Stoking sales

© Shineart | Dreamstime.comBlame it on the economy or the competition. Point your finger at the weather, a late spring, a difficult winter. If pre-season sales were sluggish and spring has sprung but your schedule is sparse, it’s time to get off the phone and stoke sales. (Yes, you heard that right.)

“If you didn’t make sales this spring, there’s really only one way to do it, and that’s to get out there and talk to people,” says Marty Grunder, president, Grunder Landscaping Co., Miamisburg, Ohio. Offer property tours and look for enhancement sales. Talk to long-time clients about what services they like and focus on selling those to prospects.

For a minute, think about when you launched your business. “You probably approached every day with a sense of unbridled enthusiasm and went after business like crazy,” Grunder says. “When you met someone, you gave them a card. If you saw an office building going up, you found out how you could help on the job.

“I think as we grow our organizations we tend to lose a little zest, and that’s what will grow your business,” he says.
When production picks up, and even while summer work is full-steam ahead, don’t forget job No. 1: sales. “The prettiest Ferrarri won’t run without gas,” Grunder says. “Companies are the same way. You have to understand that sales is No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 on your to-do list. It has to be. On a daily basis, you’ve got to spend the majority of your time selling.”

This month, Lawn & Landscape spoke to three firms to learn how they sell year-round, balance selling and doing the work, and continue to drive business in the door even when times are tough.

The face-first approach
By running separate selling and producing engines, Coastal Greenery constatnly fills its pipeline with prospects.
 

Production at Coastal Greenery is the “factory,” and it operates separately from the sales force, which consists of president Jeffrey Johns, an account manager and a part-time salesperson focused on relationship-building. By running separate selling and producing engines, Johns constantly fills the company’s pipeline with prospects.  

“My job as a sales force is to keep the clients out of the factory,” Johns says. “Because a client waiting around in the factory messes up efficiency and you don’t want that.”

Production is charged with producing income and profit – delivering on the promises the sales team makes to clients. Sales is responsible for keeping production busy with ongoing maintenance work (contracts automatically renew) and enhancements. “The way I set it up is almost like a competition between the two departments,” Johns says. Both divisions rely on one another for success – but a company won’t survive without a “kick-tail sales force.”

To that end, Johns executes specific sales processes to upsell existing clients and attract new customers. Beginning with the company’s book of business, Johns and his associate set enhancement sales goals. For example, Johns aimed to sell $50,000 in enhancements in March, and $600,000 in enhancements overall for 2010.
“The old days of sitting at a phone and having someone answer it and take orders is over, I don’t care how the economy comes back,” he says. In-person meetings with clients is the only way to suggest enhancements and get the client’s OK.

“When you can paint a picture for them while standing in their yard, they’ll say, ‘That sounds good, how much will it cost?’” Johns says. “Most of them say, ‘Sign me up.’” The closing rate on enhancements is an average 52 percent, a 5-percent increase since two years ago when Johns began on-site walkthroughs with commercial and residential clients.

“During that walkthrough I’m looking for extras,” Johns says, always keeping his sales goals in mind.

Clients appreciate the regular attention and have an opportunity to voice concerns in person. Meanwhile, Coastal Greenery has a conversation starter to suggest enhancements and a has better chance of selling them because of the face-to-face contact. “This is a way for us to deliver exceptional customer service and stay on top of those clients,” Johns says, noting that residential walkthroughs occur quarterly.

All the while, Coastal Greenery recognizes that new account sales are critical for reaching the firm’s 2010 goal of $2.8 million. So this year, Johns is trying something new. He hired a part-time salesperson to nurture relationships with property managers. She works two, 10-hour days a week, and her sole goal is to provoke property managers to ask for a bid. From there, she turns the account over to Johns. The legwork for this invitation involves TLC and intuition. For instance: bringing fresh-baked muffins to a morning crew meeting after learning about the gathering during a conversation with the property manager. The gesture is unexpected – and refreshing. The relationship-sales associate might drop by with coffee mugs and brochures or take the property manager out to lunch. All the while, she is filling Coastal Greenery’s “bucket of contacts.”

“She’s a great communicator and she knows many people in the community – she’s generating those leads for us,” Johns relates. Those leads are filtered into a software system so they can be tracked. All the while, she sends out e-mail blasts and newsletters to these prospects so Coastal Greenery is top of mind.

The board-room approach
Matt Caruso relies on rock-solid relationships to grow his business.

There are expanses of paver surface on big-box lots that need to be laid in basic running-bond pattern. There are contractors that play beat-this-price with hardscape bids. Don’t expect to find Decra-Scape vying for them.

“Many guys chase anything and everything that has the word ‘brick’ on it, and they end up with a whole bunch of nothing,” says Matt Caruso, president and founder. “We look, specifically, for intricate applications.”

Caruso references a rooftop patio project that involved craning materials and equipment; and a site that required 100,000 square-feet of brick in multi-weave patterns. “That’s the work I spend my time looking for, and you can’t get that through direct mail,” he says.

