Your sales team is killing deals before they even start.
Here’s what’s happening:
A customer calls asking, “How much for brake repair?”
Instead of a simple response, your team launches into a 5-minute explanation about OEM vs aftermarket parts, warped rotors, frozen calipers, and worst-case scenarios.
The customer hangs up more confused than when they called. Now they feel unprepared and need to do more research.
The goal of the phone call isn’t to diagnose, educate, estimate, or sell.
The only goal is to win the visit
You can’t win a job over the phone. You can only lose it.
I use the ARR Framework
- Acknowledge their question
- Reframe based on your company’s strengths
- Redirect with a question that moves toward booking
Customer: “How much for brake repair?”
Me: “You called the right place! What’s going on with them?”
Customer: (grinding, squeaking, pulsating, doesn’t really matter…)
Me: “We can definitely help resolve that. I can squeeze you in today at 2pm or tomorrow at 8am. Which works better for you?”
Keep it short & stay in control.
We follow the 2-minute rule. Every call should be 2 minutes or less. The last thing you want is calls dragging on for 8-10 minutes:
- Don’t explain every possible scenario
- Don’t answer questions they didn’t ask
- Don’t give specific pricing (use brackets if you must)
All this sounds simple but it’s not that easy.
Here’s the thing about training, especially the phones
It’s never one & done.
We are constantly training & retaining
People have the tendency to fall back to bad habits.
The best practice we’ve found is short, constant training
We pull in 5-7 employees weekly for a 30-minute Teams call.
These sessions are interactive role-playing scenarios.
Managers give each other feedback, which is powerful since nobody wants to be a hypocrite!
This allows 20 to 30 people to get refreshed every month.
It may sound like overkill, but it’s literally the most important part of our business. If we can’t convert calls into estimates, then we have no opportunity to sell.
- Marketing ➡️ Phone Calls
- Phone Calls ➡️ Visits
- Visits ➡️ Estimates
- Estimates ➡️ Sales
You’re leaving so much money on the table if you don’t have a reliable way to track your calls, conversation rates, & give feedback on every call.
Do you have a solid process/scripts for the phones?
Are you interested in seeing my complete phone training framework?
Cheers!
Brian
