E244: Your Communication Style Is Killing Landing New Trade Deals - and What to Do About it Now to Grow Your Sales

Communication kills more deals than speed. In fact, your communication style is probably killing you landing more new trade deals than you would think. So today we're going to go through what you can do about it now to grow your sales. Welcome to Trade Sales Made Simple, the show helping 7 to 8 figure trade, construction and industry leaders finally end the stress of inconsistent sales by simplifying your sales systems so that you can close more deals and grow faster. I'm your host, Ben Wright, and over the last 15 years, I've helped hundreds of trade and sales leaders grow their businesses and generate over $200 million in additional revenue by simplifying their sales processes. Let's get started. I had a terrific example as we're building our commercial studio here in Noosa Heads at the moment around working with a customer who was rushed. They were rushed in everything they did. They were rushed in their quote. They were rushed in how they spoke to me. They were rushed in the deliverables that they sent through. And I haven't seen yet if they're rushed in how they deliver because they didn't get the job. And the reason they didn't get the job was, in my opinion, because they were rushed. They actually priced well, they had good product, and I wanted to use them, but I didn't feel as if they cared. I didn't feel as if they had enough time to actually spend on us and our business to reassure me that they were going to do a great job. Now, the reality from this instance is— and please have a think about if this is a situation where you're in— where I think the issue was they were just too busy. They either didn't have enough support or they were quoting so many deals but not winning enough of those that instead of quoting 5 deals and winning 2 or 3, they were quoting 10 deals to win those 2 or 3. So they had to do twice the work to win those same amount of deals because their communication style was simply too rushed. And in reality, they could have fixed this by some very simple changes to their sales process. And look, I love taking these examples around from my own sales life, from our customers' sales lives, or from when I've dealt with companies where I can find an issue and then share with everyone listening some ways you can go about fixing it. Because certainly my belief is they won't be the only business out there that's rushed and simply doesn't have enough time to move the dial with their customers. But if I can help that business and anyone else listening, then we've done a great job. So the number one area that I see a communication style killing businesses landing new deals is around when they rush it, right? We're going to go through three of these today, but number one is the rush piece. And it's not always evident in your spoken language, but where it is always evident is in your unspoken language. And often things like being late to meetings, not being dressed properly, not taking your shoes off, right? Not asking enough questions. So whilst you may not be rushed in how you speak, you don't take the time to qualify someone before you go to site. So you end up arriving to a deal that's not good for you, i.e., one that's never going to close. Or that you don't ask questions when you're on site, right? That would then allow you to understand exactly what the customer wanted, but more importantly, build a great relationship with them. Or they miss things when they're rushed. They jump around the home or the business and they don't get all the measurements, or they don't find out the right heights or the right colors, right? Or they make a mistake on these, and then when they deliver it, it costs them money and rework. But being rushed is the number one impact to a communication style that I see kill trade business deals. And look, this is a nice follow-on to the other episodes for this week, both 242 and 243, when we are speaking with a little bit of a short sharp focus on communication this week. So number one is I'd really encourage you to have a think about if you are rushed when you're out on your sales quotes. And if you are, where are the areas that you're perhaps missing? And what would happen if you didn't miss those areas? And for example, you slowed down and instead of quoting 10 deals, you quoted 8, but you could grow your close rate by 30%, right? This is a really great philosophical conversation I have with most of our customers, and it goes along the lines of, I want you to quote less. But if you quote less and close 30% more, what's it going to do to your numbers? And in almost every instance, and we can map it out now, it grows those numbers. So if you're a business closing at 20% and you're quoting 10 deals, you're going to be closing 2 out of those 10. If you drop that down to 8 deals, so you quote 2 less and your close rate goes up to 30%, right? Or even if it just grows by 30%, and goes to 25%, well then you are at 2 deals that you've closed as well. So at a minimum, if you grow your close rate from 20% to 25%, right, a 30% bump, you are actually closing the same number of deals, but you're quoting 2 less. Now if your close rate can jump up to that 30% mark, right, then you're winning 2.5 deals. And obviously those numbers extrapolate out, but for every 100 deals you're quoting, you'd be