LANDSCAPERS, This Sales Tactic Will Help You Sell More Projects!

Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes, and you're listening to the landscape business course. And today we are going to be responding to a landscaper that was frustrated because they could not sell a job. And they were frustrated because the way that the client treated them and their feelings are absolutely correct, and I feel the sentiment of what their reaction is. We're going to watch the video from Keith Kalfus, a landscaper in the United States, and I wanted to make a reaction video to hopefully give you a tip that might help you not get in the same situation where you are frustrated because a customer is disrespecting you, as he calls it. So let's go ahead and watch the video. Then I'm going to share just a very quick snippet of what I would do to recommend you don't not get in the situation where a customer is haggling with you on price, how you can sell more landscaping jobs. I'm going to go ahead and add this in, take this out and go ahead and watch this together. I'm going to. Hopefully you can hear this as, as well.

Let me pull over. I just spent an hour giving a customer a quote and educated them to no end and gave them 100% of myself. And they asked me for a discount. And so I told them all the reasons why I need to charge, what I need to charge, and how they're going to get phenomenal work. And I discounted the bill for them enough to compromise. So we were happy and it was full transparency.

And I even spent extra time teaching and, and acknowledging them and, and, and, and they're. They really want to get the work done.

Then when we're finally wrapping up and I thought we came to a close and I'm closing it, I said, so, what are your thoughts?

And they asked me for another discount.

Old Keith would have kept, you know, working or, or maybe even discounted again.

After all that time and attention and energy. I have to be home right now. I want to go and walk my dogs with my wife and eat dinner with my wife. I looked at the husband and their wife. I said, hey.

I have to come from my heart right now and say that I don't think that we're a good fit. They're like, what? I said, I'm not interested. And they're like, what do you mean? I said, well, I just, I don't think we're a good fit. And all of a sudden I felt this. Like, it was scary. The energy dropped. I could feel my feet on the ground.

And Then the. The husband goes, what? Too much work? I go, nope, later. And I hopped in my truck and I bounced. I. I professionally said, I don't think we're a good fit. And then I bounced, and I took all the power back, and I took the power away from them. Because at that point.

If, if, if, if, if, if I gave you a hundred percent of. Of my heart and full transparency, and I. And I'm showing you, I'm literally bending over and digging in on your property and picking up objects and showing you how I'm going to give you everything, everything that I have to bend over backwards for you and give you a discount. And then you come back again, and you. You disrespect me. You disrespect me. You disres. Don't. Don't disrespect me.

I am not. I. I am not. I will not tolerate disrespect anymore from a customer. Downright disrespectful. And that's all there is, too.

Do it. All right.

Okay. So I want to react to that. And it's not say that what he did was wrong or anything like that, because I definitely have felt the same sentiment from customers before. I know exactly what he feels like. However, I. I have. I do want to share something that I feel helps avoid this situation. When it comes to closing a landscaping deal, whether it be a project, whether it be a $50,000 paver patio or a molten stall for $1,000 or a lawn mowing for $50, it really doesn't matter. And that is. I think, a lot of times we elevate the close of the sale so much in our mind as the person who is selling, that we actually put more pressure on the transaction than is necessary. So at the end, when you're coming to the end of talking to customer, you've presented the price, all the rest of it, instead of asking, do you have any questions? Or what do you think about that? Right. When you're doing that, you're literally asking a question. You're literally asking them, you know, to bring up any sort of question marks that they may have. And when people in general have a decision to make, they're always going to question themselves. And at the end of the day, a customer is never happy. There's never a customer that's happy because a customer can always have it. I should say this. They're never 100% happy, because a customer always wants it cheaper and faster. Always. You know, five years ago, you talked to someone, you know, a Customer from Amazon, they were thrilled to get two or three day shipping. Well, now they want next day shipping. So the customers always want it faster and they're always wanting it cheaper. So if you ask them questions when it comes to closing the deal, it is going to lead to more questions. They're always going to want it faster, they're always going to want it cheaper. Well, I would recommend instead of asking, do you have more questions? Or what do you think about that? Or any thoughts, instead of asking that question at that moment when they're going to have a lot of thoughts, they're going to have a lot of apprehensions in terms of trusting you should, are they overpaying? Are they underpaying? Should they get you as a contractor or the guy who just gave them a bid? All of these things go in their mind instead of really the crescendoing the conversation to a close where they have to make a decision and no one wants to make that decision. As a customer, we do not want to make a decision. What you can do though, is walk them through this process and make it painless. So instead of asking them, do you have any thoughts about that, just simply say, would next Wednesday work for us to get you on the schedule? Now you completely, just completely assumed the sale. You've literally skipped over to the fact that they've accepted the proposal, they've accepted the price, they've accepted the terms, and now you're literally figuring out scheduling. A lot of times the best way to get through the close is just assume it's already happened and think about the next steps. And in the mind of the customer, if you can get them over that. And now they're already thinking, okay, well would next Wednesday work? Or next, oh, you know what, next Thursday I'm available. You know, what could we do next Thursday? That's what you need to do. Walk them through the steps of the process by assuming the sale and just realize that people are always going to have questions. People are always going to want cheaper, they're always going to want faster. But what we can do is not build up them in their mind or our mind. The close as if it's some big thing. And everyone's like, always be closing. No, I put this in a, in an Instagram post the other day. Always be communicating. ABCs of selling is always be communicating, not always be selling or always be closing. Sorry. Always be closing. If you're trying to always close, it means that you're asking a decision, you're looking for the you know where Are they? What's the issue? And you have all these tactics. No, just communicate with people and realize that people don't want to make decisions. They don't want to go to a restaurant, have 500 options. You go to a really nice restaurant, there's maybe five, six entrees. If it's a really nice restaurant, makes it easy to pick, makes it easy to decide. You go to a Denny's or an applebee's and there's 500 things to choose from. You want to make sure that when it comes to the selling part of the transaction that you walk the customer through it. Don't give them options. A lot of times you've got to tell them the process of how the sale is supposed to happen. They don't know that. You got to do an estimate, send it to the office. The office is going to send it within 24 hours via email. You accept that and we'll get you on the schedule. And if you now are back in their prop, back at their property, trying to get them on the schedule, stop talking about the decision, the close when, if you really need to ask a question, say when would you like to get this on the schedule, take it a step further and so, and give them a day. Would Next Thursday at 9am Would that be a good time for us to be here and get the work done? This is because customers have decision fatigue. They have so many decisions going on in their life and, and that decision fatigue leads to more questions and they're always, always, always going to want lower price and they're going to want it faster. So avoid that by assuming the sale from day one. When, when someone calls and they ask for you to come to an estimate, you should be assuming the sale. You should not say we'll come to your property and if you like the estimate, then we'll think about getting you on a schedule. No, we should say is we're going to get an estimate to you then 24 hours we're going to, we're going to then put you on the schedule and we'll be there within a couple weeks. Like just assume the sale from day one. Give them the process. Here's how it works. And instead of like building up this big barrier to the sale, just keep talking about the other side of the barrier, the scheduling where the product's going to be placed. When you're at the property and you're showing them, this is where we're going to dump the material. Here's where we're going to bring all with wheelbarrows. And through here, we haven't even talked about price. We're just assuming the sale from day one. I promise you it'll help you that whole buildup process. And the decision is not really that big of a deal. As long as you assume the sale. I hope that helps you close some more deals. I'm Mike Andes, landscape businesscourse.com. we'll see you next time.