MANAGEMENTSOLUTIONS
A winning strategy to sell snow BY MARK BRADLEY
YOU’VE GOT INSANE HOURS, sleepless nights (maybe weeks!), a labour shortage and your insurance company has doubled your premiums. How is anyone supposed to make good money in snow? It can be done — and it is done — but if you want to get serious about improving your snow and ice profits, you need to do more than just let the work come to you. Profitability isn’t easy, and customers are both tough and savvy. It’s not likely that you are just going to luck into a bunch of highly profitable snow contracts. Instead, take a few simple steps toward building a snow and ice sales strategy that is virtually guaranteed to help you identify and sell more profitable work. START WITH A REVENUE TARGET No one knows how much it will snow in a given year — but you are responsible for knowing how much you need to earn in a given year to make a fair profit. A sales target is a non-negotiable place to start. Start with a budget — either for a year, or just for your snow division, and build a plan for profit, starting with your revenue.
BUILD A SALES FUNNEL Once you have a profitable sales target in mind, shift your attention to building a sales funnel that sets the goals to achieve that sales target. For instance, you might find that to win $100,000 in snow
contracts, you need to estimate $300,000 in snow bids. And to earn the right (or the relationship) to bid on $300,000 in snow business, you need $750,000 in potential leads. Now you have an example of a simple sales funnel that will greatly increase your chances of hitting your revenue target — and here’s how: First, you will know how much work you need to prospect. That is, you won’t just be sitting back waiting for leads to come in — you will have a clear goal of hustling $750,000, and that number will likely facilitate hitting your goal. Your prospecting goal will surely help you make better, important decisions as they pertain to marketing (and marketing spend), sales staff hiring and training, and more. You will be able to set clear goals for client retention, especially when you fully understand how much easier and cheaper it is to keep a client versus finding another one. This will help you stay on top of your goal before winter gets too close. Next, you will know how many of those prospects you need to get to the estimate stage. You will have a clear picture of how much work you have to bid on to hit your revenue target. This will help motivate you to convert clients from interested prospects to the bidding stage. It will also help you forecast and stay on top of your revenue goal before winter arrives and it’s too late. Things change, and knowing where you need to be will help you successfully navigate those changes. You will have done your homework in time to reap the rewards. Building a sales funnel will also force you to create a sales process around your funnel. Simply by having goals, you will start working to the process to fill each stage of the funnel — and you can easily communicate to other sales staff why the goals for close rates, etc., are so important.
USE YOUR SALES FUNNEL TO DRIVE IMPROVEMENT Finally, a sales funnel will pinpoint your weaknesses. Not enough revenue potential in prospects? You need to push your marketing harder. Lots of prospects, but not closes? Then you know you need to take a hard look at your pricing,
16 | SEPTEMBER 2020 | LANDSCAPE TRADES
