On Thursday, Oct. 19, Jeff Korhan, LM columnist, consultant and former green industry business owner, will share his 17 secrets to closing the sale as part of the Equip Exposition education sessions — powered by Landscape Management.
Closing the deal can be a scary time for both the client and the business owner, Korhan says.
“Everybody’s always afraid of losing,” he says. “The client is in a position where they want to get what they want, but they don’t want to pay too much. They don’t want to have buyer’s remorse.”
Highlight the value
Korhan says he will share some tips he perfected during his time in the industry to help landscape business owners and sales teams to understand the specific needs of the buyer. It’s a misconception to think clients are only concerned with the bottom line, he says.
“I found that most buyers will spend more than you think they will or more than they say they will,” he says. “What they’re afraid of is not getting full value.”
Having a sales process in place, Korhan says, reassures clients that they’re getting full value for the work and the project will meet their expectations.
“I had one client in particular — we did two big projects with her, and each time she came up in with a budget, and both times she doubled that budget,” he says.
No two buyers are the same, Korhan says, and every buyer will approach closing a deal differently. He says he hopes to share a few secrets he unlocked to help keep the conversations on track.
“An example would be having something that we can’t seem to agree on,” he says. “We’re spinning our wheels. We have agreement on most of it, but not all of it. And there’s a way to handle that.”
Keeping it closed
The biggest challenge sales teams face in closing a deal, Korhan says, is to shift the conversation away from the sticker price and focus on building client relationships.
“If you can be the one that sorts things out and helps them focus on what needs to be focused on and ideally in the right sort of order, then you can take them to the finish line,” he says. “This isn’t just about closing the sale, but we will talk about keeping it closed.”
Korhan says keeping the deal closed means you, as the seller, must exceed expectations on service, collecting payments — keep everything in motion.
“It’s very easy for the buyer to get cold feet and change their mind,” he says. “It’s up to you to touch all the bases, to do everything that needs to be done to keep everybody comfortable.”
Korhan hopes attendees learn in his session that the buyer and seller want the same thing. And to effectively navigate through the sales process, you must take control of the process.
“How you take control is an interesting thing,” he says. “It takes a lot of practice, but once you figure it out, not only will you sell more, but so will the people that you train. If you don’t have a good method, then you will be selling for the rest of your career.”
Register now
Attendees must preregister to attend LM’s educational sessions. Register for Equip Expo by following this link to get a 50 percent discount on your Equip Education registration.
