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The Landscaper's Guide To Modern Sales and Marketing Newsletter
APRIL 2022
WITH THESE 5 COMMERCIAL LANDSCAPING STRATEGIES Set Your Sales Process Apart From the Competition
You’ve probably heard this phrase 1,000 times from contractors: “Commercial landscaping is all based on price. Your price tag is what you should sell on — period!” But there’s a huge problem with this approach. When you try to base your company’s worth entirely on what you charge, commercial landscaping becomes a rat race to the bottom. Someone will always charge less than you, and you’ll get stuck in a cycle of endlessly slashing your rates until you can’t afford to pay your employees.
sounds. With the five steps below, you can stand out from the crowd and ensure your customers know both what they’re buying and how they should buy it. 1. Only sell to Hell Yes Customers. The perfect customer for you won’t mind paying a little more for your high-quality commercial landscaping services. So, don’t waste your time on anyone who tells you they’re shopping based on price alone! Instead, drop those leads right out of the gate and focus on “Hell Yes Customers” who actually value what you do. One of the commercial landscapers we work with tried this recently and it was a total game-changer for him. Before we stepped in to help, he was only closing one in 20 sales because he was trying to please everyone, even the bargain shoppers! Worse, his team spent 12 hours on each of Scan to register for “The Landscaper’s Guide to Commercial Sales and Marketing” webinar! If you’re one of the first 10 landscapers to sign up, Jack will personally review your website on the webinar and offer improvement advice!
those unsuccessful sales. That’s 228 hours of wasted effort for one sale! After we helped him find his Hell Yes Customers, he now closes one in five sales and saves valuable time, money, and energy. 2. Always perform in-person evaluations. Offer to do a site visit and walk the property with your customer before presenting your proposal. This establishes a good relationship and ensures you know what the customer actually needs. 3. Present your proposals in person or over Zoom. When a client can see your face, they’ll feel more connected to you and more invested in your future relationship. The rapport you build on a Zoom call can be the difference between a sale and a fail. 4. Leverage the power of follow-up videos . When you send over your final proposal, send a follow-up video along with it! This is particularly vital if you’re selling to a group, like an HOA board, or if you can’t video call when you present your proposal. You want everyone to see your face and get to know you. Try using the Soapbox Chrome extension or Vidyard platform to make video creation easy. 5. Help your clients write a unique selling position (USP). Your USP should be a collaboration so that the client knows exactly what they’re buying. Take a leaf out of Ramblin Jackson customer Turk’s book and sit down with the client to walk them through the terminology and specifics, like
No one wants that.
So, what should you do instead? The key to succeeding in commercial landscaping is charging what you’re worth , and to do that without clients batting an eye you need to differentiate yourself and your company in the sales process. This is easier than it
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Approach asks with positivity. Robert recommends framing fees and other asks in a positive way. Instead of telling the HOA or property owner about a fee or other commitment flat-out, frame it as a quid pro quo that will benefit them. “Try saying, ‘Hey, if you fill out this form you’ll get A, B, and C from us. That turns it into a value proposition, something they’re excited about,” Robert says. This positive energy will make the lead feel good, cast your company
For the last four years, we’ve been extremely lucky to have a senior landscape marketing strategist on our team. Robert Felton’s advice on creating unique selling propositions and bringing in new clients has been vital for the landscapers we work with — especially those in the commercial space! Normally you’d have to sign on as a Ramblin Jackson client to get advice from a pro like Robert, but this month we’re making an exception for our newsletter subscribers. Below, he shares his top sales tips for commercial landscapers. Use this advice to convert more leads into clients! Leverage the power of verbal agreements. “Specifically for commercial landscapers, my favorite sales tip is the verbal agreement,” Robert says. “It removes some of the unknown at the beginning of the meeting and helps people get comfortable.”
Crafting a verbal agreement is easy. At the start of your sales meeting, simply explain how long the meeting will last, what you’ll go over, what you expect from them during the call, and what the next steps will be. Then ask, “Does that sound good to you?” to seal the deal. “By giving an agenda and asking questions, you’re removing the unknown so that the person can participate in the meeting thoroughly without thinking about the price, what is coming next, decisions they have to make, or being nervous,” Robert explains. “It’s important to remember that when you’re selling you’re in a position of power. You sell the same product over and over, but the person you’re selling to may only buy that product one, two, or three times in their lifetime.” The more comfortable you can make them, the more likely it is you’ll make a sale.
in a positive light, and boost your conversion rate. Win-win-win.
