new

[RigglePLC]

We could probably all benefit from a good sales-training program. Book, DVD, online, or in person sales seminar. Its a shame to go to all the work and money to generates a sales lead and not close the sale. We need to know about grass--but sales success is a whole nother set of skills.

http://www.vqsales.com/OnlineCourses...6/Default.aspx

for instance.

[jc1]

It's important to document leads and sales so that you have a clear idea of your success. Then you know your closing rates. When a lead comes in that customer has already made part of the decision to hire you. Once contacted they in effect decided to hire you. At that point you are halfway to closing the Sale. I think that if you are closing less than 50% of your leads it means that the price is to high for your market. Or the message in your marketing is targeting the wrong customer.
Thoughts?

[RigglePLC]

You are right, JC. Everybody has to deal with sales resistance...and overcome sales objections...and deal with the persuasive inroads of competitors.

[Turf Logic]

Originally Posted by GreenI.A.

Sorry, I thought I typed it clearer than I now see I did. The numbers you are using Riggle were just for people who contacted us via phone from that campaign. A couple lines below those numbers are seperate numbers for the people who did not call but instead contacted us through our website after receiving the cards.

Here are the total of phone+online requests for the 3 mailings totaling 15,000 mailers.
Requests for Proposals: 140
Proposals Provided: 106
Sales Closed: 42
The first mailer was a 5.5x8.8 post card, the 2nd was a trifold, the 3rd was once again a 5.5x8.5. The postcards were distinct for the months they were sent out, 1st one "It's not to early to start thinking about spring", the 3rd "It's not to late to protect your lawn this summer", the 2nd (trifold) was more general about or fert service.

We use all heavy stock and high closs, full color. The 15k averaged out to $0.41 each printed and mailed to our demographics. That equates to $43.92 per contact, $58 per proposal, $146 per sale.

These numbers are strictly for fert programs. This does not take into account for the roughly $12,000 in other sales and services we gained from the people who visitted our site after receiving the mailings

How much did you sell in gross sales dollars?

[Smallaxe]

I think a lot of time could be wasted in over-thinking what a graph of sales success/failures might look like... We tend to think that if we convert people into numbers, that they'll be easier to understand and to deal with,,, but I should let you know that a 'people person' that can talk smack as a charming individual will ALWAYS be the successful sales person no matter how much time you spend in the office recording data...
Get out there and talk to people and quit trying to hide behind clever little tactics that no one in the real worldresponds to... just sayin'...

[GreenI.A.]

Originally Posted by Turf Logic

How much did you sell in gross sales dollars?

I don't get into detail on here when it comes revenue. I will say that it did not take long to recoup the cost of the marketting campaign and we will definitely be fallowing the same model this coming year.

[RiggitanoLandscape]

Flyers inside bags with a rock in it on the drive way. Best return and cost about .20 including gas to do it. Forget about traditional advertising in the phone book or anything like that. the return is very low. Also Google adwords is a great tool on local web sites for each town/city web site.

[PK Mows]

I think too many people focus on one thing without understanding that it's your overall marketing approach you have to focus on.

If you try to build a Customer base by just sending out a postcard every now and then or just hanging some doorhangers or just relying on word-of-mouth, then you're not realizing the true potential of each of these.

Let's say you mail out postcards and expect a 2-3% response. Okay, you got some new Customers but what if we mail out those postcards and then the day after we expect them to hit the mailbox we go hit those neighborhoods and doorhang them? How about if we also have an ad in the Weekly Shopper that same week? Maybe we have a neighborhood where we already have 4 or 5 Customers so we postcard it, hang doorhangers with a service price on it, knock on a few doors, run that ad in the Shopper, and primp on our regular Customer's lawns all day Saturday and say Hi to everyone who walks by? And of course all this directs the Customer back to our Professionally designed and maintained website.

You have to think of marketing as your overall reach and use each marketing tool to complement the other. One will not stand alone.

[Smallaxe]

There's a good example of irritation marketing... if someone left a plastic bag in my driveway with a rock on it,,, he'd would be on the "Never Call" list, right off the bat... junk mail is never opened by me... door hangers are junk mail... if you want a neighborhood,,, go "Talk" to people in that neighborhood...

PITA advertising = PITA customers... Something to think about...

[jc1]

Originally Posted by Smallaxe

I think a lot of time could be wasted in over-thinking what a graph of sales success/failures might look like... We tend to think that if we convert people into numbers, that they'll be easier to understand and to deal with,,, but I should let you know that a 'people person' that can talk smack as a charming individual will ALWAYS be the successful sales person no matter how much time you spend in the office recording data...
Get out there and talk to people and quit trying to hide behind clever little tactics that no one in the real worldresponds to... just sayin'...

I think that marketing to get a customer to inquire is required before the "people person" can sell a service. Or do you only cold call and knock on doors?
Marketing to pick up a dozen accounts is somewhat different than marketing to pick up hundreds of accounts. Once a potential customer has responded to marketing they are more likely to purchase services.