Selling is a crucial part of every business. And in order to sell well, a company must have a great sales team.
Marty Grunder, founder and president of Grunder Landscaping Co., hosted a webinar on sales and marketing that gave attendees the six traits that make up a great green industry sales professional.
Passion. Grunder listed it as the first ingredient for a reason. In order to do work well, someone absolutely has to be passionate about the topic at hand. He gave the example that the pet food company Iams Corp. started growing when it hired people with dogs and cats. “The conclusion should be made that the people who do well in sales, or the people who do well in your company period, they better be passionate about landscaping, they better be passionate about lawn care, they better be passionate about working outside,” he said.
Knowledge. Knowledge means power and confidence, Grunder said. Sales professionals in the green industry need to have a great understanding of the industry, including plants, pests and products. “A great green industry sales professional is someone who is not only knowledgeable maybe from a formal education, but always has a constant quest to learn, get better, improve their traits,” he said.
Listen. There is nothing more frustrating to clients than a salesperson not listening well. “Great green industry sales professionals go into every meeting with their ears wide open and their mouth as closed as they possibly can to try to learn more than what they shared,” Grunder said.
Friendly. The best of the best treat prospects and potential clients the same way they would treat a close friend. “They’re not in it to get a sale that day, they’re not in this for the short term, they realize that success is a marathon not a sprint, and they act like a friend,” Grunder said. “They always do what’s right because they understand that if they do the right things, the right things will happen to them.”
Dependable. It’s as simple as someone doing what they say they’re going to do. “If a client calls you and says, ‘Hey, I’m going out of town next week, could you mow my lawn?’ A great green industry sales professional hangs the phone up and goes and gets the work order posted to get the lawn mowed,” Grunder said. “They are dependable.”
Focused. If these traits made a pyramid, focused would be the point at the top, Grunder said. To be great, a salesperson and team needs to understand who their client is. A company cannot successfully offer commercial maintenance and construction, residential maintenance and construction, meaning a company cannot specialize in everything. “When you understand who your customer is, some wonderful things can happen,” Grunder said.