Ask for the Close: Going Over Next Steps
Last updated: May 2, 2022
Ending a demo is the most important skill to learn besides pitching pricing. It is your last opportunity to add value to FareHarbor on the current call (usually a demo) and the best time to address any final concerns that a client may have. The following will provide some insight on how to end a demo and some common client responses.
The goal of “Next Steps” is to make sure the potential client knows that it is super simple to get set-up on FareHarbor to eliminate any concern that it will be a hassle on their end. Ensure the customer that we will take care of as much as possible in order to make their lives easier.
General Tips
Always go through next steps.
- i.e. “So now, if you don’t have any more questions about the Dashboard, I’m going to go over potential next steps if this is something that you’re feeling good about. It is super, super easy…”
- This is the first time that the client is hearing the steps we will go through to help set them up. Make sure you are thorough. Do not breeze over this.
Have confidence and provide as much value as possible.
Ask for the close! It might seem a bit scary or awkward.
“What are your thoughts? Do you feel ready to get started?”
- If yes, AWESOME. OB them right then and there (or schedule a follow up call if necessary).
- If no, why don’t they feel ready? Get ready for some extra pitching! If time runs out. The goal is to schedule a follow up call to continue to address their concerns.
Next Steps Pitch Flow
Quick call between you and I so that I can learn everything about your business, especially how reservations come in over the phone and how you and your sales staff are able to guide the customer into make the right decision for their type of party.
From there, I’ll take all of your information and put together what we call an “Onboarding Document.” Basically, it’s an outline of your customized system designed to increase your online conversion rate and make your life easier.
I’ll send that document over to our Onboarding team in Denver. They will build the entire system for you and take you through a brief training on how to use the system.
During this training, we can make additional tweaks if needed so that the system is good to go and we can integrate it on to your website.
If you have existing reservations, our team will transfer those over for you, as well as any other data transferring that might need to occur.
Lastly, we have an integration team and their job is to help integrate FareHarbor onto the websites of our clients in a way that will improve conversions right off the bat. This is yet another free service and will increase your bookings from minute one on.
What are your thoughts?
Frequent Client Responses
Click into each section for best practices on how to respond to clients.
I’m in! And I want to build everything myself
“I’m in! And I’m really smart and want to build it myself. I’ll build EVERYTHING. I just want to learn it by using it”
Set people up for success. I just want to make sure that you have the best experience possible. On the training, we’ll show you the main functions, and then afterwards you can go wild!
Can I just have a log-in to play around with it?
Unfortunately, we don’t have a generic demo version and the reason for that is FareHarbor’s flexibility. No two businesses have the exact same set up, so a generic version would not truly show our potential clients the true power of the system. What I can do is take you through a quick set of questions to learn more about your needs. From there, I’ll submit to the onboarding team […etc…] and then you will have full access to the system. We don’t have any start up costs at all, so you’ll be able to play with your own custom dashboard and then go live as soon as you feel comfortable.
I like it, but need to sit down and do the math
“I like it, just need to sit down and do the math. Will get back to you with an answer.”
- Ask more questions – what math are they doing? CC Processing? The Fee?
- You will likely dive back into pricing pushback responses
I just need to go over this with the owner (my wife, father, etc)
Absolutely! I’d love to find a time where I can show them the system, just so I can directly answer any functionality questions that they might have and answer any questions directly. Does Thursday at 2pm work for you?
Looks great, let’s go ahead and do this once our new website launches
- Actually, since we handle the integration for you, we’ll just do it twice.
- Websites so frequently get delayed that I’d hate for you to be missing out on increased online bookings while you wait, so let’s just get this done now
- Sounds good, let’s get everything build asap regardless and then we’ll see
I like it, but I don’t think we have enough time before the season starts
- Totally understand, we do mid-season switches all the time. For example, a very large portion of our client base operate out of Hawaii and operate all-year – there is no off-season!
- Another great example of how amazing our team is able to handle these transitions goes back to July 4, 2016. One of our competitors, Zerve, actually went out of business one week before summer’s busiest weekend. We were about to onboard 500 of their clients in just two weeks with a team ⅓ of the size that we have now.
- We understand that a transition like this is not simple, but we will work with you to come up with a go-live plan that makes sure everyone is up to speed before the season.
I like it, but I’m spending the next week demoing with other softwares
Totally understand! What other softwares are you looking at?
- Then 8-Mile the software, go for the close again
I like it but I’m worried about spending time training staff
“I like it but I just can’t change over everything since I spent a lot of time getting our current one in place and training our staff”
I totally understand! One of the great parts of our team at FareHarbor is that we will do everything for you – including the training. We can have as many trainings as you need and will record them so your staff can go back and reference at a later date. If anything, this will be a huge time saver for you since we will work with your staff until everyone feels comfortable.
I need to spend some time figuring out if it’s worth the cost
“I will just have to spend some time and think about if it is worth the cost of your system”
- Ask more questions – what math are they doing? CC Processing? The Fee?
- You will likely dive back into pricing pushback responses