My phone script that I have developed over the past year has a very good success rate of getting appointments booked, but I am seeing a common trend of “I need to confirm with the spouse” objections. How do you overcome this and put them in a place mentally to close right now instead of blowing you off.
I have a low patience threshold for residential calls. I’d they are calling to book they get about one minute. If they can along for an estimate and start asking about how long it will take, what process I use, etc, I just hang up.
My in person close rate is ~98%, but that’s just me
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Yes, those flowers are for you ;>)
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Yeah, and some of us are not going to drive two hours to do an in person estimate. I do 100% of residential estimates over the phone. If you have a 98% close rate you should be increasing your prices until you are about the 85-90% close rate. This will increase your income by about 25% and reduce your volume of work. I close about 70% of the calls but my prices are also 1.5 my lowest competition. In some cases, my commercial is 3x the cost of the competition, but I get the jobs do to availability of schedule and professionalism in the way my business is portrayed through communication with the client.
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I say, I say a joke Son!
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If I do an over the phone estimate I always send them a typed estimate as well even if they have objections. If they choose to not use you it’s cool at least you didn’t waste any time. I wouldn’t worry about it too much though.
If they say they need to check with their spouse. Let them. If they want you to do the work they will contact you and hire you. If they don’t want you to do the work they won’t hire you. Everyone hates a pushy salesman.
I don’t believe it’s being pushy, it’s just becoming better at sales.
Do you have a hard system for your invoices or are they all manual and then send?
Dont ■■■■■■■■ it, your being better at sales by being pushy at sales. You may do a bang up job but it is a higher pressure tactic that’s taught to people in sales.
Creating a need, creating a sense of urgency or scarcity, giving then a short term “Deal” all these are sales tactics.
I’ve been in sales for the past 13 years and I’ve found that you can do far better building relationships rather than worrying about close percentages. Meta data shouldn’t be what drives us.
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It’s not automatic if that’s what you’re asking. I use joist so I just create an estimate then invoice when the job is complete. I try to estimate and invoice over email. Some companies get hard copies. It all depends on the person.
That’s all well and good. The thing about house washing is it’s a luxury service that is very rarely a necessity to a residential client. It’s also never scarce at least around me. Every joe bob with a truck and a couple hundred bucks is a “pressure washing business”.
My business model is focused on satisfaction and letting the customer make a decision that they feel good about.
The best sales tactic I have is telling customers that they are going to have to wait weeks/months for me to wash their house. They feel that if I’m that busy then my prices and quality must be good.
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Ha, you just like slacking. lol
Agree completely, I sell high end paint in my day job. You can go just about anywhere and get paint cheaper. We try to differentiate ourselves through education and service. I dont “Push” anyone though. I refuse to talk down my competition (Even if some of it is really bad) and I’ll help them through tricky application issues even if they end up not buying from me. Because of this I’ve gotten a great reputation with painters, contractors, builders and the DIY/Homeowner market…
I could close more sales if I pushed, but honestly I dont care for people trying to “sell” me, so I do my best not to sell them.
I want them to remember the friendly long haired hippy guy who helped them the last time they had an issue. Not be the guy that made them uncomfortable trying to close a sale.
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I get what you’re saying now. I think I misunderstood you earlier.
Probably my fault, typed that response right before I had to get back to work, could probably have spent more time and made myself more clear!
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Not exactly. I’m usually scheduled up a few weeks out but it makes people realize between my prices and service it must be worth it to hire me other than the next guy if so many people are already on the list.
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