I received a great question from an experienced agent. He asked, “When do you recommend doing the analysis on the spot versus taking the statement with you and having the statement analysis department work up a full cost analysis?” Let me say first of all that if you don’t know how to do an on the spot analysis, you are adding a lot of wasted time to your sales cycle. It is one of the toughest things to learn as a new agent so until you are comfortable, send them in to the statement analysis department. However, make sure you practice doing these analysis yourself on statements you receive so that you can eventually have this option when you are out in the field.
Here is my answer: First of all, I make the decision of doing an analysis “on the spot” versus second visit on a case by case basis. I am always trying to do an on the spot analysis when the conditions are right but, I would say 80% of the time I end up coming back a second time to present the full cost analysis. Here are 3 things I look for when deciding if I should close on the spot:
1. Mood of the owner. Do they have time to talk right now? Do they trust me and like me already? If the answer is yes to both of these I will probably try to do the analysis on the spot.
2. Size of the business. I don’t want to make a big mistake on the spot and as a general rule, for a business doing more than $30,000 per month in volume I take some time on the analysis. If for no other reason, owners of businesses this size expect me to be more thorough because the processing fees represent a big part of their expenses and doing a quick guess can be a turn off. On the flip side, if they do less than $5,000 per month, I almost always do an on the spot analysis because they are so easy to do and it usually comes down to fixed expenses like monthly fees, equipment rentals, PCI Non-Compliance, etc. rather than transaction fees and percentages and I can easily answer these questions on the spot.
3. My understanding of the statement. If I look at a statement and realize that it might stump me on the spot (Daily discount statements can sometimes be tough on the spot) then I always take it back and do the analysis.
Hope these tips help,
email me with any questions,
james@ccsalespro.com
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