Many new business owners are afraid to answer the phone when it rings. Some of us blame it on the fact that we are busy. Others say I’m just not good at answering the phone. But most likely the reason why you don’t answer your phone is that you don’t have a routine that you follow.
Answering the phone when it rings is the most important part of Landing a job.
You are not going to land a job if you don’t answer the phone!
Just look at it like this, you spend all your time and energy trying to get leads.
Sometimes you even spend a bunch of money to make the phone ring.
Whether it be Google ads, Facebook ads, HomeAdvisor, or other lead-generating services.
So why wouldn’t you answer your phone?
I’m not going to lie, I was guilty of this myself when I first started my painting business 518 Painters in Albany NY.
I would always tell my wife to answer the phone because I felt that I just didn’t sound professional.
I did that for a while when I first started until I started implementing a new script that would help me answer the phone at ease.
The Call Cheat Sheet
It is a simple six-question sheet that we print out and keep next to every phone that belongs to the painting business.
Having those questions printed out on a piece of paper helped us not only sound more professional but also helped to write down all the information that we need.
Sometimes when you answer the phone and you don’t have a script to go by it’s easy to make mistakes.
Sometimes you will forget to ask for important information which will then lead you to either lose that potential customer or have to call back which can be annoying as well.
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What To Ask When Answering The Phone
These six questions are super simple but give you all the information that you need.
Question number 1:
What is your name?
This is where you write down the prospect’s first and last name.
Question number 2:
What is the best phone number to reach you at?
This is where you were right down the customer’s phone number. We usually ask what the best phone number is to reach them just in case the phone call gets cut off. In that way, if you do get cut off you will not lose that lead because sometimes they will call and the number will be restricted.
Question number 3:
Tell me a little bit about your project
This is where you have the opportunity to screen the customer and see if they are the right fit for you. At this point, we usually tell them that we do have a $700 minimum if we feel that the job might be too small. And that way you can avoid going out and doing an estimate just to come to the conclusion that this job is too small for you. Or too big.
Question number 4:
Is there a specific time frame that you need this done by?
This is another way to pre-screen the lead and see if it’s the right fit for you. Most of the time we are booked six to eight weeks ahead of time. Sometimes more sometimes less. But a lot of times you will get phone calls for painting that needs to be done right that second. Unfortunately, we are not a super big company to be able to take on every job. That’s why when they tell us they need it done that week but we are booked out months ahead we will Decline and refer them to someone else.
Question number 5:
What is your address?
This is pretty self-explanatory. you want to find out where the property is located so that you will be able to have it right in front of you when it’s time to go do the estimate.
Question number 6 is one of the most important questions:
How did you hear about us?
The reason we ask that is that I want to see where my marketing efforts and my marketing money is spent the most proficient way.
You always want to be marketing your business but you always want to be aware of what is working best.
Whatever works the best is probably where you should focus on the most whether it’s Facebook ads, Google ads, your blog, newspaper and so on.
Read more about marketing your painting business and building an online presence here.
Having all these questions printed out in front of you will make answering the phone much easier.
It takes away the nervousness and uncertainty that most of us have, especially starting in business.
If you want to know more about starting a painting business from scratch, you might want to check out this article!
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