The secret to being a successful salesperson in the landscape industry? There might be a few, but most of them are things we already know but, because of time constraints or overall negligence, fail to do. There’s no secret to the following landscape professionals’ methods, just hard work and diligence.
Communicate with customers
Communicating with customers sounds like common sense, and it is, but it’s not something that everyone does well. David Pitchford has it down pat. The owner of Baton Rouge Lawn Pro/Weed Man/Landscape Resources. has been dealing with a steady stream of residential customers since 1986, and he knows that keeping an open line of communication with customers at all times is crucial to picking up extra sales.
“Take advantage of whatever opportunity there is to communicate with your customers, because it always seems like we pick up a sale from that,” Pitchford says.
At a recent company meeting, Pitchford asked his team why people call his company in the first place. The answer? Because they have a project that they want someone else to do to save them from having to do it. “So any time we can provide a service that would be valuable to them and save them time, whether it be a lawn application or mowing grass or servicing a sprinkler system, we take advantage of that,” Pitchford says.
Pitchford’s firm is located in Louisiana, not normally known for frigid temperatures. But that didn’t stop him from using a recent cold front to sell some extra business. He and his sales crew called their customers and asked if they wanted their irrigation systems winterized. Surprise, those calls led to more business.
“They said, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to call you because I need my beds done as well,’ or whatever,” says Pitchford. The lesson? You never know what your clients need or when they might need it, so keeping in regular communication ensures they’ll let you know…or a random call might just jog their memory.
Sometimes it’s tough to keep in constant communication with clients. When things get busy, it’s not as easy to see new potential sales opportunities. But Pitchford says it comes down to planning to avoid this pitfall.
“We talked about our sales goals this year, and our approach was to have people in place at the right time of year,” he says. “You have to plan out your production schedule. You have to be able to get work done in order to sell it.”
Jeff Haynes, Pitchford’s sales manager, says that it’s not only about the amount of calls you make to customers but how fast you return them.
“Response time is everything,” Haynes says. “We have an office manager that answers the phone and responds to calls. Within three hours of someone calling, I’m responding to their call. Within 24 hours I’m at their house looking at the proposed project.”
Haynes says there’s no project too small, either. He returns a call no matter what the proposed work is because of the results it brings. “I think it does get us a lot of business because I hear repeatedly from people who say, ‘You’re the first person who called me back.'”
Jim Weidner, owner of Weidner Lawn & Landscape, North Ridgeville, Ohio, agrees that responding to an inquiry quickly is essential to sealing a potential sale. He goes so far as to say that that action forms the beginning of trust between the salesperson and the client.
“When you get back to them in a timely manner, they have trust right away,” Weidner says. “If my office manager has to call me and I have to return the call on my cell phone, I get back to them fast and do a quick qualification.”
Another surefire way of increasing sales? Do quality work. “Referrals are huge for us,” Weidner says. “Make sure people are happy about the work you did, and they’ll refer you to friends.”
It pays to be yourself
Longevity helps, too, when you’re trying to make a sale, Haynes says. Baton Rouge Lawn Pro has been around for 18 years, so potential customers know it’s going to stay around. But even a salesperson for a fledgling company can succeed on another factor: honesty.
“Be sincere,” Haynes says. “Don’t pull the wool over your customers’ eyes or lead them in an untrue direction to something they don’t need. We’re all about meeting our customers’ needs, giving them 110 percent, and doing what we said we’ll do. Our competition is pretty vigorous, and many times our customers will tell us we’re $1,000 more than another guy. But I tell them you get what you pay for.”
Billy Simms, the manager of Baton Rouge Lawn Pro’s new Weed Man franchise, echoed Haynes’ belief that being honest and sincere is the way to go. The way he accomplishes that is by being himself. Whereas some salesmen might try to be something they’re not by stretching the truth and doing whatever it takes to close a deal, Simms finds that being true to himself works best.
“I don’t change from the time I get out of my truck to the time I go to the door to the time I come back to do a lawn application,” Simms says. “I’m personable, honest and straightforward, and I answer my phone all the time. And when I ask people how they’re doing, I really want to know and I really care.”
This may sound like touchy-feely nonsense to some salespeople, but Simms claims it’s an essential step to building trust with a client. He admits there are some customers who put up a wall and resist his relationship-building efforts, but for those who welcome it, it’s a win-win situation.
“I tell them that they’re my eyes and we’re a team and I need your feedback,” Simms says. “I give them my card and tell them to call me to send complaints or compliments. Sometimes they call me just to chat like friends. And when you become their friend, it’s pretty hard for them to fire you.”
Adhere to systems
The bigger your company is, the more systems you have to put in place. Just ask Todd Witherspoon, vice president of sales for Countryside Landscaping, a 150-employee, $10 million company based in Charlotte, N.C.
“We are very system and procedure oriented here, and those systems ensure that proper execution exists and accountability exists,” Witherspoon says. “The same thing is expected from both operations and sales—executing and being accountable and how to do a job from a technical standpoint.”
Those systems exist for good reason. Salespeople in general, Witherspoon believes, are “big picture” people and don’t always want to follow through on details following a sale. Having systems ensures that they do. “And we hold each other accountable here,” Witherspoon says.
One thing Witherspoon has learned is that salespeople must not be discouraged by the word “no.” “If you’re in sales and can’t handle rejection, then you’re in trouble,” he says. He likens salespeople to cornerbacks in the NFL. A cornerback is going to get burned by a receiver every so often, but to be effective the next play he has to forget about it. A salesperson must also have a short memory when it comes to failing to seal a deal.
Witherspoon also says that “order takers,” described in Jim Paluch’s sidebar located on page 22, won’t survive in his company or even the landscaping business in general because “we’re not selling gadgets, we’re selling a service.” As such, following up with customers is essential to building relationships with them.
“The opportunities will be there if you’re out there and find yourself in the right place at the right time,” Witherspoon says. “And a lot of it has to do with how excited you act about your company.”
Witherspoon also believes in making it work no matter what. Whereas some people might turn work away because they’re concerned they can’t do it, he chooses to take it on aggressively.
“I want to seize the opportunity and bid the work, and operationally we’ll figure it out and make sure everyone is on the exact same page,” he says. “The idea is to create capacity with systems and procedures.”
