8 Steps to More Effective Sales

As spring approaches, now is a good time to ramp up your sales efforts. Here are some ideas to help build your client base.

by Robert McGarvey

Winter typically means a lot of downtime for landscapers, so now is the perfect time to get busy marketing your business, says Joe Densieski, a landscape designer with Nu Green in Long Island, N.Y. Ideas and tactics that bring in new business now can help make your spring prosperous. Here are a few tips.

Increase Marketing

• The key building block for any marketing blitz is accepting that marketing needs to be an ongoing part of a successful landscaping business, says Jayme Broudy, founder and principal in Pinnacle Consulting Group.
  
  "With many owners it's feast or famine," Broudy says. "They market only when they need work, but consistent marketing builds better results." Expect to spend a few hours every week on marketing, and once that investment is made results will follow. Make it a habit and understand that the more you do it, the better you will get at it.
  
  
• Know who your customers are and what they need. Know whose problems you are in business to solve and your marketing gets more focused, more targeted and cheaper to deploy.
  
  
• Keep current customers happy. That's because customer retention is crucial to running a successful business. It's easier to keep a present customer happy than it is to find a new one. All good marketing starts by doing good work for today's customers, says Nick Boehme, director of business development at Girard Environmental Services.

Tap Alternate Methods

• Ask for referrals from existing clients, says Eva Rosenberg, author of Small Business Taxes Made Easy. "Tell them you're looking for more work and don't feel obliged to offer incentives (but it's always nice if you can).
  
  
• Build strategic alliances, Broudy says. Plenty of leads can come from noncompetitive contractors whose clients just may need landscaping services. An obvious case in point: a contractor who specializes in removing old, underground oil storage tanks often leaves an unsightly mess behind. His customers need landscaping and he will be happy to offer a name. Keep thinking and, likely, you'll pinpoint many more areas of strategic alliances that will bring in business.
  
  
• Don't forget the influence your company's image has on consumer behavior. "Clean, well-maintained trucks and neat crews are a mobile advertisement for your business," Densieski says.
  
  
• Work hard to increase your company's visibility in the community. Boehme's company, for example, offers itself as a resource to the media. At the start of the hurricane season in Girard's Florida territory, the company was quoted in several stories offering tips on how homeowners should prepare. Across the country, most newspapers and local magazines regularly cover landscaping issues. Send reporters a note with a business card, indicating you'd like to be used as a resource.
  
  
• Finally, always follow-up promptly when prospects call in for bids, Densieski says. Some contractors make it a rule to respond the same day, others within 24 hours, but pick a rule that works for you and stick to it. Many contractors undo all the good of their marketing efforts by dragging their feet in responding to inquiries. Quick responses say, "We definitely are interested in your business and we want to help you." That's the message that primes a prospect to become a customer.

Online Marketing

Experts say that a company Web site is mandatory for landscapers, but they also suggest that a landscaper build and maintain an e-mail list of customers and prospects. "E-mail is a communication tool we often use," says Alan Mumford, co-owner of New Orleans-based Landscape Images. An advantage of e-mail: it's a quick and very inexpensive tool for alerting customers to specials, sales and perhaps even to share seasonal tips and advice. Keep e-mail short and concise so busy customers will read them.

Another Internet tip is to try a listing at Craigslist (www.craigslist.org). There are dozens of localized lists. Find your town, and find "Services/Skilled Trades." It will cost you nothing and you just may get some leads.