Working in a part of the country where winters serve to define the ending of a landscaping season and the beginning of the next landscaping season, I think we have some advantages. For example, you have the time to take a fine-toothed comb to your financial data to see where you made and lost money and adjust your approach for the following year. The same is true for your marketing spends. And you have time to repair those pieces of equipment you MacGyvered together just to make it through the season.

However, one disadvantage I face each spring is that my sales skills are pretty rusty come spring. Having spent the last 3-4 months sequestered in an office, pounding on a keyboard, squinting at a monitor and having little interpersonal contact, I come off as a bit of a dork on my first 3-4 client meetings in spring. I used to just chalk it up to early season rust and forgave myself those poor performances. But with the economy the way it’s been the last few years in my area, I really can’t afford to just shrug my shoulders when I bomb on my first few sales calls.

So this year I’m trying something new. I’m contacting old or existing clients where there may have been some interest in some other work, either the next spring or some future year. It’s not for me to apply big pressure; it’s just to get in front of clients again so I can knock off the rust. The meetings will be of less consequence and they’ll be with clients that already like our work, so their opinions of us shouldn’t be swayed if I stumble over prices or explanations.

My hope is that by the time I’ve finished those meetings I’ll be close to mid-season form, ready to charm the socks off all the prospective clients that call.

I’ve finally gotten on board with Craig’s List.  It took me awhile and several tries, but thanks to some tutorial help from discussions here and here and a private message or two, I figured out how to navigate to my neck of the woods on the site and make a relevant post.  My feet are wet, and so far the water’s fine.

My first post in the freebie section resulted in quite a few responses from people looking for free fill.  With the cost of everything going up, who couldn’t use a few places where people want your excavation spoils?

One of the things I found, however, is that you have to be explicit in your freebie requirements.  In that regard, a freebie giveaway like fill dirt is the same as if you were looking for lawn seeding customers; you don’t want to spend time fielding inquiries from people well outside your market or unqualified people inside your market.  So learn from some of the mistakes I made.  When you post your offering (freebie or otherwise) be sure to:

• Define the geographic area.  List every municipality you’re willing to travel to.  Otherwise you’ll either be spending time deleting worthless leads (and pissing them off) or politely eating productive time responding to worthless leads.
• Define the parameters of your offering.  In my case, I was getting emails from people 40 miles away looking for 2-3 wheelbarrows of good, black dirt.  They don’t make that kind of dirt here, and even if they did, I’m not trucking a skidsteer bucket’s worth over 40 miles for anybody.
• Ask for contact info.  State up front that you need their name, address and phone number.  You’ll probably still get people who’ll respond by asking for your contact info instead of providing their own, but hopefully this will be minimized.

After the first 50 emails I got regarding free fill, I turned into the soup nazi for “free fill dirt” email.  No address or phone number?  No fill for you!  You’ll want to be much more forgiving if you’re looking for paying customers, but you get the idea.  Just like leads that come via your website, you want to move those electronic leads to telephone and face-to-face leads as quickly as possible.  If they aren’t ready to talk on the phone or meet in person, there’s no way they’re ready to invest their money.