When my partner and I set up Tectona we were very keen to keep the necessary set up and then the day to day running costs to an absolute minimum. Then, being small, this meant doing everything ourselves – and I mean everything.
With the huge benefit of hindsight (and a few years’ experience under our belts) it is now clear that this really did not make much sense. The time that we frittered away setting up bank accounts, getting insurances, timetabling board meetings, agreeing shareholder agreements and contracts for both clients and our client finance directors … the list goes on … intellectual property, data protection registration, Companies House stuff …
All this meant that our focus was dragged away from doing what we should have been doing – a combination of business development (setting in train the process of getting clients aware of our services and signed up – the “demand” side, if you will) and getting the right finance directors on board – the “supply” side.
One thing that is absent from our early days checklist is managing a crucial component. This is the primary means that new contacts and prospects contact us – they still use the phone. Yes, we set up a land line which diverted to our mobiles and of course one of us would be available to take these gold mine calls, wouldn’t we?
And this is the nub of the problem – because we were so busy doing the stuff we really should have outsourced, we were not always available to respond as professionally as we might have liked to enquires for our services.
Now let’s have a look at what this meant for Tectona – and probably also means for 95% of all small businesses out there.
- The average “value” of a prospect call to a business is £1,200 (so BT tell us)
- And only 3 out of 10 people when faced with an answering service actually bother to leave you a message
Which means that:
- Let’s say you are getting 30 calls a day and you can only answer two thirds of them – that’s 10 that you have missed
- Of the 10 that you missed only 3 will, on average, leave a message; so …
- You have let 7 potentially red hot leads slip through your fingers
- That’s over a 100 a month – OR OVER 1200 A YEAR!!
Now multiply that by £1,200 and you get something approaching £1.5 million that you have left on the table– sobering stuff!!
That is why I would strongly encourage any business to make sure they have got those incoming calls covered with a professional call answering service. That means either by your own team or by letting the experts help you – i.e. outsource it. The key is to get the right people to handle something as critical as this in the right way – which means someone you trust and someone who has a demonstrable track record of getting it right. We recommend UK based Verbatim who have over 21 years’ experience partnering with over 6,500 ambitious business owners who want to step out from the crowd. And the costs start at only £67 per month for their highly professional service which many have applauded over the years. Their metrics indicate that for every £10 invested in their service, you will see a return of greater than £100. You can judge the benefits yourself “Risk Free” with the best guarantee in the industry – a six week 100% money back guarantee no questions asked.
You owe it to your business. Can you afford not to get this right?