[Dale Wiley]

I have just finished adjusting our sales process to get this down to an exact science. Our incoming calls were down this year, but we only closed 53% of the leads that came in. I have made the changes to tighten up the sales process, and hopefully it will work.

To the marketing portion, we have used a company that has a franchised system for marketing. It is called Monopolize your Market place. The local owners had a booth at the landscape show last week, and I stopped to talk to them. They handed me a folder with 2 audio CD's, a book and some information. Nice easy sale thing, no pressure.

I read part of the book, and listened to the CD's. I like their ideads, which stress education of the consumer, and using trigger words and reticular activators. I am having the company work on our advertising to reflect this approach. They gave me all the materials to educate myself, and to make the "right" decison, which was to obviously hire them to do something, I cannot do. I am working on trigger and confidence verbage and would like anybody's ideas. So far I have come up with:

Increased comittment, performance evaluations, reliable products, service capabilities, project feedback, significant investment, improved irrigation efficency(goes with our marketing of Toro's new Intell-Sense controllers).

Ideas any one..???http://www.y2marketing.com

[pineapple]

What is the average percentage of leads/calls to close on (for design/build)?

[Paverman]

There are so many "sales systems" being marketed it's hard to pick the right one. I attended a seminar last year where Tony Bass was a speaker and he said the key to his system was replicability. He could take someone who was 20 years old with no industry experience or a 20 year veteran and with his system, as long as they followed it to the letter they would be successful. I don't remeber his web address but I am sure some one here knows it and it could be worth looking into as well.

As to Dales question about trigger and confidence verbage, what I have found in our area is that the most successful trigger to get a buy decision is price. I have toyed with the idea about following a strategy used by car dealerships and retailers...they will beat any competitors price plus give you 10% (or whatever). Of course, they have a lot of small print and I'am not sure how many times they've had to payoff but it would seem to me that once you get people to your place of business (or in our case are at their home) and remove "price" as an objection, you've got a good shot of closing them.
So far I've been a little nervous about actually implementing the idea.

Nick

[johnkeegan]

Nick, You said, " I have toyed with the idea about following a strategy used by car dealerships and retailers...they will beat any competitors price plus give you 10% (or whatever)."
Do you really want to base your price and product on what the biggest lowball competitor is producing (minus 10%)?. What if he's able to offer that cheap price because he uses crap materials and workmanship. You'll have to stoop to his level to compete if price is the overriding concern. Besides what if the cheapest competitor simply does not know how to estimate? Do you want to follow him like a lemming over the edge (minus 10%)?
Over my 20 years I've seen lowballers come and go. They've actually created alot of work for us because we often must go back and correct their crappy work. And when that customer sees the difference in quality and creativity, we have a customer (and referrals) for life.
Instead, of having your sales conversations center on only price, stress quality. Explain to them the ways lowballers cut corners on material and workmanship and that you don't (hopefully) work that way. Try to act as interested in their property as they are. Stress that landscaping often frames the first impression of their home. Acknowledge some positive features on their home and property and segway that into why it's important their landscaping upholds higher standards. Remember, most people take pride in their home.

[Dale Wiley]

I hope you remain nervous about implementing that strategy Nick, because IMHO, it would be the kiss of death for a contracting business. It sets your operating standard, your company culture, you employee focus, and everything focused on price and beating the ignorant scab working for wages, and frankly, any contracting service does not lend themselves to price positioning in any market segment other than new construction.




I talked to Tony last week when he was here in Oregon. I have known him a few years, and always enjoy comparing notes with him.

bass_t@basscustomlandscapes.com


Some of the content below came from his seminar, some came from a program Toro tried in their distributors a few years back, and some from y2marketing, and some from another consultant I used this year as well.

I have spent a number of years on the sales side of things and I have seen every program of the month sales "process" "system" there is. Some good, some not so good, so what I have developed is a combination of all the good portions of the various process's I saw..

An example of the type of marketing we are going to use, and what y2marketing does is in December's Better Homes and Gardens,page 71 ad for Mr. Rooter Plumbing.

Use qualifying script to qualify the client. Mention things you will talk about at the first visit, like THE BUDGET.

Interrupt, engage, educate and close.

Educate the client so they become convinced they would be crazy to do business with anyone but your company.

Use multiple page proposals with the clients name featured in bold on the front.

Have very descripitive paragraphs about the services you are proposing.

Use creditibility pieces such as articles, awards, photos, audio CD's,. I dropped the ball here, because I have had articles published, and numerous quotes in national trade magazines and did nothing with them.

GIVE THE CLIENT MULTIPLE SERVICE AND PROCE OPITIONS. If you don't do that, YOU FORCE THEM TO GET ADDITIONAL QUOTES. 70% will buy in the middle range.

Listen to the client describe their project and use the same words in the proposal.

Most clients can be sold YOUR BUSINESS and the actual product or service is secondary.

Never fax proposal, always present face to face.

Try to see the world through the clients eyes. ( Hmm... this is a tough one..)