The sales strategy at his specialty firm is tailored to win the work that suits the company’s focus. Decra-Scape aligns with engineers, manufacturers, landscape architects and contractors who share a vision for the end product: a “wow” look that’s executed with advanced equipment (Decra-Scape is the only company in Michigan with a mechanical layer), Caruso says.

“My sales model is, you get me in the board room and it’s all but over,” Caruso says. “But you have to know how to get into the board room.”

Often, Caruso enters the bidding process through the back door by relationship selling. One outlet for developing these relationships is a local chamber of commerce group that meets weekly to share contacts, Caruso says.

But perhaps more importantly, Decra-Scape is recognized as an authorized contractor of a manufacturer’s products. “Basically, they believe in us enough that they’ll stand behind us if our work fails,” Caruso says. “And they aren’t going to do that for just anyone. You have to meet certain requirements.”

Manufacturers often send representatives to canvass the specifier community, Caruso explains. “They are out there trying to get their product on different jobs,” he says, adding that his company name is sometimes listed in specifications for a job so a general contractor will have to get a bid from Decra-Scape. “They may not use us, but they have to entertain a number from us,” he says.

That doesn’t mean Caruso can wait for work to fly in. He must emphasize his niche expertise to those he aligns with, letting them know he aims for specialty projects because of their size, scope or expertise requirements.

“I have to get out there and sell that,” Caruso says. “So if I meet with a landscape architect or engineer, I’m talking about sustainable work like permeable pavers and how we can be utilized as an information resource if they need help building those projects. And I tell them, ‘By the way, we bring this mechanical layer to the table with a capability to put down 8,000 to 10,000 square feet of pavers a day.’” That pitch turns heads.

Caruso also attends trade shows, meeting with tradesmen who might need his services and constantly returning to his book of business to keep in close contact with existing customers.

For residential work, Decra-Scape’s location on a main road encourages passers-by to stop in. And whenever the company is installing hardscape in a neighborhood, door-hangers are distributed and employees engage in “friendly communication” with anyone walking by the project site.

While sales were slower in 2009 than in years past – Decra-Scape usually brings in annual revenue of closer to $3 million – maintaining relationships and constantly reminding those contacts of their niche helps ensure that Decra-Scape gets a spot at that board table.

And as for the price wars that can occur there: “If you’re confident in what you do, confident in your pricing and your ability, that takes the dollar concern off the table,” Caruso says.

The calender-year approach
For Joe Kucik, the mantra is 'always be selling.'

A written plan with a detailed, 12-month sales process steers business development efforts at Joe Kucik’s Scotts LawnService franchise. “You have to put it on paper,” says the longtime lawn care player, who has bought and sold several businesses and also operates  green industry software firm Real Green Systems.  

Create a budget, jot down goals and expectations, map out what services you’ll sell when, and don’t leave out a single month of the year, he says.

“Your plan should have you selling something every day of the year – you’re not selling the same thing, necessarily, but you’re still selling every day,” Kucik says. For instance, Kucik’s sales team will focus on aeration in April, then grub control.

His selling year kicks off in late December with a 10,000-piece mailing to “cancels and rejects.” That primes this population for the phone campaign beginning immediately after New Year’s.

“A lot of people think you can’t get started selling until the snow is gone or the weather gets better,” Kucik says. “Sure, there are easier times of the year to sell lawn care, but you need to get a quick start on marketing and sales to build momentum. If you don’t get started until the middle or end of February, you aren’t going to build that good momentum until too late.”

A dedicated sales staff spends all of January following up on that initial mailing with phone calls, with a goal to sign 100 customers per week. In February, a direct mail campaign targets the company’s marketing universe, which includes about 210,000 homes of which Kucik knows the price and property size.

Every week during February and March, 5,000 to 10,000 direct mail pieces are sent to these prospects. With follow-up calls, Kucik expects a 1.5 to 3 percent sell-through rate and sales goals continue at 100 customers per month. He sets this goal knowing that he wants to spend less than $100 to acquire a single customer.

“A lot of people implement marketing plans and have no idea at the end of the day what each new customer ended up costing them,” Kucik says. “How will they know where to put their marketing dollars next year?”

While the 3 percent or less sale rate of direct mail with a follow-up call seems low, Kucik says that without the phone call, the direct mail will result in just a half-percent sell-through rate. 

Meanwhile, by April, he ups the customer sales goal to 200 before the season is in full-swing.

Come summer, he divides the sales team into groups. Five people man the phone every day. Three associates focus on outside sales. A team carries out door-to-door sales efforts. About 30 to 35 people work for Kucik during high season, most of them servicing properties.

Regardless of job title, all employees are encouraged to sell, and an incentive shows them Kucik is serious about bringing in sales year-round. A technician who refers a client can earn an 8-percent commission on one year’s service. “They get paid as services are rendered throughout the year,” Kucik explains, pointing out the other side of this enticement: quality service ensures that customers continue the service, and that the technician continues to pick up the bonus on every service visit.

“If you don’t offer an incentive, some technicians will simply tell people who are interested in the service to call the office,” Kucik says.

This combination of strategies keeps sales rolling in year-round, but it will only work, Kucik says, when a plan is put on paper. Accountability and measuring results against goals is a critical component of a successful sales system.