How can you influence HVAC contracting customers to buy more from you more often? Most HVACR distribution companies might rely on the sales skills of their teams, as well as industry trends, to help them sell to customers.
But there’s another way to influence how much your customers buy from you, although you might not immediately realize the opportunity. In fact, you may be completely overlooking it (even though it’s right in front of you!)
Here’s a simple concept that will unlock this opportunity for you: What your customers SEE of you will influence what your customers FEEL about you, which will influence what your customers BUY from you.
Remember that concept and apply it everywhere to see an increase in sales! Here’s what it means:
Your customers observe your team delivering the HVACR products that you deliver: if you have an office or a storefront, your customers see you there; if you deliver to a customer’s office, your customers see you there.
Step 1. Think about what your customers see. Start by looking at everything through your customer’s eyes. Does your customer see a minimum wage worker driving around in a dented vehicle to deliver HVAC components to their team? Does your customer see grubby, stained invoices that they need to sign? Does your customer see an ill-designed website that is confusing to navigate? Does your customer walk into your storefront and see rows of components and a few people stocking shelves?
Step 2. Now think about what the customer could see that will influence how they feel about you. You can think about this by asking yourself what you want your customers to think about you. You want them to have trust and confidence in your ability to deliver what you promise. You want them to think of quality so they know they are using high quality components for their customers. You want them to feel that you understand them and can help with even more than they are using you for now. You want them to think that by using your services, they can grow.
Step 3. Figure out how to show that. Now comes the inspiring part! Figure out how to show those qualities and characteristics. Ask yourself what you can show that will create trust and confidence, communicate quality, and help customers see themselves with you for the long-term.
Here are some practical tips and ideas to get you started (although how these are implemented in your business depends on how you do business).
- Customers: Show pictures of happy customers; better yet, show videos of happy customer giving testimonials or as part of a case study. That way, other customers see that you help many people and they are inspired to grow to the level of your more successful customers.
- Team members: Show your team—working hard, smiling, helping customers, and learning to help your customers better. Make sure your team always looks clean, neat, professional, and positive. Position your team as helpful experts.
- Awards. If you’ve won awards for anything (from service to community impact) make sure you display those awards prominently. Customers will want to work with an award-winning company.
- Community contribution: You probably contribute to the community in some way, whether it’s volunteer hours, fundraisers, canned food donations, or sponsoring a local little league. If your company does something in the community, proudly show it off! Chances are, your customers feel that they are part of the community and want to partner with organizations that also contribute to the wellbeing of the same company.
- How you help: This can be more challenging to communicate but it’s important. You should show how you help customers—ultimately, you don’t just help them with HVACR components but rather you help them run their businesses and satisfy their customers while keeping costs low and their team productive. Figure out how to show that, and reinforce that message over and over.
All of these pieces can be done in many different ways: If you have team members dropping equipment off, you can include some of this information on your delivery vehicle (such as a wrapped van showing your professional team), and in brochures (showing case studies). If you deliver equipment, why not include one-sheet flyers that show how you help your company, as well as a flyer boasting about your community involvement. And at your office? Leverage all that wall-space by putting up posters or even having TVs with looped video running to communicate these same messages.
Summary
When customers see more about you, it influences what they think of you, which in turn helps them to buy more from you. You can leverage these positive feelings in your customers by leading with some of the best information about your company… information that has been right in front of you but you’ve probably not highlighted as effectively as you could.
The good news is: it’s simple, fun, and very effective; plus it’s very quick to put these pieces in place for immediate benefit.