GIE 2003: Closing Sales Over Breakfast

Lawn care operators (LCOs) are noticing a trend in their industry: homeowners are spending increased amounts of money sprucing up their lawns. At the same time, commercial lawn care contracts are routinely coming up for renewal and LCOs are ready to bid.

But even with a significant number of residential and commercial lawn care accounts becoming available, many LCOs struggle wit an integral part of the business: closing sales.

At PLCAA’s roundtable breakfast on Nov. 6 at GIE, one table of eight LCOs shared their experiences and advice on how to close more sales and stimulate business success.

“In our business, we’ve spent a lot of time identifying ‘Frank,’” noted Jon Cundiff, table moderator and president of Turf’s Up Weed Man, Lee’s Summit, Mo. “Frank is the name we’ve given to identify our ideal customer. We’ve based that ideal client on the top 20 percent of our customer base in terms of revenue per square foot. These are the long-term customers who buy into aeration, seeding, grub control, etc. If we can find more properties like that, we know we’ll succeed.”

In addition to identifying target customers, other LCOs want to make sure their customers can identify them.

“Radio advertising has been very successful for us,” noted Brade Johnson, owner, LawnAmerica, Tulsa, Okla. “It’s always my voice on the ad, and dollar for dollar, radio does a little better for us than anything else. People get used to hearing my voice, which helps create a relationship when they call about their lawns.”

In terms of closing rates for other marketing approaches, Cundiff commented that direct mail can bring a close rate as high as 50 to 60 percent, while telemarketing may only be between 10 and 20 percent. By far though, table participants agreed that referrals bring the highest close rate.

“When the customer calls you, that’s a great sign that you’re going to close the sale,” Cundiff said. “It’s all about having solid relationships.”

Nick Treater agreed. “Creating solid relationships with property managers is really key for us,” noted Treater, a customer service representative with Bluegrass Lawncare, Bridgeton, Mo. “We have predominantly commercial accounts and we’ve found that maintaining those relationships is more about how you handle complaints than how you get the work done in the first place.”

Armed with new ideas to implement back at their own companies, all the table participants agreed that small businesses have great advantages when it comes to closing sales. Cundiff summed it up: “Speed and flexibility are on our side. We can follow up with estimates quickly and take care of call backs to help our customers. Those abilities are what make our services so valuable.”

The author is Assistant Editor of Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at lspiers@lawnandlandscape.com.