Service Technicians: Want to grow your personal sales in 2018?
Owners / Managers: Want to grow your Residential Service business in 2018?
As a Sales Coach and Business Consultant for Residential Service Companies, I’ve had the honor and pleasure of working with some of the most successful service companies from coast to coast over the past several years.
As a result, I learned exactly what it takes to make it to the top in this industry!
Here are 5 things to focus on in 2018 to help you grow you sales and business.
P/s: For best results, focus on these things in the order in which they have been provided!
The 5 R’s Of Growing Your Sales And Business In 2018
1. Relationship
“Relationship” means working towards a point where two individuals Know, Like, Trust, Respect, and Understand each another.
I would bet you’ve heard some variation of the following phrase before, “Sales and Businesses Are Built On Relationships.”
And, it’s 100% true!
As an owner, manager, or supervisor this means building Relationships with the people inside of and outside of your company. How good is your Relationship with your team and vice versa?
As a service technician, this means being open to training and coaching on how you can build long-lasting and valuable Relationships with customers.
**If you haven’t done so already, go read my blog post, “How To Boost Sales With Rapport” where I break down what Rapport / Relationship means and how you can use it to boost your sales!
2. Revenue
It only makes sense that if you want to grow your sales or business in 2018 that you should be focusing on Revenue.
P/s: Revenue should be a result of the Relationship building step we just mentioned above.
I remember when I first started in sales, my sales manager instructed me to just go out and build a Relationship with people first and foremost THEN focus on making a sale and bringing in Revenue.
He said, “Your first goal is to go out and make a friend. Then, ask your new friend to do business with you!”
This completely removed any “pressure to sell” and as a result of focusing on building solid Relationships with people, I made more sales, brought in more Revenue, and earned even more Income for myself and my family.
The Relationships I built with customers benefitted me in more ways than just income!
I REALLY had quality friendships with these people. We took vacations together, exchanged gifts with one another, dined out together, and really connected on a personal level.
Managers, Owners, and Service Technicians, all of the following applies to you:
What was your average Revenue or Income per customer in 2017?
How much Revenue or Income do you want to achieve for yourself in 2018?
So, if your average Revenue or Income per customer stays the same, how many more customers will you need to serve in 2018 to meet your goal?
If your goal is to increase your average Revenue or Income per customer, how much will that increase by in 2018? (P/s: 10% goal for growth is a good baseline)
And finally, how many customers would you need to serve then to achieve that goal in 2018?
3. Review
More and more, online Reviews are becoming a key consideration for consumers looking for service providers.
As an Owner or a Manager, you’re probably already aware of the value a Review has for your business as a whole.
As a Service Technician though, reviews can be JUST as valuable to you personally!
After we’ve developed a Relationship with a customer, and asked them to spend money with us (Revenue), it’s important to ask them how their experience was and if they’d be willing to share that experience with others through an online review.
Now, there are a million different ways to ask for a review and many different strategies and processes that could be implemented in a business to handle surveying customers and getting them to submit their reviews to Google, Facebook, Yelp, etc.
Here’s One Quick Example:
Whenever I’m in the field, I always wrap up the call by asking the customer, “How do you feel about the service I provided you today?”
(Their response can only be some variation of “Good” or “Bad” right?)
If they say they had a bad experience (which they NEVER do when I’m around) I might ask, “How can I improve?”
(By the way, this is valuable feedback to get if you are a Service Technician who wants to improve!)
If they say they had a good experience I would say, “I really appreciate that feedback. You will be receiving a Satisfaction Survey later. It sure would be helpful if you responded to that survey and mentioned me personally when describing your experience today.”
Anyone who responds to the survey with positive remarks should be asked if they’d be willing to share their feedback as an online review and instructed on how to do so.
In my own business, all my customers automatically receive a Satisfaction Survey asking how satisfied they are on a scale of 1 to 5.
For those that rate their experience as 3 or below, they are redirected to a section of the survey asking to record their recommendations for improvement within the form.
For those that rate their experience as 4 or 5, they are redirected to a section of the survey asking to record their Feedback / Review / Testimonial within the form.
Then, those positive remarks are automatically emailed back to that customer asking if they would be willing to share that experience as an online review.
From the email, they can quickly copy their own remarks, click the link to Google or Facebook, and paste their comments in as a review.
And YES … I can build and implement this same process in your business if you’d like! Click to Contact Me and let’s get in touch!
The importance of Reviews for you as a Service Technician personally is that getting the customer to mention you in the Review by name actually helps them to Remember your name and it also gets your name out there online.
I’ve witnessed consumers call in asking for a particular Technician because of how many times they had seen their name in positive Reviews!
As a Business, getting customers to review you will also help them better remember your brand and what you do!
Just Remember, if you can get your customers to Review you, they will Remember you, and if they Remember you, they will Recommend you and Refer you to their Friends, Family, and Neighbors!
4. Refer
If you’ve put the work into building Relationships, asking people to do business with you, and asking for their Review of your services so that they Remember you, then Referrals will almost naturally occur as a result.
A Referral is when a satisfied customer Recommends you or your company to help their Friends, Family, or Neighbor by providing them with your service.
Referrals are highly beneficial to growing your personal Sales and Business because:
The Lifetime Value of a referred customer is 25% higher than that of other customers – Wharton School of Business
Referred customers bring you a 25% higher profit margin.
A referred customer is 18% more loyal than a customer acquired by other means.
Referred customers are 4 times more likely to refer more customers to you or your company.
Customers referred by other customers have a 37% higher customer retention rate.
Customer acquisitions through referrals spend 200% more than the average customer.
You can either wait and hope Referrals happen or you can develop a plan and a process to actively ask for Referrals and Reward your customers for helping you grow your Sales and Business.
I would of course recommend having a Referral Marketing program built and implemented for your business if you don’t already have one.
When I was in sales, I would personally help the business I worked for generate and pay for more referrals.
The business offered $50 to any new customer Referred by an existing client and $50 back to the customer who made the Referral.
To help grow my own sales, I would personally contribute $50 out of my commission to ensure that customers were Referring their friends and family to call the company and ask for me personally.
5. Repeat
The fifth and final “R” is of course, “Repeat.”
As a Service Technician, Sales Person, or Business Owner / Manager, we naturally want our customers to Repeat the process defined above.
This means we should also Repeat the process and Continue to maintain and Cultivate our Relationships by staying in Contact through Continual Communication.
Ready to grow your Sales and Business in 2018?
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About The Author:
Patrick is a Husband, a Father, a Modern Entrepreneur, the Founder of BizPAL.org, and the Creator of BizPAL’s Automated Recruiting Program.
He holds certifications in Social Media Marketing, Facebook Advertising, Inbound Marketing, Business Automation, and more!
Fun Fact:
Patrick was born and raised in a predominantly Amish community in Northern Indiana.
Got questions about the Amish? Ask Patrick!
Patrick is the son of a Career Tradesman and is extremely passionate about helping the Contracting industry grow and advance.
He has over 10+ years of experience in Customer Service, B2C Sales, Social Media Marketing, Sales Training and Coaching, Business Consulting, etc.
He has spent the past 7+ years working with Service Contractors from coast to coast to increase their Sales, boost their Profits, increase Customer Satisfaction and Brand Loyalty, and improve their Operational efficiency by Building Creative Solutions and Implementing Innovative Ideas!
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