If you own a lawn maintenance business, you want to constantly be filling your sales pipeline. You can do that in any number of ways, but one productive way that larger lawn maintenance businesses swear by is cold calling.
I know, I know, cold calling has a bad name. Everyone hates intrusive, pushy sales calls. Plus, your sales rep probably hates doing it because the rejection rate is so high. But cold calling has advantages. If done right, it can really help you fill your pipeline and inch you closer to your sales goals.
Want to do it right? Here are four tips to get you started:
Get a Good, Targeted List
The best way to save time when cold calling is to get a good, targeted list. For example, in the Twin Cities, you may only target specific west metro areas, like St. Louis Park, Minnetonka, Hopkins, Edina, and Eden Prairie. So you don’t want to be calling east metro businesses like Woodbury.
Creating a targeted list isn’t all that difficult. Perhaps there’s a local association of commercial property managers - like BOMA - that sells member lists. Or, you can use tools like Data.com, Hoovers or LeadSpace to find contact lists. Whatever you choose, the more targeted your list, the more likely you are to be successful.
Do Some Research
If you've ever had a sales person call you, you're probably much more impressed when they know a little bit about your business. They may know what kind of services you provide, know your distributor or they may know someone who works with you. If they do, it's much more likely that you're going to respond positively to that cold call.
Which is why a great way to improve the success of your cold calling is to do some research prior to making the call. Something as simple as a Google search can tell you a lot about the business you’re calling. You can leverage that information to improve your sales pitch or to lead to a better introduction.
For example, if you found a press release that says they increased revenue by 10 percent in the last quarter, congratulate them for such a great quarter. Or maybe they retrofitted their building so that it is now LEED compliant. You can work those two things into your sales pitch and make it much better.
Another great place to go, especially if you want to find a specific contact, is LinkedIn. The great thing about LinkedIn is that almost everyone is there, you can gather a ton of information that can help start a conversation (like the college they attended, other places they’ve worked, and more). Plus, you may find a mutual acquaintance who can connect you.
Customize Your Pitch
After you’ve done the research, it’s time to leverage that information to improve your sales pitch. In the preceding example, your research found that a building was LEED compliant. That tells you they are interested in green initiatives. Find a couple examples of how your business is green or how you can help them conserve valuable resources and include that information in your pitch.
Or, if you found on LinkedIn that the person you’re cold calling went to the same university as you, leverage that information in your pitch. Ask them what dorm they stayed in, about the fraternity, or if they ever had Mr. Gray as a professor. By getting to know them personally, and sharing your own personal details, it’s more likely that you’ll make a connection and facilitate a conversation about your business.
Electronically Capture Information
In any sales situation information is power. If you're writing information on a piece of paper, there's potential that you'll lose that piece of paper and the sale. That's why it's important that you capture information electronically instead of on paper.
There are a number of tools that can help you do this. Typically called a sales CRM, you can use standard solutions like Salesforce or HubSpot’s new CRM. However, the best solution is a total field service sales solution that's tightly integrated into field service software so you can quickly transition information from your sales team to your operations team once you make the sale.
Make sure your field service sales tool not only helps you track information - like the value of the estimate, the likelihood of a sale, etc. - but that it reports information. Things that you’ll want to track are your progress toward sales goals, your close rates, how many opportunities you have at each step in the sales process, and the dollar value of your open estimates. Knowing this information can help you improve your sales process and sell smarter.
Now that you're filling your pipeline with great leads from your cold calling campaign, why not optimize your website to generate even more leads? Download our free eBook, 6 Requirements for a Website That Sells, today!