Have you been wondering how to increase your
daycare business? Many salesperson will tell you that sales is all about numbers. The more people you contact, the more leads
you get, the more customers you will have. There is a lot of truth in that but what if you are a daycare business owner? When
you start a daycare at first, you are a sales manager, marketing manager, operations manager, CEO, general manager, etc, all
rolled into one. Will you still have the time and energy to contact the many prospects that you have to contact?
The
secret lies in qualifying the daycare prospect. What’s the difference between leads and prospect, you may ask. The answers
is lots! Lots of time and energy saved, that is.
A lead is any form of contact. They are both unqualified and qualified.
A day care prospect on the other hand is a qualified lead. Which means that there is a high chance that the individual will
purchase or engage your daycare services. To maximize efficient use of time and effort, it is important to identify if that
customer is just a lead or a prospect.
There are a number of ways in which you can effectively qualify a
daycare prospect and sometimes it also takes a lot of honesty. There will be times when out of 50 leads that you receive,
only 1 is a real prospect. The key here is quality and not quantity. If it is only 1 out of 50, then so be it. For the rest
of the 49, you can simply send courtesy reminders or follow up with promotional materials. Do not bother spending too much
time on them. Remember, as a daycare business owner with limited resources and time, especially when you are just starting
a daycare, you need to maximize use of your time and effort.
Here are some of the qualifying factors:
Compatibility
Determine if there is a synergy between your daycare services and the
needs and wants to the prospect. To do this effectively, you need to first make an informed judgment of what the prospect
is looking for and does your daycare service meet that need? There is no point force feeding your daycare service to a prospect
who does not think that your daycare service is suitable for him or his child. Remember, you have limited resources so maximize
use of time and effort.
Accessibility
Are you able to contact
the prospect easily? There are prospects who are only contactable via a telephone number which nobody ever picks up or only
via email. By giving you a contact which he/she is easily contactable clearly demonstrates his/her keen interest in your daycare
service. If you have a contact that proves otherwise, maybe you should just move on.
Eligibility
Is the day care prospect the right fit? Does the daycare prospect work or stay close enough to your
daycare business? Does the day care prospect have a genuine need for your daycare services?
Authority
Is the daycare prospect the one which makes the purchasing decision? There are 3 types of prospect so
you need to determine which your prospect is. The first is the buyer. This refers to the person who does the physical purchase
of the product / service. The second is the user. This refers to the person who is using the product / service. The final
is the payer. This refers to the person who is the one who pays for the product / service. It is relatively easy to identify
the user. But to distinguish between the payer and the buyer, you need to really observe very carefully. One trick is to observe
if your prospect keeps looking to a second person/the spouse for affirmation. If so, chances are your prospect is merely the
buyer but the final paymaster, who should be your target, is the spouse/other person.
Profitability
Is the day care prospect able to afford your daycare services? If he/she is able to afford, is he/she
willing to pay for it?
By carefully qualifying your prospect, it will greatly help you to maximize the efficient spend
of your time and effort, which to a daycare business owner, is priceless.
