It’s tough to sell snow and ice removal services when there isn’t any snow or ice on the ground. Sales can be an inherent skill others naturally have over others, but that doesn’t mean it’s a skill that can’t be built. Developing your sales skills for your snow management company comes from learning, prep work, and self-development. We’ll take a deeper dive on how to further drive revenue into your snow business with some great sales tips you can take into your everyday work.
Professional Snow Companies Win More Work
As with any other industry, maintaining a smooth and painless sales experience will win more work for your snow removal company. Sales start at marketing and branding, and funnels down to providing a knowledgeable, thorough, and efficient walkthrough on services provided detailing the cost of snow removal. Reputation matters and that builds on every touchpoint you have with a potential customer.
Start with establishing professional and detailed profiles for your snow business across social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Websites should be clean looking, provide essential information like services offered, service areas, and company contact info. Your business can’t sell if people don’t know what services they’re purchasing and how to make that connection.
Sales templates are also essential functions no matter if the snow removal company is only an owner/operator or a larger company. Templates can easily be passed along to provide consistency between every potential customer and provide a consistent and professional experience across the organization. Pricing structures and estimates should be presented transparently in a delivery that’s easy to understand. All documents sent should have visible branding across all working documents. Follow that up by creating sales packages that can be easily passed along to prospects that might take a longer time to assess personal budget or need for your services. As long as they know how to contact your business, that sales can always happen later. Professional and process wins work!
Retain Your Snow and Ice Removal Contracts
Your snow and ice management company has poured hours into developing systems and templates that drive new sales. It’s hard work that costs time and money to put together, and then you need to wait for that return on investment to come back. When you make that sale, your snow business should put the time and effort to develop and nurture that relationship so that sale is retained for future seasons. Utilizing an email list is a fantastic reminder to previous customers and potential leads to re-sign or re-negotiate contacts. When building budgets, your business should start with retaining the low-hanging fruit of re-signing past contracts, and scale up as you acquire new customers. Business growth is making sure your snow and ice removal company is the first thing they think of when they realize that winter is coming.
Understand How To Accurately Bid On Snow Removal Jobs
It’s easy to throw out the lowest number in a bid to win snow and ice removal work, but that might end up costing your business rather than making it profitable. It starts with understanding operating costs for overhead, labor, materials, equipment, and possibly subcontractors depending on if you outsource snow jobs to subs. You can only start bidding for profit once you understand operating costs throughout a budget and how to set your profit margins.
Your snow business needs to take advantage of investments made back into the business, and how those tools and equipment can help highlight the efficiency and quality of your work. Knowing the value of your equipment can help determine equipment recovery costs which would then factor into your snow removal job bids. Ideally, you can complete work faster than the competition and are able to take on more contracts as a result of your efficient work.
Study Up And Read A Sales Book
English author, Joseph Addison, once said that “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” While the premise still applies all these centuries later, it’s hard to imagine that Addison was referring to reading sales books for local service companies in the snow and ice management industry. Addison may not have the recommendations for sales books, but LMN does!
- Challenger Sale – Brent Adamson/Matthew Dixon
- Never Split the Difference – Chris Voss
- Spin Selling – Neil Rackham
- Getting to Yes – Roger Fisher/William Ury
- Think Big Act Small – Jason Jennings
While these books might not directly speak to the snow business, the takeaways are invaluable as they easily transfer speaking to the art of sales. Value the time that you invest into yourself, as you learn to pull from others to elevate your own business.
Add to your personal library by downloading our free LMN ebook: 3 Major Wastes in Snow Business. Learn how you’re burning through profits through misusing salt, how to boost efficiency in your snow business operations, and takeaway our two snow business inspection checklists to keep in your snow plows and salt trucks.
Book a demo with the LMN Team to learn how to make this upcoming snow season your most profitable by using our LMN Pro software. You can also sign up for a free LMN Pro account to gain access to our robust estimating and budgeting tools to help smoothen your snow management business operations.
