It’s the little things that matter in sales. Body language, follow-up, clear, concise messaging. If you neglect the little details, you’re not maximizing your sales opportunity.
Here are three small details that can grow your green industry business:
Create a Daily Calendar
I’m in Boston right now, and I can’t tell you how confusing it is. Streets change names on a whim. They wind around in circles sometimes, it seems. I’m a Midwesterner, and I’m used to well-planned and numbered streets and avenues. I get out east and I have no idea how to find anything.
Planning makes everything easier. Unlike the town I live in, Boston is an old city that developed before city planners were paid boatloads of money to streamline city transportation. If you want your sales reps to be more productive - like a modern city - you need to plan their day. Here’s an example of how to plan their day:
- 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. - Contact any leads
- 8:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. - Contact
- 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. - Cold calling
- 11 a.m. to noon - Lunch
- Noon to 5 p.m. - Site visits for estimates
You can use any calendaring app you want - Google, Outlook - but if you use field service software like HindSite, it’s best to use that service business scheduling software to schedule your entire team, including your sales rep. Then you can share that information with your entire organization.
Stop Multi-Tasking
Did you know that multitasking can make you LESS productive - and even damage your brain? That’s the consensus from recent research conducted by Stanford University and researchers in the United Kingdom.
That’s one of the main reasons sales reps should create a schedule. If they can focus their attention on the same general conversations and activities for longer, they’ll not only be more productive, but they’ll also sell better.
For example, if you own a green industry business and your sales rep sells multiple services - irrigation service, maintenance services like mowing and blowing, and landscape lighting - you may want to further schedule a sales rep’s day to focus specific blocks of time on individual services. That way, he doesn’t have to jump from explaining your irrigation service to one prospect one minute, then leap to landscape lighting for another. By shifting gears so many times throughout the day, he’ll be less effective.
I know when I’ve done calls in the past that were of the same variety, I was able to learn from past calls and slowly improve my pitched. If your sales rep makes 5 follow up calls about your irrigation business in a row, by the fifth one he’ll have improved his pitch about your irrigation service. If he’s making five different types of calls - irrigation, hardscaping, lawn maintenance, snow removal, pest control - in a row, it’s likely he won’t improve his pitch significantly in that span.
Create a Communication Rhythm
Football just started and it got me thinking about plays. They are basically processes. The center may block a linebacker, the guard may pull, the running back has a hole to run to. If anyone doesn’t follow the process, the play breaks down and the defense likely wins.
Your sales process is no different. I’ve talked to a lot of small businesses that haven’t really defined their sales process. It’s well worth the effort of mapping your sales process. What happens when a lead comes in? What do you do after you send an estimate? How many times do you try to follow-up?
It’s worth creating a communication rhythm for your sales reps. For example, if you use our field service CRM, you can filter to find all of your estimates that you haven’t heard from that are more than a week old. Create a process to follow up - either by phone, email or social media - and make it part of the daily routine. Try different follow-up tactics and see which work best. Maybe a phone call won’t get your audience to act, but an email may.
Want more sales tips for your green industry business? Check out our free eBook, 15 Sales and Marketing Tips Guaranteed to Grow Your Green Industry Business.
