Landscape Management, December 2014

lets grow our years ago I visited with a contractor in New York state He was losing money for the frst time while working 80 hours a week He had a good brand and lots of work His problem was he chased too many red light leads A red light is someone whos not going to buy from you no matter how many maybe signals they send you They are shoppers undecided or simply a wrong ft They key is to remove them from your appointment calendar so they dont negatively affect your time management or your psyche First you have to defne their profle Take a full year or two of proposals that youve written but not sold and identify the three to fve traits they have in common Next develop questions that will uncover their red light cues and plan to screen these folks when they call in Red light qualities vary by company but here are some common traits to look out for getting fve bids wrong geographic area frst time buyer havent been to your website or seen your work unrealistic turnaround time or budget not in pain with current contractor or doesnt know anyone using you Dont just rely on my list Look back over a year or two of records to get clarity on the red lights attracted to your company Make yourself scarce The key to successful selling is to protect your time and your psyche The problem with red lights is theyre always sending you negative signals lowering your confdence and putting downward pressure on your pricing Staying away from them will allow TAkE ACTioN 1 Identify the bottom 15 percent of your leads from 2013 and 2014 that you need to stop selling to in 2015 2 create qualifiers you can use on the phone email and during the first appointment 3 Identify which services arent meeting your sales margin goals and take action raise the fees stop doing the work work in density clusters only or shift the material mark ups of those jobs your margin to foat higher your confdence to soar and your sales winto loss ratio to climb Youll estimate your work correctly do better work and get more referrals After I visited with the New York contractor we implemented qualifers for his company that had an immediate positive impact They included by Jeffrey scott Consultation fee If the clients moved forward it was credited back to them Minimum job size This measure removed the shoppers and posers who didnt want to spend above X amount Four fgure design fee Such a fee told the prospect that we respected our skills and profession and you need to as well Limited number of appointments per week This move protected the owners time and conveyed scarcity List of qualifying questions The offce staff would discuss these points with all leads If they gave too many red light answers they were screened out You might have the same initial reaction to these changes that my client had I cant do that No one else does that My response Thats exactly why you need to do it to stand out from the crowded marketplace and start making some real cha ching estiMating accurately We also identifed the type of work this contractor made money on and where he needed to raise his fees We made some big changes in his mix of work and his pricing After three years his net proft increased from zero to between 20 percent and 25 percent and he cut his hours to 60 per week Plus hes able to take off two plus months in the winter If you spend more time with prospects who respect you and your expertise youll sell more at higher margins and do better work Youll be happier your clients will be pleased and your employees and family will enjoy the change Avoid the red lights The author is owner of Jeffrey Scott Consulting which helps landscape companies grow and maximize profits Reach him at jeff@ jeffreyscott biz PHOTO iSTOCk COm 007filiP December 2014 LANDSCAPEMANAGEMENT NET 45