When people think of marketing, they think about things that cost money, like print ads, radio and TV commercials, SEO, and telemarketing.
The purpose of marketing is to increase sales, and there are plenty of ways to increase that don't cost a dime.
My last year of working full-time as a residential replacement salesman, I did 100% self-generated sales. One of the best kept secrets among residential replacement salespeople is that self-generated sales is the easiest way to make a living. You only see who you want to see and you make your own hours. Here are some of the techniques I used to make sales.
Mining Service Invoices
The easiest prospect to sell is the active customer who has a problem, but wasn't in the market before meeting me. Things work best when the prospect is made aware of the need and the solution at the same time, before they’ve thought about opening a bid-taking process.
Solving problems is what salespeople do for a living. No problems—no sales. I browsed through every service invoice our company ran. You don’t need to call every service customer. I looked for people with older equipment who were having trouble with it.
The most likely prospects for replacement equipment, in order of priority, are customers with older equipment and:
- Repeated breakdowns with a recurring problem
- Numerous breakdowns with a different problem each occurrence
- Have had a lot of “callbacks”; have had problems that apparently are “unsolvable”
- Major breakdown on older equipment.
Once you start looking at service calls regularly, in a very short period of time, you’ll be able to tell the age of equipment by its model and serial number.
In order to establish a “sense of urgency” to their decision to replace, you’ll also need to have a system in place that will allow you to credit all or part of what they recently paid to have their equipment repaired.
You’ll also find that you’ll begin to recognize customers' names. You’re probably recognizing it because they’ve had another call recently. That means they’re having trouble and could probably use your help in getting rid of that old clunker that’s eating them out of house and home in unnecessarily high utility bills and repairs.
In order to establish a “sense of urgency” to their decision to replace, you’ll also need to have a system in place that will allow you to credit all or part of what they recently paid to have their equipment repaired.
This is where having a pre-printed package price list for replacement equipment comes in handy. It’s a visual aid you can use to document the discount you give them. This way the customer knows you haven’t pulled a price out of the air and artificially inflated it to make it appear as though you’ve given them a discount that you really haven’t.
Your “book prices” should be based on what you would charge to install an air conditioner on the Fourth of July and what you would charge to install a furnace on Christmas day.
What to say when you call
YOU: “Hello, this is , with your heating and air conditioning service company. I'm not interrupting anything, am I?”
Once they respond, continue by explaining, “I’m following up on your recent service call and wanted to know how your equipment is running and if you had any questions, complaints or comments about your service.”
If they’ve got any kind of a negative comment whatsoever (and you hope they do), say, “Tell you what, I’ll come out and take a look at it myself, at no charge, and we'll take it from there. Are you going to be there for the next thirty minutes or so?”
Notice you don’t sell the equipment over the phone. Don’t even bring up replacing their equipment. Sell the appointment.
Does it take a little effort to do your research and dial a few telephone numbers? Sure, but not near as much effort as driving all over town running the pointless leads that are set by someone other than yourself.
Don’t have someone else make the calls for you. Having someone else set your appointments for you puts you back in the same position you’re already in— someone else is in control.
What to do in the home
What do I do once I get in the home? Exactly what I said I was coming out to do. I look the equipment over. If it's in bad shape, I'll let them know. If it looks fine, I'll let them know that, too. I make the conversation a positive experience and know that they'll buy from me eventually.
I don't need to lie or high-pressure anyone just to make a sale when I can make another phone call and go see someone else who might have a legitimate need I can fill.
What to expect
Let's look at calling four people per day. More than likely, all four of them will be willing to let you come out to the home, but let’s say you’re the selective type, so of that four, you're going to go out and see just one.
Do that five days per week and you'll be visiting with five customers per week.
That's five solid leads per week times fifty weeks per year. That's 250 of the best kind of leads per year—existing customers with a serious problem that weren't even in the market until they met you, and have a sense of urgency to not only make a decision, but to buy from you!
The closing ratio for leads run with existing customers is at least 70%. 70% of 250 leads is 175 sales. With an average sale of $8,000, that’s $1,400,000 in replacement sales per year due to your making an average of four telephone calls and visiting with one customer per day. There are full-time equipment salespeople who don’t sell that much in a year by running leads. This, you’re doing part-time.
Of the 30 percent that don’t buy, if you’ll make it a brief, positive exchange, you'll have a solid contact for a future sale.
An important point
You’re not a predator and you’re not taking advantage of anyone. They’ve already paid for a repair and you could have left well enough alone. Instead, you’re allowing them to apply the money they spent on new equipment that will save them money. You’re doing them a favor.
Service agreement inspections
Go through your list of service agreement customers and call the ones with older equipment that you know they've been having trouble with. Call them up and tell them it's time for their free inspection.
You’re not doing seasonal service or maintenance. You’re from the office and you’re following up on your tech’s work, both from a standpoint of quality control and as a consultant.
Most people have some kind of comfort or other complaint about their home’s heating/cooling system so, even though my visit wasn't exactly what they were expecting, but I found that nearly everyone I visited was glad to meet me and were very interested in what I had to say about the condition of their equipment.
The first day I did service agreement inspections I saw three people and all three of them bought.
CHARLIE GREER was recently voted the 'Favorite Industry Trainer," and is the creator of the audio book, "Slacker's Guide to HVAC Sales." For information on Charlie's products, or to get him out to your shop, call 1-800-963-HVAC (4822) or go to www.hvacprofitboosters.com. Email your sales questions to [email protected].