, I have subscribed to lots of podcasts so finding a suitable one isn’t too difficult and then I just mail them a link.
You mentioned money: how do you prepare figures?
The money is really the hardest thing. I have just had
a meeting where one of the things I had to do is sit
down and make an offer. The lady told me they have
had another offer from a competitor that was a quarter
of the amount and asked me why. I had to think on my
feet and explain and justify my price. What’s the
difference? Why are you charging four times as
much? The money side of things is really difficult
because every client has different budgets and
different priorities, and they are also expecting
different things. They may think all trainers are the
same, but we’re not. There are lots of people out there
offering training who have never had any real training
themselves. They just happen to speak English and
live in a foreign country. They have never really
developed the skills and techniques you need to
analyse a company’s language needs and then
design an effective training intervention.
On the other hand I have had times where I have sat
down and they have offered me ten times what I was
going to ask. So the important thing is just to feel
things out a little, and be prepared to justify your price.
You might find out that they have approached other
people. They might say that they have approached a
language school and been offered a certain package
and you know roughly what they are offering. You
need to have an awareness of what the market price
is.
But it’s not always important to compete on price. The
difference between 25 and 29 euros per hour is
negligible to a company. If you can show that you are
more professional or do things better – when you look
at the costs of the training, the actual cost of paying
the trainer is minute in comparison to the cost of not
having people at their desks, a manager not available
to make decisions, an employee being paid to not do
their job. You can point this out very early on. So yes,
people do compete on costs but two to three euros
per hour is nothing when you consider the bigger
picture. Business people tend to understand these
sorts of arguments.
I personally favour networking and word of mouth. I
have tried direct selling and of course the people you
are competing against have very big marketing
budgets. I have also been on the inside of these
companies and the HR person will have piles of
brochures and CVs and be swamped with candidates
with qualifications ready to do the job. It’s a tricky one.
Would you ever say that it’s a good idea to cold call?
Personally, no. Because unless you know that
customer really well you are probably going to irritate
or annoy. As I say I have worked on the inside of
these companies and especially in the bigger
companies you could be dealing with people who
have a lot of experience and very good language
training qualifications themselves. I regularly get hired
to help companies find suitable trainers. Some
outsider who decides to cold call and claims they
know what is best is likely to receive a no. They
clearly don’t know the first thing about the company
and are not really worth working with if they can’t even
be bothered to do the basic research.
My advice would be stick to networking, or better, stick
to recommendations. Get your first client via
networking and get recommended because word of
mouth is much better. Cold calling takes a lot of
courage as well because you might succeed once and
turned away a 100 times. Cold calling is a hard game.
Either you can or you can’t. I don’t think I could.
Evan Frendo
Here is where a profile will be written for this author. It
will contain a few details about him or her and a link
to his or her website. The aim is to keep it short and
to be more personal and informal.
You also need to be prepared to say “no I am not
prepared to do this”. They may reply with “yes ok
goodbye” or “ah yes maybe you are right”. You have
to have what is known as a BATNA (Best Alternative
To a Negotiated Agreement). You’ve got to know the
time at which you say “enough is enough” and walk
out. You have to pay taxes, costs, and so on. You are
a professional, not a beggar.
How do you make first contact? Direct selling?
Networking?
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