Incoming Call Script

There's a quote from legendary sales trainer, David Sandler. "Either the client follows your process for buying, or you end up following their process for not buying." So I wanna ask you a question. What's your process for having your clients and inquiries buy? Do you have one? You need one.

Let's go through the incoming call script. Okay, let's get into this incoming call script. This has been, without word of a lie, one of the most successful pieces of the whole puzzle for architects for getting quick results. If you get quick results, what I want you to do, is watch this video several times. I want you to read through the incoming call script several times and let it sink in for a while.

I know there'll be things in here you go, "Oh I couldn't do that or I wouldn't do it that way." What I'm going to suggest is exactly what I suggested to Kathy when I was in Melbourne. Went over there and she said, "I couldn't do that. I couldn't be charging, I couldn't be going through that script that way in Melbourne. There are too many architects working for free." I said, "Well try it on a client that you don't like." She said, "That's a good idea. I've got a meeting this afternoon."

She went out to the client she didn't want as a client, she tried it, she offered them a service for $750 and they accepted. She's now doing the same service for $4,000. It can be done in any market, even a market where a lot of other architects are doing it for free.

Here's some of the problems that you have. You work for free, people get your ideas and your sketches and they go away and then they don't use you. They might use someone else. Generally speaking, you don't get respected as much as you could or you should be. There is a con problem around the world. Ideally, we want to process to qualify people, to control the sales process, to get people into a formal meeting and particularly, ideally, a paid meeting. It doesn't have to be, but ideally you would be being paid for your initial advice.

I don't mind people meeting for a cup of tea just to find out in an initial chat to see if we like each other or if we've got rapport, that's different. As soon as they start asking questions about advice and design ideas, you should be being paid from that moment forward. That's what we want. We need to design a script and a process that will ideally get as many of these things as possible and I believe it can and I'm going to show you what it is now.

First, here's what we're going to do today. I'm going to read through the script, I'm going to explain the psychology behind the sentences and the words, and I'm going to give you some tips at the end. That's it. Won't take long.

All right. Okay here we go. Your version of this might look slightly different. We have taken it and tidied it up and made it look a little prettier. In this, I'm going to go through this one because it's got some notes in it and highlights and it will help me just explain this process better.

Right. This is for an incoming call, an inquiry, and sometimes particularly where they want a price for how much does it cost to get some drawings done. Incoming call script. Thanks for your call. So I can help you best, would it be okay if I were to ask you a few questions? Great. How did you find us? Excellent. Get their name, contact details, email address, what's your site address? Great. Thank you. If it's okay, I'd like to outline how we help people who are in the early stages of investigating their renovation options. You may not end up doing renovations, but let's assume you are for the sake of this exercise. Is that okay? Great.

The goal for this call is to find out if I can help you. In most cases we can, in which case once we understand your situation we can suggest the next best step. If we can't help you or someone else is better suited, then we can refer you to that person. Is that okay? Great. Of course, they're going to say yes to that. You're taking the heat off. It doesn't sound like you're trying to sell them something. It sounds like the only objective at the moment is to find out if you're suited or not and whether you can point them in the right direction. Okay. Big distinction. Let me make this bigger for you.

Great. We start by asking a few more questions to understand what you want and what stage you're at. As I said, if I think I can help you, I'll give you a brief rundown on who we are and the starting process that we use to help people with their research and evaluate their options. This is called the needs and options review. If we're both ready to move forward, then we can arrange a time to meet and get the needs and options review started. Is that okay? Is that process okay with you? If they say yes, we're off to a good start.

Notice one thing we've done here, is we've already put into the agenda the needs and options review. Now the needs and options review is going to be your paid service. You can call it something different but let's call it that for now. Great. Let's get started. I've got about ten questions for you. These are just general questions. Yours may be different. Once again, in this thing you can adapt it. Have you built or renovated before? Who else makes the decisions? Who else needs to be included? A few questions in there. What are your driving needs for this renovation? I'm assuming it's a renovation, but you can adapt this for commercial situations as well.

Okay. We asked the basic questions, how big your obstacles? Do you have a site already? Some of that type of stuff. Right, now, we want to expose the fact that they're missing key information. This increases the need for a needs and options review to bring clarity and certainty to a project. Here are some examples of some questions that you could ask. Out of ten, ten being completely clear and zero not clear at all, how clear are you on exactly what you need? They'll give you an answer. Out of ten how clear are you on all the various options that your site will accommodate? They will give you an answer. Out of ten, how confident are you that you are aware of all the legal requirements? Now they're probably not getting tens now. Out of ten, how aware are you of the process that you'll need to have in place to get this project completed on time and on budget? Out of ten, how confident are you that your budget will achieve your needs?