SENIOR LANDSCAPE MARKETING STRATEGIST, RAMBLIN JACKSON –Robert Felton
Lemon Oil The last thing we want to see in our homes is a cockroach. A popular urban legend says that cockroaches can survive a nuclear explosion, so you probably can’t keep them out of your home. Plus, many of the products you can buy to kill or deter cockroaches are extremely toxic, so setting them out is dangerous if you have pets. Instead, put a few drops of lemon oil into the water you use to mop the floor. Cockroaches hate the smell. People won’t notice the scent, and you’ll be cockroach-free before you know it. Peppermint Oil Spiders are one of the more common pests we see in our homes. Even though the majority of these spiders are not harmful (and actually eat other insects), most people still do not want them in their houses. Peppermint oil is a natural repellent. It doesn’t kill spiders, but it keeps them away. Add 5–10 drops of peppermint oil into 3/4 cup water mixed with 1/4 teaspoon of liquid detergent to create a harmless mixture that will keep spiders at bay. Cinnamon Another common pest that can be a nightmare to get rid of is ants. Once you notice ants getting into your home, they appear to be endless and can be found in just about every corner of the house. Ants hate the smell of cinnamon and will avoid areas with the scent. Sprinkle some cinnamon near the areas where they are entering your house and watch them disappear.
Has Spring Brought Bugs Into Your Home?
Get Rid of Them With These Hacks
When the weather warms up, bugs infiltrate homes across the country. Once it happens, you’re often left scrambling to your local hardware store to get the necessary pesticide or bug deterrent. Unfortunately, many pesticides and traps postpone the problem rather than solve it entirely. The good news is that you can fix many insect problems without having to test random products you find at the store. Certain household items do a magnificent job at preventing, deterring, and sometimes even killing bugs. If you’re worried about bugs infesting your home this spring, give these methods a try.
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different types of edging. As Turk and his team at Cornerstone Partners Horticultural Services found, if you’re right there with the client, they’ll stay engaged and be more likely to pull the trigger. If these tips were helpful, I have good news: I’ll share even more ways to make your sales process stand out as a commercial landscaper in our upcoming webinar, “The Landscaper’s Guide to Commercial Sales and Marketing.” You’ll also learn current proven strategies to clarify who your Hell Yes Customer is and tips for creating a marketing system that will attract more of the right leads both online and in the office. We’ll even walk you through real-life examples of how these strategies have worked for other commercial landscapers. Follow the QR code included in this article right now to register. If you’re one of the first 10 people to sign up, I will personally review your website live on the webinar and give you specific tips for improving your sales.
Get your copy of “The Tree of Good Fortune: The Landscaper’s Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing” at TreeOfGoodFortune.com!
What are you waiting for? I’ll see you there.
JACK JOSTES, CEO RAMBLIN JACKSON
Register online at LandscapersGuide.com/podcast
UPCOMING EVENTS Webinar: The Landscaper’s Guide To Commercial Sales & Marketing April 21, 2022 SIMA Compass Network Webinar: Sales Jam May 19, 2022 Webinar: The Landscaper’s Guide to Advanced Lead Qualification May 26, 2022 SIMA Snow and Ice Symposium June 21–24, 2022 Milwaukee, WI LandscapersGuide.com/events
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1 5 Game-Changing Tips for Commercial Landscapers 2 Level Up Your Commercial Landscape Sales 2 Get Rid of Bugs in Your Home With These Hacks 3 Upcoming Events 4 Should You Gamify Your Photo Gathering? INSIDE
With the Power of Competition INSPIRE YOUR EMPLOYEES TO TAKE BETTER LANDSCAPE PHOTOS
Spring is here, which means your residential and commercial landscapes are looking their absolute best. It’s the ideal time to snap photos for your website that will blow away prospects all year, but there’s one problem: Your employees are too dog-tired or forgetful at the end of a job to take pictures. We hear this over and over when we’re updating websites for our clients — they ask their employees for photos, but no one follows through! If you’re struggling with this, too, we have good news: Craig Attkisson of Green Side Up Landscaping Inc. has found a way to not only get those photos, but get his team excited about taking them. Craig’s secret is simple. Every month at a meeting with his team, he gives away a $50 gift card to whoever took that month’s best landscape photo. In the spring, he amps it up to a $100 gift card to ensure he gets the best glamor shots! This turns the chore of taking photos into an exciting contest with a big payoff. The $50 gift cards quickly pay for themselves in returns from photo-rich marketing.
Craig doesn’t only use this method to score beautiful landscape shots for his website. He also incentivizes his team to take photos for specific services and special offers that he can send to niche clients. “We have used this in a different way to [reach] some of our maintenance clients. If we get in some trouble with weeds in our landscape beds, we try to promote [our weeding services] by [having employees send] in pictures of the biggest weed that they pull,” Craig explained on “The Landscaper’s Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing” podcast. “We’re trying to almost make it like a scavenger hunt and get them to achieve a goal that they should be doing anyway.” Gamifying your photo gathering could be the key to unlocking a website and social media profile that pass the Hell Yes Photo Test and convert prospects to clients. To hear more about Craig’s method, visit RamblinJackson.com/Podcast and search for the episode “How to Get Your Team to Take GREAT Landscaping Portfolio Photos.”
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