I was recently on a webinar that Dan Pestretto was hosting. Dan is a business coach for green industry businesses. The webinar was called If You’re Selling, You’re Doing It Wrong. His talk was mainly about a shift in how green industry businesses should be selling their services. In order to sell, you shouldn’t be “selling”. He pointed out that selling can be uncomfortable for people. There are poor perceptions of salespeople and their integrity is always questioned.
Instead, he said that it is now far more important to develop and nurture relationships.
Here are five points that Dan made on his webinar that can help you sell your business without selling.
“A high conversion rate is usually due to the ability to develop a relationship”
Being able to develop a relationship with customers is critical. It isn’t about trying to get as many people in the door as possible, take their money and sit back. Being able to sell well requires you to create and nourish relationships with potential customers.
Sales is a numbers game. However, you shouldn’t be basing your sales metrics on how many people you can cold call, but instead your conversion rates should be based on how many quality relationships you can build with your customers. Not only is this good for the short term, it is an awesome long term strategy, too.
“Real sales is about real talk, with real people, about things that really matter to them”
Dan made a great point about who your competition really is. It is a commonly held belief in the green industry that their competition can be vacations or other items that are viewed as a luxury item or not necessary. Green industry business owners and salespeople often feel that their potential customers see lawn maintenance for a season and a family trip as two mutually exclusive things.
You aren’t competing against these things. If you can talk with people about what really matters to them, you can figure out whether or not your services would be a good fit. If they’re considering a family trip over your lawn maintenance services, maybe the root of what they are telling you is that they want to spend more time with their family. The average American spends close to the equivalent to an entire work week per year on their yards, what if you could give that time back to them?
“Real sales is an ‘opening’ process, not a ‘closing’ process”
You shouldn’t be closing your sales. It should open up opportunity to develop a relationship. You want to open a door to have your customer continue using your services. If you view your sales process as an opening, it is much more beneficial. Your customers will be more open to referring you to friends and family in the area.
“Leading isn’t exactly linear”
In order to successfully open up an opportunity for a sale, you should be leading the process from the start. You need to keep the end goal in mind the entire time. However, it isn’t a straight path to that end goal. Your conversations will have ups and downs. At times you might feel close to earning a new customer and then an objection might arise and you’ll feel like you won’t be able to make a sale.
Keep the end goal in mind, lead the conversations, build trust and you’ll earn the sale.
You are the expert in your field. When you’re out on sales calls or estimates, do your best to educate your customers. Become a consultant to them and convey the value of the services that you provide.