There's some questions there. Now, they're probably not going to be able to answer them all. They're going to have low marks for these. What that does is highlight the fact that they don't have all their ducks in a row. We're trying to expose the fact they don't really have everything they need. Then I say, "Don't worry about not being able to answer those questions yet, the needs and options review will allow us to fill in the gaps and get you ready to move to the design phase. Is there anything else we should know?" Great. Out of 100, how important is this project to you and what are the consequences of not doing this renovation in this case?

Now you're going to find out how motivated they are. Excellent. Thanks for that. That's the end of the questions. Based on what you're saying I think we can help you, the first step you will need to complete is the needs and options review. Now I'm going into a story to justify what it is and why it's important so listen up here. We designed this process a few years ago because we saw an issue in the construction industry with people starting design and construction before they'd fully don't the research and the hard work. People were trying to run before they had the walk mastered. The consequence of inadequate up front research of their needs and options is like building a house on bad foundations.

Everybody knows that analogy and everybody knows the trying to run before you can walk metaphor, or is it an analogy? I can never quite tell. By using two metaphors, they're nodding their head going, "Yes, yes, yes. We don't want to run before we can walk and yes, yes, yes. No one want to build a house on ..." who wants to build a house on bad foundations? We know that metaphor and you know you're not supposed to. You go, "Yes, I agree. I'm smart too. I want solid foundations." Right. We continue.

The foundations are the most important part of the whole house because everything's build on top. It's very expensive to change the foundations once you have started to build on top of them, but very easy to change if they're simply lines on a plan. What we do is, we spend a little more time on the research than most other firms who rush their clients into the design phase. Does that make sense? In fact, we'll only work with clients who are prepared to do the needs and options review properly. We will not rush this step. It only causes cost overruns later if we take shortcuts and don't establish solid foundations.

Right. You'd have to be an idiot now to say, "I don't want a needs and options review," wouldn't you? Do you want to build your house on bad foundations? Do you want to put yourself at risk of going over time and over budget? No. That's a very persuasive way of selling the idea of doing a needs and options review before we get into design phase. We've also said, most other companies will rush their clients into the design phase because that's where they get paid.

Right. We continue. There are four important steps before building starts. Number one, the needs and options review, which is the first step. Two, the design phase. Three, the construction document phase. Four, building and contract management phase. Now, your process may be different but whatever. Put in whatever is relevant for you. The needs and options review is the most important step because it provides us with a foundational thing that everything else is built on. The service is $795, or whatever, and here is what we're going to achieve. We're going to do this, we're going to do that, we're going to do this, we're going to do that, you're going to get this and you're going to end up getting this at the end.

Now, the valuable insights that we gain from this phase can be used by us or any other architect and will ultimately produce a result for you. Right, so what do you think so far? Now, a lot of people say, "That's a lot of talking. That's a lot of talking." Yeah, well it's a bit of talking but most of it's educational. Most people don't mind listening to stuff if they feel they're learning something and this si genuinely good advice. It's not salesmanship, I mean it's built in, but while it's doing a job for you, it's also doing a job for them because it's slowing them down and it's saying, "Hey. Let's get some advice. Let's do some homework. Before we start designing things, let's make sure we know what we're working on and we know how to get the best result and what the best options are for you." That seems reasonable doesn't it? That seems a good idea for you and them, plus you get paid for it and they get to reduce their risk.

Okay, onwards. Before we proceed, we're very busy. We only work on projects that area good fit for the kind of work we do. I've explained a bit about our process and the kind of work we do, why would you say that your project is a good fit for our firm? Then you shut up and you listen and you wait for them to answer. As soon as they've answered, in their head, they have said to themselves, "Yes. Everything I've heard is okay because they're now continuing." Do you hear that? It means they've almost accepted everything you've said leading up to this point. They're now justifying to you. Very, very clever.

"Okay. That sounds promising," you say, "Let's meet and we'll get the first step completed. I'm fully booked until this date, but I do have two times available after then. Do you option A or do you want option B?" It's reasonably important to put across that you're busy and in demand. That's part of the whole illusion. That's what you do. Before we meet, my assistant will be sending you the following items by email or by courier. Ideally by courier. Things like ... You can insert your things, but I suggest you send them stuff before you meet. You've still got some educating, you've still got some indoctrination if you want. You've still got some persuading to do. Ideally, if you can do that through materials and documents and videos and the like, then when you have your meeting, they feel they know you even better and they bought into some of your ideas and some of your concepts and some of the things that you need them to buy into.

Here's our, we'll include in this box that will come to you, our terms and conditions, an outline for the overall best practice process that we've developed, an invoice for the needs and options review. If you can pay that before we run that, that's how we do that, that would be appreciated. A questionnaire, which you'll need to complete and send back to me before we meet. Some information about me and the work we've done and a small gift, which may surprise you. Great. Thanks for calling, I look forward to meeting you in person.

There we go. That's the incoming call script. This works, look and variations of it. I think this is the hunky dory, the best practice blueprint. By all means, adapt it for yourself. You may not say certain things the way I say it, you can change the structure, but I generally think the further you go away from this for ...