So, you own a landscaping business. You’re constantly on the go – running from site to site, contacting suppliers, and ensuring that all of the administrative work is handled. And that’s just to start. The last thing any business owner needs is to waste precious time caught up in chasing down dead-end leads and fielding endless inquiries from difficult prospective clients. The sales process is hard enough to manage without adding all these wasteful interactions. You need to shorten your sales cycle, but how? Lucky for you, there are comprehensive solutions to improve the sales process and shorten job timelines.
From prospecting to presentation to closing and everything in between, digital solutions are streamlining many of the sales processes for business owners across industries. If you’re looking to shorten your sales cycle, so you can spend more time doing the landscaping work you love, here are a few steps that can help streamline the process.
5 Simple Steps to Shorten Your Sales Cycle
1) Develop a Strong Value Proposition
A sure-fire way to shorten your sales cycle is through showcasing the worth of your service right off the bat. Including a strong value proposition in your outreach material will tell potential clients exactly what to expect from your business.
If you provide a niche additional service that puts you above and beyond the rest of the industry, make sure to showcase that during your outreach. This can be in the form of high-quality portfolio images or testimony from happy customers. Use data from previous clients to outline how your service can make a unique impact on the prospect’s life – from energy savings to artisan craftsmanship.
2) Qualify and Prioritize Quality Leads
Throughout your time as a landscaping business owner, you’ve no doubt recognized that not all customers are created equal. Some are high-maintenance with little additional value, while others are easy to work with and sign on for seasonal business.
The same goes for your prospects. Some will undoubtedly be better than others, and forward-thinking business owners do their best to qualify the archetype of these leads for easy identification. Make sure that these prospects have the resources, authority, and need to invest in your services. When optimizing your sales process, a key factor will be how effectively you are able to qualify, prioritize and manage your leads.
3) Address Concerns From the Start
Don’t kick client concerns down the road just for the sake of planning a follow-up call. It may make the initial call a few minutes longer, but taking the time to immediately address hesitancies and issues that prospects bring up will save tons of time over the long haul. Stringing out a series of unproductive calls or emails in hopes of changing the customer’s mind in the future is a waste of time and can even be detrimental to your brand image.
4) Make Every Conversation Strategic
As you are no doubt aware, signing new clients takes more than one crack at the can. It’s fairly uncommon for someone to immediately sign up for an expensive service like landscaping without taking some time to think and consult with others. By setting yourself up with actionable goals for each and every interaction, you will help leads come to a conclusion sooner while showcasing your ability as an effective communicator and problem solver.
5) Use CRM Software
All of the aforementioned steps and more will be available to you upon integration of a customer relationship management platform. The ease of having all client information and sales data at your fingertips at every moment is reason enough to invest in a CRM system.
The landscaping industry may not be the first one that comes to mind when you think of tech compatibility, but new business management software is changing the game. If you want to learn more about how you can shorten your sales cycle, contact LMN today!