winning 20 at 20%. Every 80 deals you're quoting when you're winning 30%, you're winning 24. So you're winning 4 more deals and how many you quote per week will obviously determine how long it takes you to get there. But the numbers stack up when you can slow down, not rush deals, but increase your close rate. So I really want you to think about that. Number 2 is not being consistent in their communication style. That's the second biggest area that I see businesses lose deals around because quite simply they're not consistent in some really impactful areas. Number 1, they don't get back to leads quickly enough. Number 2, they don't get out to site quickly enough. Number 3, the process when they are on site is not the same each time and it relies on what's in their brain. Number 4, when they leave site, they're not really clear on what they need to do to win the deal. Number 5, they don't quote in the quick enough fashion or they're haphazard, hit and miss with their quotes. And number 6, their follow-up's too slow. Number 7, they don't follow up enough. I could go to about 30 of these, but the reality is that inconsistency, particularly in trade salespeople, in trade leaders, is what I see kill so many deals. So what do you do about it? Well, it's all just about building a basic sales process. It doesn't have to be significant. In fact, I'd encourage you that it's very simple and you focus on just a few key areas. With most of our customers, we really only focus on 3 or 4 key areas of their sales process to get right. And most of our customers have nailed it within a month, if not a couple of weeks. And most of our customers are only spending a few hours to get these changes right. So the message here is that if you're rushed, we need you to slow down. If you're not consistent, we need you to build a process that can be really simple and really easy for you to impact. But if you get it right and it makes an impact to your closed deals, it can have huge improvements to your numbers. And if you go back to episode 237, you'll hear about how one of our painting contractors went from a 15% close rate to 4 out of 7. Right? That's a terrific change, and they only changed a few things across their process. So number one, being rushed. Number two, they're not consistent in how they apply their process. Now number three, where number two is not being consistent, number three is not being persistent, right? So they are quite simply not hungry enough to win the deals. Now they may be hungry in their internal appetite, but their behaviors don't reflect that. And what I mean here is that They call a lead once. If it doesn't answer, they don't call it again. They try to make a time to go out to site. If it doesn't work for a customer, they get frustrated and they don't find another one. They get out to quote and if the customer doesn't move ahead straight away, they don't engage with them in the process. And what this all comes down to is not being persistent enough in your process of engaging with customers. Because quite simply, not every customer moves at the same speed. And I'd certainly encourage you to go back to episode 238. Gee, I'm referencing a few episodes today around the questions of buying versus browsing. That is a terrific episode when it comes to changing just one thing in your business. That is an absolute game changer. But what I'd really encourage you to also think about is whether or not you are persistent enough to engage with your customer because people move at different speeds. And when we can recognize that, we can then adjust our communication styles to deal with the customer when they're ready. And more importantly, understand what's getting in the way so that we can help them move forward. So they're the three key areas today around how communication styles I so regularly see kill deals for trade businesses. Number 1, the businesses are feeling rushed and it's coming across in how they behave. Number 2 is they're not consistent, so they're not always bringing their A-game. And number 3 is they're not persistent, so they're not staying with deals long enough to get them across the line. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it can be frustrating, but I've just seen tens of thousands of deals lost because salespeople are not prepared to hang in there a little longer. So that's it for today. Thank you. Very grateful if you're listening. If you are someone who is spending hours wasting time on quotes, it could be that you're not persistent, not consistent, or you're rushed, right? It could very well be one of those three reasons, but the result is probably the same. You're frustrated. You know that if you don't change something now, you'll keep getting these results. They're stressful. You're working long hours or you're not getting enough money in the account to show for it. Well, then I'd encourage you to just jump onto our free quoting quiz. It'll pinpoint exactly why you're not winning more jobs. And then it'll also give you an idea around what you can do about it to try and give you that 20 to 25% bump in your sales. It's a free quiz link. It's in the show notes. Please, takes less than a minute. Jump in, give it a go. And I review every response that comes through personally. That's it for today. Please keep thinking about how you can be 1% better each and every day because it will make all the difference.