"I never know what to say..."

When working with members of NNEP (the National Network of Embroidery Professionals), we often hear something along the lines of, "I never know what to say..." And what is so surprising is that this statement comes up in nearly 50% of the conversations we have with NNEP members, each and every day!

It does not matter if we are helping our NNEP members with how to market their business, determining what price to quote on an order or even how to explain what they do to someone that they just met - the challenge they cite is the same, they do not know how to express themselves as well as they want to, or with enough confidence, no matter what IT is that they are trying to talk about.

So that got me to thinking...

How can we help you do a better job of communicating?

A proven and easy to master technique is to actively start paying attention to the questions and conversations that you hear the most frequently from your customers - the FAQs of your business, if you will. These FAQs may include:

• When will my order be ready?
• How much will it be?
• What kind of designs are there?
• How do I do this (place an order)?
• What size should I get?
• What if I order the wrong size?
• When do I pay for this?
• What if I want to change my order?
• Can I provide the item?

Create a list of your customer's FAQs.

Once you know what they are likely to ask you, you can spend a few minutes crafting answers that provide the information in a way that feels right for you and your business. You can take the time to come up with how you want to say it, and then become really comfortable with it. Once you have drafted how you want to respond to a specific question, practice it! Once you have practiced your answers a few times, you will not have to mentally "reach" for a smooth and professional sounding answer, as you will already know it.

Here's an example -

The next time someone asks, "When will this be ready?"... You know that you will say, "We run on a 7 day production schedule. That means we should have this order completed no later than next (insert the next day of the week)." This answer positions you as a competent professional. It answers their question. It indicates that there is other work in front of their order. It does a lot more than just provide them their answer of what day the order will be ready, doesn't it?

NNEP members - once you develop a list of the FAQs for your business, give us a call and we can help you come up with some possible answers that will provide the information your customers are seeking and position you and your business in the best possible way and feels true to you and your business, your style.

Share your FAQs and Answers!

Once you come up with your list of questions, and the framework for your answers, this is great information to include on your webpage, to share via social media and to send to your customers in a newsletter or by email. Every one of these FAQs and answers provides information that your customers and potential customers could benefit from knowing. Share each FAQ and your answers individually. On your website, consider adding a FAQ page, as they are generally visited frequently. And you never know, sharing these points could trigger someone to connect with you about an order. So be sure to include your phone and email every time you share a FAQ!

FYI - I'm taking my own advice!  Ijust added a FAQ page on this updated NNEP website. We have a FAQ page on the Embroidery Mart site, but it was missing on the NNEP.com site! Go figure...