In yesterday’s article, I made the claim that pro-life Pregnancy Help Centers should actually have an enormous competitive advantage versus abortion facilities.
I qualified that claim with, “…if they have in place the right sales professionals equipped with the right sales process, including the right marketing program to increase inbound leads.”
That “if” is a big one, because the reality is that most PHCs do not have any of those “right” people, or processes, in place to compete, and win, as measured by market share.
For today, let’s discuss the most important key process: the first personal interaction between the abortion-minded woman and a sales professional at the PHC.
That interaction takes place by phone about 80% of the time, but can also happen through text and email.
Whichever mode is used for the interaction, what is both said, and not said, by the sales professional at the PHC is of the utmost importance to get right.
With that thought, recall that I said in yesterday’s article:
“If you are a salesperson, what would you say if a prospective customer called you, and the first question she asked was if you provide the product that your competitor offers? If you say, “No, we don’t offer that, but what we do offer is this (your product),” what do you think will happen?”
Our answer to that question: The prospective client hangs up.
I put that example into your mind yesterday, on purpose.
Without using any specific industry, I wanted to show that, in general, answering a prospective customer in such a manner would simply be bad sales.
And bad sales results in the prospective customer choosing a product that is not the best for their needs, leaving them less well off.
Hopefully, you agreed with me on that point.
A PHC Sales Call – Done Poorly
Now, let’s use our example above of a bad sales call, but get specific about what it would look like if sales professionals at PHCs handled the first interaction with prospective clients – abortion-minded women – in the same manner.
A phone call might look like this:
Abortion-minded woman: “Hi, I want to get an abortion. Can I get an abortion at your clinic?”
PHC sales professional: “No. Our clinic neither performs, nor refers for, abortions.”
Abortion-minded woman: “OK. Thank you. Goodbye.”
In that interaction, the prospective client asked for the competitor’s product – abortion services – and the PHC sales professional simply answered the question without trying to find out more about what’s really going on with the woman, so that the PHC can give her what she actually needs.
And the PHC sales professional did this with full knowledge that the competitor’s product – an abortion – is never the right product for any woman, ever.
So, what do you think? Did the PHC sales professional in this case do a good job?
An Unfortunate Reality
I hope your answer to that question is a very strong, “No!”
But now I will share with you something that will likely make you very unhappy.
The interaction I laid out in the example above between the PHC sales professional and the abortion-minded woman, in reality, is not the exception in the Pro-Life Business Industry, it’s the rule.
That’s right. Most PHCs across our country, in their first interaction with an abortion-minded woman, will practically rush, like it’s a badge of honor, to make sure the woman knows that the PHC does not perform, nor refer for, abortions.
The result? Most of the women on the other end of the line hang up.
And their next call? Likely to an abortion clinic that will be all too happy to set up an appointment for them.
How did the Pro-Life Business Industry get this so wrong?
We’ll turn to that tomorrow…
Regards.
Brett