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The Landscaper's Guide To Modern Sales and Marketing Newsletter
MAY 2022
IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO TALK ABOUT SNOW I’m Speaking at SIMA!
A few months ago, one of Ramblin Jackson’s clients did me a huge honor: He recommended me to the Snow & Ice Management Association (SIMA) as a guest speaker! You probably already know about SIMA, especially if you’re a commercial landscaper and/or do snow and ice removal. I’d heard of the organization, too, but I’d never talked to them before. That changed when they reached out to me about speaking at their upcoming Compass Network: Sales Jam webinar AND at their 25th Annual Snow & Ice Symposium.
I’m really excited to join SIMA for these two events, and I have to thank Ramblin Jackson client Jim “Turk” Turcan for making it happen. Turk runs Cornerstone Partners Horticultural Services Company, and he recommended me to SIMA because he was beyond impressed with the results Ramblin Jackson got for him. You might remember Turk from last month’s newsletter. He came to us because he realized he was wasting valuable time trying to sell to
Scan NOW to register for Jack’s SIMA events!
I’ll admit it: SIMA’s people totally wowed me.
They did their research before reaching out and asked great questions. I was impressed by the effort and care they put into providing value to their members and producing a quality event. They asked me to join a lineup including the top speakers in the industry. So, of course, I said yes! Ramblin Jackson even joined SIMA as a supplier. You can catch me at these two events this month and next.
unqualified leads. His people were putting the same amount of effort into securing a $5,000 job as an $80,000 one! So, we stepped in to
1. Upgrade their website to help them reach customers and stand out from the competition
SIMA’s Compass Network: Sales Jam Webinar When: Tuesday, May 19 Where: Online — tune in from anywhere!
2. Coach them on lead qualification and weeding out low-fit, unqualified buyers (See Page 2 for three of the tips we shared.)
In this webinar, I’ll teach you how to dial in your sales process to learn proven tactics to shorten your sales cycle, increase your close rate, and stand out as THE snow and ice contractor for your Hell Yes Customers.
With our help, Turk and his team increased their close rate AND the overall quality of their leads. Clearly, the results were impressive enough to make us SIMA-worthy! You don’t have to be a SIMA member to watch the webinar or attend the symposium. Follow the QR with this article to learn more about both. I hope to see you there!
SIMA’s 25th Annual Snow and Ice Symposium When: Tuesday–Saturday, June 21–24 Where: Milwaukee, Wisconsin
JACK JOSTES, CEO RAMBLIN JACKSON
The event’s theme is “Out of This World,” so you’ll find me in the Education Galaxy’s Moonshot Lab on Wednesday, June 22, hosting a strategic planning workshop called “Sales Lab.” That same afternoon, I’ll also give a Warp Speed Workshop called Attract + Sell to Your Hell Yes Customers! using SIMA case studies to teach digital sales and marketing.
P.S. Save $100 on your SIMA membership with promo code MEM2212!
RamblinJackson.com • 1
Read It in Your Truck on a Rainy Day
GET MORE HIGH-QUALITY CUSTOMERS 3 TIPS FOR QUALIFYING LANDSCAPE LEADS
2. Create an introductory video. Film a video where you share your price ranges, typical timelines, and process milestones, then either add it to your website or email it to clients before scheduled phone calls. If they aren’t on board with those basics, cancel the call and spend your time on better leads. 3. Empower your salespeople. Remind your sales representative that they can and should say no to would-be clients who seem like bad fits. This will ensure you don’t end up losing money or going outside of your expertise to make the client happy.
It’s May and the sun is shining, so your phone is probably ringing off the hook right now — everyone wants a landscaper! Unfortunately, not all landscape leads are created equal . The last thing you want is to send one of your crew out to every property and waste valuable time on half of them. That brings us to the question of the season:
How do you sift through your huge pile of calls and emails to find the Hell Yes Customers who are actually worth meeting with?
The answer is lead qualification. You need to have a system in place that will qualify leads on the phone or even before they call so you don’t waste valuable time and money. Here are three ways to weed out bad fits and make sure you’re allocating your limited resources wisely. 1. Turn your website into a lead qualification machine. Most landscapers think of their website as a brochure, but brochures are more about education than selling! Your website should sell for you. Think of it as a business development representative who qualifies leads before you even talk to them. To make this happen, add pricing pages and calculators to help clients understand whether your services are in their budget. These pages will save you from teaching landscape 101 over the phone.
Scan now to register for ‘The Landscaper’s Guide to Advanced Lead Qualification’ webinar!
Saying “No” to customers is HARD, but we have your back. Jack can teach you exactly how to handle tough conversations and home in on high-quality leads. To learn directly from him at our upcoming webinar, scan the QR code on this page. You won’t believe how much you can learn for just $47.
