't we using the price book? And then I got the feedback, right? So so what this created then was an opportunity where we just we sat down and we discussed. We had an open and honest communication, not hurting feelings, but why aren't we using the price book? Right. And it came out that it was kind of complicated, kind of cumbersome, and it was incorrect a good amount of the time. But this gave us the feedback we needed to fix it. So if you don't have a price book, build a price book. I mean, most CRMs and tools have integrated price books now. It's pretty simple. There's even AI price books out there that are super simple. Um, I can connect you with some of them if you want. Uh, but if not, make a price book. And if your price book's broken, fix it. If you don't know how to fix it, again, find somebody who does. So if if your price book is in the CRM and it's broken, you have CRM reps. Their job is to make sure you can use their tool. You're paying for this tool, it costs a lot of money. Might as well get get your money's worth and use it. So utilize those CRM reps, right? Um, or or bring in an expert that can fix this thing, right? But it's costing us money if we don't. So, no price book, broken price book, fix it. Uh equipment is inconsistent. That's another reason um that we're emailing quotes. We don't know that we can get the equipment for the next day. Sometimes we can, but sometimes we can't. Well, let's figure out how do we get equipment the next day? Do we need to switch to different equipment? Is there a particular equipment that I know I can get more consistently so that I can do installations when I need to do installations? In the automotive industry, there's a common saying of sell what's on the lot today. Everybody thinks that people go in and buy cars and they custom order all these things. They don't. Very rarely they don't. And honestly, salespeople hate it because you're you're ordering something that's going to take forever to come in. It's you're you're creating like a six-month sale. And so the common phrase in the automotive industry is sell what's on the lot today, right? Like it might be perfect except for one little thing, but it's like I can either compromise on that one little thing as a customer or wait six months for it to be exactly how I want it. And some people want it that way. That's okay, that's cool, right? But it's not many people. Most people buy what's what's on the lot today. Like a side note, like my wife and I were shopping for a new vehicle last year, and uh RAV4s. There's like a two-year wait on RAV 4s. What the heck is going on? Like, two years if you wanted like a custom special or like a hybrid RAV4. Like, two years, who's gonna wait two years for a new car? My goodness. So, so get equipment you can sell and install when you need to the next day, right? And if if it's the vendor, because sometimes that's the pushback too. It's like, well, the vendor is difficult, the vendor can't get us the equipment. Great, get a new vendor, find a new vendor. You're the customer in this situation, they have to earn your business. And if you're up front and say, hey, look, I want to do next day installs, I need this equipment here the next day. Like they got to deliver on that. And if they can't, you're gonna shop around, just like your customers are gonna shop around if you can't deliver, right? So if it's the vendor, well, find a new vendor then. Okay, so another one I get is uh maybe the presentation tool is cumbersome. Honestly, I would go to handwritten options. Um, not to sound like a dinosaur. Uh, I I like technical things, I do. I like a clean, you know, iPad kind of experience. I like that, but data all points to handwritten options close at a higher rate. And so I would do handwritten options anyways. And so for that, I need a price book. So fix the price book, and then I can handwrite out the options. It closes at a higher rate. I can make it very simple, it's very simple language. I don't put brand names on there, I don't put part numbers on there, I don't put, I don't put any of that garbage on there. It just says highest efficiency system or deluxe system or whatever that is, right? Accessory one, accessory two, accessory three, warranty, price, monthly payment. Like that's it. Right? Very simple, very transparent for the customer, no unnecessary jargon or complication. This closes at a higher rate for the customer. And the thing is, when you there's a pattern you follow with presenting these options. So typically, when you're doing a handwritten option, you're gonna have the highest option, the one that has all the things on it, the best things. So I already know what that option's probably gonna be. On the flip side, I'm gonna have a very bottom option that's gonna be the very basic with like none of the additional things. So I already know what those two options are. Honestly, I could have those handwritten before I even go in. And then you're gonna have two options in the middle. Those are gonna be more custom to what the customer uh wants and needs. You can even half-write those, maybe just leave the pricing out, leave some room to adjust them if you need to. Like you could have most of this written ahead of time, which really speeds that up uh so that you have those handwritten options. And then it also puts me in a position where if the customer is shopping around and they put me in that spot of leaving the options behind, they're super vague, no problem, right? Because I don't I don't want to be claiming I'm the transparent company and then be like, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, I can't leave my options behind, right? That really makes me look non-transparent, makes me look shady. So if I get in that situation, well, yeah, leave behind. Like there's nothing on it, there's no brand name, no part numbers. What what are they gonna sell against? How are they gonna know it's apples to apples? They won't. So, so it completely solves that problem for you, too. So, handwritten options, like that's the way to go. So, if your presentation tool is cumbersome, handwritten options solves that problem right there. Spouse, this is a big one, it's probably the most common one. Spouse isn't there. Um yeah, well, in the objection boot camp, we tackle how do you handle the spouse objection? How do you identify it early and then utilize your ABC strategy to get them involved? So I've got a plan A that captures a lot of them. If that doesn't work, we go to plan B, that captures a lot of them. And if that doesn't work, I go to plan C and that captures a lot of them. None of them are a silver bullet, but in those spouse objections where they're not with, yeah, they're gonna ask you to email the quotes unless you identify it early and then execute plan A, plan B, plan C. That's a whole deeper rabbit hole we go into in the objection boot camp, or we can we can jump on a call, but spouse objection, we can solve that one too. Bottom line, present in the home, and this is a non-issue. You did all this work, bring it home. You're almost at the finish line. Bring it home. All you have to do yet is present in the home. Presenting in the home will allow you to explain it to the customer so they understand what their options are, identify objections, questions, then you can answer those questions and overcome those objections, and you can figure out a strategy to move forward. You can't do that if you email it, you can't do that by following up. It is incredibly difficult. I am shocked when I go work with companies. I am shocked how many companies email estimates. But this is an advantage for you because if all your competitors are emailing estimates and you're presenting in the home, that is a huge advantage for you. How much better do you look than your competitors when you're presenting in the home? I wrote along with a company in Washington, and we had gone out, and I think we were like the third or fourth company to come through, and the salesperson said, Hey, I'm gonna put some options together and we'll go over them. And the customer said, You can do that? Because obviously the first three companies that were in all came in, looked and said, Hey, we'll email you a quote. Guess what? He sold it right there. So, are you an order maker or an order taker? Present in the home, this is a non-issue. That's today's question of the day. If you're enjoying question of the day, follow, share, and give a rating. Question of the day is on major streaming platforms. If you have a question, reach out to me either on social media or email. Both are going to be listed below in the show description. Let's get your question answered. And if you're a next star member, schedule a call with me. Let's address this one on one. Let's get very specific to your situation. I'm Coach Chris. We'll see you tomorrow.