Increase client base by 10% every year.
Increase average transaction by 10% every year.
Increase EACH CLIENTS frequency of purchase by 10% every year.

Increase sales close rate by 5% every year for 4 years.

What things are important to our customers when buying what we sell?

What do we do to give our customers what they want?

What do our customers need to know to buy what we sell??

Under what circumstances do our typical prosepcts start to think about buying what we sell??

When a person calls our company, they have already made a decision to buy landscape services. It is just a matter of WHO they select and HOW MUCH they want to spend.

If you can perform at a high level, you can charge a lot more for that performance.



Peopl buy by their perceptions and not just price. If all things are equal, then price wins. Not all contractors are created equal, there is a difference and you have to bring that out.

As to the average number of leads to clsoe, I went at 53% last year. There can be a number of ways to look at the ratio, I want to see about a 70% close rate with WELL QUALIFIED leads. Getting leads and closing sales are 2 different animals. If my leads are well qualified, then a higher close rate at the established net is fine. If I do not qualify well, then I would have to pay closer attention to the sales ratio. It would be hard to say what the ratio should be unless everyone used similar leag generation and qualification systems.

I really left some money out there in 2005 because of a flawed (no) sales process. I should have known better, but get caught up in crisis management and things happen. I made my living for a number of years in sales of commercial turf equipment, and really kind of lost the importantance of the sales process in selling ANY serivce of product.

[Paverman]

First let me say that I am not seriously thinking about the "car dealer" program, it's just that I am so frustrated that I am not sure what to do or how to differentiate myself from my competitors on a consistent basis.
I try to look back at the people that have bought from me and see what if anything I have done differently on those calls; but I cant put my finger on anything specific.
I try to educate the customer about I.C.P.I. standards and why they are important but everybody else parrots the icpi manual and even though I know they don't do the work that way I can't just tell the customer "well this guy may have said the exact same thing I said but he's lying. I am telling the truth"
I give the customer 6 references, but I guess anyone in business over a year can provide 6 references and most people only check three.
I am competing with companies who are unlicensed, who have forefited their corporate charter for nonpayment of property taxes but keep getting recomended by the local paver distrubutor
I send thank you cards with a brief hand written note to everyone I visit.
I just can't get consistentcy in my sales process, let alone figure out how to improve the closing ratio.
I could really use some help answering some of the questions Dale posted above.
Nick

[r schipul]

I believe that everyone has an idea in their head on how much they want to spend and if you come in over that price your chances of getting that job are greatly reduced. I have a very hard time getting #'s out of people. That being said, I've always felt that price alone has very little to do with getting or not getting the job. I feel that when I don't get a job it's more because I over designed the space. If I can solve a clients problem for what they want to spend I get the job. People get more proposals if I can't. That's when I have to prove that our company is the correct choice.

When people have different choices in price there is no doubt we would have a better sales success rate. The way we work as most other do, we design a space and come up with the price. When we write up a proposal, it's always broken down in phases. On foundation plantings we'll even break it down to left and right side of door. If it wasn't so time consuming I'd love to be able to give different scheme's for different prices.

[Dale Wiley]

This sales thing, and the sales process we will all have to use over the next 15 years as the maturing baby boomers spend their wads is something we really have to pay attention to.

The psychology of this thing is such, that I do not think any one of us has a real good grasp of it. I have been in business over 27 years, and should be doing better than I am, and to that end I have hired people to help me do things I cannot do effectively.

One of my consultants says if you have been in this business for a while, you should know all the technical things and work on the tools in 12 years or by age 35. After that point you should be off the tools and on to building a business that will pay you at least 75K to 100K per year.

Many on here have, and I am getting real close. But I have delayed retirement savings and I have about 12 years to develop that aspect. Therefore, I have contracted with this marketing company to get my phone ringing, and to develop a PROVEN sales system.

The psychology of selling to people is very complicated,and I want to eliminate as many of the variables as possible.

As to the answers to the questions I posed above, I have not really answered those myself. I have some general ideas, but that aspect may have to wait a bit, as I want to get the sales system in place before we tackle that aspect.

I have found answers to getting the budget numbers, and a lot of it is alluding to and planting reticular activators,(words and phrases, images) in some of our client contacts.

As to unlicensed contractors, turn their miserable 's in if there is that level of regulation in your state.. I do it on a weekly basis around here.

Now if your local paver distributor is recommending unlicensed and uninsured "contractors", just so they get to sell product, then I think it's time to have a talk with the corporate level of sales with that product. And don't stop until you are satisfied. I would go clear to the top if you have to. It works, been there and done that and will do it again if I have to.

Nick: I can put you in touch with some people who can help you on those, as these have helped me.

Operations and Systems / Sales:

Contact Rob Shauger COMPASS by clicking on the link on the home page here. He can tell you what is going on, and the owner is right in Maryland. I highly recommend this based upon what you have posted recently.

Marketing/ Sales:

Construction Programs and Results- Michael Stone

http://markupandprofit.com

Marketing:

http://y2marketing.com