5 Podcasts to Boost Your Business Growth
‘Smart Business Revolution’ — Want more B2B clients? Then you might want to hear free, shared wisdom from some of the best, brightest, and most intriguing business minds in the world. Hosted by our very own John Corcoran, he’s interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors, and entrepreneurs, from Peter Diamandis and Adam Grant to Gary Vaynerchuk and Marie Forleo. ‘BizChix’ — “BizChix” is catered specifically to women entrepreneurs and hosted by business coach and strategist Natalie Eckdahl. The episodes mix business and advice and training with on-air coaching calls and interviews. If you’re looking for specific tips like how to pivot your client base or get in the hiring mindset, this podcast will be a perfect fit for you. ‘Wisdom From the Top’ — Hosted by Guy Raz of “How I Built This,” this podcast expands beyond business leaders to glean leadership tips from all fields, including army generals, scientists, and reporters as well as CEOs. As the podcast’s description puts it, “You’ll hear accounts of crisis, failure, turnaround, and triumph, as the leaders reveal their secrets on their way to the top. These are stories that didn’t make it into their company bios, with valuable lessons for anyone trying to make it in business.” We’re Listening — Are You?
All of these podcasts are available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and a variety of other platforms. ‘How I Built This’ — Have you ever wondered what it was like behind the scenes in the early days of Coinbase? What about Expedia, Mailchimp, or Ben & Jerry’s? The “How I Built This” podcast from NPR dives into all of those stories and more during fascinating interviews with founders and CEOs. Find out what hurdles they faced, how they overcame them, and what lessons you can steal to level up your own business.
‘Entrepreneurs on Fire’ — This award-winning podcast is hosted by author and thought leader John Lee Dumas. On it, he interviews entrepreneurs like Tony Robbins, Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, Barbara Corcoran, and Tim Ferriss and extracts business tips for you. Tune in for episodes like “How to Raise $400 million on the Internet and Build a FinTech Business with Jilliene Helman” and “Earn More with LinkedIn Sales Navigator with Julbert Abraham.”
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Read It in Your Tru
TAKE A BREAK
Get your copy of “The Tree of Good Fortune: The Landscaper’s Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing” at TreeOfGoodFortune.com! UPCOMING EVENTS
CINCO FOURTH
HAWTHORN LEMONADE LIBRARY MAYPOLE
MEMORIAL NURSES PROM TAURUS
FREEDOM GRADUATE
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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uck on a Rainy Day
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1 Ramblin Jackson Joins SIMA 2 Get More High-Quality Customers 2 5 Business Podcasts to Boost Growth 3 Upcoming Events 3 Take a Break 4 A Snow Removal Myth — Busted! INSIDE PO Box 1429 • Lyons, CO 80540 (303) 544-2125 • ramblinjackson.com
Residential Snow Removal Can Be Profitable BETTER VIEW LANDSCAPES BUSTED THE MYTH!
If your company focuses on residential landscaping, you probably hear this myth every winter: “Residential snow removal can’t be profitable.” It may be conventional wisdom, but that doesn’t make it true! In fact, this winter, Ramblin Jackson CEO Jack Jostes spoke with a landscaper who used one smart business trick to bust the myth wide open. Tory Chlanda operates Better View Landscapes in Hadley, Massachusetts. His company offers landscape design, building, maintenance, lawn mowing, and snow plowing. He told Jack that for a long time, the snow removal wasn’t profitable. Snowfall was variable, staffing was a challenge, and the income wasn’t reliable. Then, the lightbulb went on: Tory applied the 80/20 Rule to his snow plowing operation. The 80/20 Rule states 80% of outcomes come from 20% of causes. (For example, it’s likely that 20% of your customers generate 80% of your landscape company’s revenue.) Tory found 20% of his snow plow customers were more profitable than the other 80% because they were also using Better View Landscapes’ other services. So, his team came up with a plan. They
split their snow removal service into two tiers: a standard “per push” plan for the top 20% and an “unlimited program” with a flat rate for the 80%. Their goal was to weed out the unprofitable, one-off clients and secure steady revenue from the rest.
“We ended up losing about 30% of the snow list, which is exactly what we were trying to do,” Tory told Jack. “And so the outcome now is that if we have a comparable snow year from the year before, coupled with the unlimited clients we have, we’ll actually stand to make about 25% or 30% more in that year alone with about 60 fewer clients and with the same staffing we normally have.” Tory’s experience proves that in the right region, snow removal can be profitable and keep a landscaper busy year-round. You just need to sell to the right customer and charge the right rate! To learn more about Tory’s success, check out the “80/20 Snow Business” episode of “The Landscapers Guide to Modern Sales and Marketing” podcast.
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