Sell smart, not slick
1 Jan, 2005 By: Jason Stahl Landscape ManagementA few good landscape contractors reveal the secrets to selling their service
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The secret to being a successful salesperson in the landscape industry? There might be a few, but most of them are things we already know but, because of time constraints or overall negligence, fail to do. There's no secret to the following landscape professionals' methods, just hard work and diligence.
Communicate with customers
Communicating with customers sounds like common sense, and it is, but it's not something that everyone does well. David Pitchford has it down pat. The owner of Baton Rouge Lawn Pro/Weed Man /Landscape Resources, Inc. has been dealing with a steady stream of residential customers since 1986, and he knows that keeping an open line of communication with customers at all times is crucial to picking up extra sales. David Pitchford |
"Take advantage of whatever opportunity there is to communicate with your customers, because it always seems like we pick up a sale from that," Pitchford says.
At a recent company meeting, Pitchford asked his team why people call his company in the first place. The answer? Because they have a project that they want someone else to do to save them from having to do it. "So any time we can provide a service that would be valuable to them and save them time, whether it be a lawn application or mowing grass or servicing a sprinkler system, we take advantage of that," Pitchford says.
 Jeff Haynes |
Pitchford's firm is located in Louisiana, not normally known for frigid temperatures. But that didn't stop him from using a recent cold front to sell some extra business. He and his sales crew called their customers and asked if they wanted their irrigation systems winterized. Surprise, those calls led to more business.
"They said, 'Oh yeah, I've been meaning to call you because I need my beds done as well,' or whatever," says Pitchford. The lesson? You never know what your clients need or when they might need it, so keeping in regular communication ensures they'll let you know...or a random call might just jog their memory.
Sometimes it's tough to keep in constant communication with clients. When things get busy, it's not as easy to see new potential sales opportunities. But Pitchford says it comes down to planning to avoid this pitfall.
 Jim Weidner |
"We talked about our sales goals this year, and our approach was to have people in place at the right time of year," he says. "You have to plan out your production schedule. You have to be able to get work done in order to sell it."
Jeff Haynes, Pitchford's sales manager, says that it's not only about the amount of calls you make to customers but how fast you return them.
"Response time is everything," Haynes says. "We have an office manager that answers the phone and responds to calls. Within three hours of someone calling, I'm responding to their call. Within 24 hours I'm at their house looking at the proposed project."
 Billy Simms |
Haynes says there's no project too small, either. He returns a call no matter what the proposed work is because of the results it brings. "I think it does get us a lot of business because I hear repeatedly from people who say, 'You're the first person who called me back.'"
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