You answer the phone and are hit with the time bomb, “I need a resume; how much does that cost?” Chances are like a job seeker at an interview, without a plan you are going to mumble, fumble, and lose the caller before you can make them a prospect and earn them as a paying client. These folks aren’t looking to be pre-qualified or have a big pitch — they are looking for quick answers.
With that in mind, I developed the following approach and have used it over the last two decades with job seekers to maintain a 97-98% close rate. When someone asks what it costs, I don’t do a lot of pre-qualifying. The goal is to answer their question and get them into the consultation where we can dig deeper and close the sale.
The reason I choose not to do much pre-qualifying at this point is because:
People who lead with the cost question don’t want to engage in a conversation before they know what they are getting into.
A lot of the time they just don’t know what a resume is and can / should be because they have only seen Microsoft Resume Wizard templates. These individuals aren’t always bad potential clients. Some of my largest sales and best relationships started with, “how much.” You learn to quickly gauge someone on this by the speed of their voice, silence, huffs; you know, verbal clues.
When faced with the “how much” question I do what I tell our clients to do when it comes to questions about salary requirements:
I answer the question without really answering the question.
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