Make More Excuses; Make More Sales!

When you walk into the business, your reason for doing so should always be curiosity, not sales.  My motto for walking into a business cold turkey is “always have an excuse.”  This probably sounds crazy to some of you, but I always start my opening pitch with an excuse.  Here a few common ones I use.

“I was driving over to meet with my client Bob at XYZ company, and I realized I have never introduced myself in this business.”

“I am looking for XYZ Business; are you familiar with them?” (Response: Yes.. etc.) “Great! I am running over there to do a demo of our new chip card terminal.  Do you already have one of those?” This type of “excuse” for stopping by sets the prospect at ease.

Once I get past this initial excuse phase, I try to make the prospect feel great about his or her business.  This is very easy to do if you try.  Here are some things I might say.

“I am always amazed by local businesses and the story behind them.  I can see you have a solid business established here; can I ask for some free advice?  How did you become an established business owner in the community?”

“I love the way you have the store set up.  How did you come up with this floor layout?”

Restaurant: “I have heard some good things about your food.  What is your personal favorite dish here?”

“The atmosphere in here really sets this place apart.  I bet you put a lot of work into designing the customer experience.”

Now that the owner is feeling good about me, the time is right to jokingly, apologetically transition into the pitch for what I do.  Here are a few ways that I set up the transition. “Do you mind if I give you the thirty second elevator pitch for my company?” “I am always looking to develop new relationships in the local community.  Can I give you my thirty second commercial about what I do?” “I do have one question before I leave my card with you.  Is this a single location business or do you have multiple locations?”   Now is the time to casually and confidently make your pitch.  Here are a few ideas.

Pitch #1 – “I’m sure you have worked with independent insurance brokers in the past, right?  They have multiple insurance companies with whom they work while shopping around to get you the lowest overall costs by customizing the program.  I do the same thing but in the credit card processing business.  I have multiple processing companies with whom I work.   So I get a processing statement and bring back two or three bids for you to see.  Some of them would include free equipment; some might have lower pricing; etc.  But I give my clients options.  Then I provide the local service you really need in order to work with one of these big national processing companies who provide the lowest rates.”

Pitch #2 – “I have found that there are really only two things that matter to business owners when it comes to credit card processing.

First is reliability.  You need to know that your money is going to be in your bank account quickly and can’t afford to have your terminal go down in the middle of a busy day.

Second, as long as you have that reliable service, the decision really comes down to cost savings.  I never tell business owners they should work with me on the first visit.  While I know I can provide the reliability and service you need, I have no idea what kind of pricing you are getting.  I wouldn’t want to waste your time by talking about what I can do for you until I have established that it makes sense for you financially.  What I would like to do is simply get a little bit of information from you today.  Then I’d like to schedule a time to come back when I can spend ten minutes reviewing your current costs for processing and see if we can identify any areas for significant savings.  Does that sound like a reasonable plan?”

I hope these tips will help you in the field.

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