Success in the tree care industry starts with selling tree work. You could be the best tree care company out there but if you don’t do a good job at selling, you’re not going to see success.
We often have folks ask us, Is tree work profitable? And the answer is, it absolutely can be! It can be very profitable. But it all comes down to doing a great job at selling tree services.
To help you get started, we’ve rounded up some tips on selling tree work.
We love grassroots marketing efforts like job signs, postcards, mailers, wrapped vehicles, and good, old-fashioned boots-to-the-ground participation in community events.
In fact, we wrote an entire article about these different grassroots marketing efforts and how they can be successful when it comes to selling tree services.
We know that it sounds simplified. In fact, in our experience, we find that these efforts are often underrated (and therefore not used to their full potential).
But what’s important to remember when building a brand is that it’s a long-term strategy. The people that you’re connecting with might not hire you immediately, but the more they come to recognize your name and get to know you, the more likely they will be to hire you when they do need tree work. They’ll already have a name they know and trust.
So, your marketing efforts are paying off…and now you have leads coming in.
How you handle those leads is absolutely critical to whether or not you are going to successfully sell tree work.
Success at selling tree work literally begins the moment that a prospective client initiates contact with you. From there on out, know that the customer is judging that experience and whether or not he or she wants to do business with you.
Because of that, responsiveness is critical.
We really can’t emphasize the importance of this enough.
It sounds like such a small thing and yet it constantly gets overlooked by companies…and people get frustrated. When they reach out and want to get a quote for possible service, they expect a prompt answer. After all, they’re looking to spend their hard-earned money.
If you can’t be responsive when they’re trying to hire you, they’re going to expect that you won’t be responsive once you already have their money. If you want to land tree care leads, it all starts with good communication.
At Joshua Tree Experts, we coach our franchisees on good communication. We also have a guideline for contacting clients within zero to seven hours of initial contact.
You’ve heard us talking about “qualifying leads” before and this is where that comes into play.
We want to scream this from the rooftops because we know it’s a hard idea to grasp…. Not all leads are worth your time.
We know that a lot of business owners struggle with this concept. Honestly, it’s hard to turn down leads (we get that). A lot of you might have even built your company by being a “yes man” (or woman).
You said yes to lots and lots of work, and your business grew from there.
That might work for a short while, but it is NOT sustainable. In fact, some people end up chasing after leads that aren’t even going to be profitable because they’re just so used to saying “yes.” This is a huge waste of time and money and could be the thing that keeps you from being highly profitable.
This is where qualifying leads comes into play. It’s important to recognize what leads are worth your time and going to be profitable enough to invest the effort in.
For Joshua Tree Experts, we have already determined some guidelines as to what constitutes a desirable lead for our franchises. An example would be a single-dwelling home.
Determining whether or not a lead is desirable comes down to asking questions in advance of our visit. And we are pretty upfront when we know we are not the right fit for the prospective client. An example of an undesirable lead is a prospect who is very clearly shopping on price alone. In these cases, we are very upfront that we are not going to be the cheapest option.
Ultimately, it’s about focusing our time and energy on qualified leads that will transition into actual sales (and ideally, future sales, either in the form of offering other services or because that client referred us to friends, family, and neighbors). We provide Joshua Tree Expert franchise owners with plenty of guidelines to help them qualify leads and ultimately sell more tree work.
These are just some ideas to get you started on the path to success with selling tree services. But for Joshua Tree Experts franchise owners, we’re here to help with more.
We know that if you’re not used to qualifying leads or being highly communicative, all of this can feel a little daunting. But the fact is, you’re not on your own. We can help you get up and running and make sure that you are comfortable with selling profitable work.
At the end of the day, selling tree work and becoming profitable really shouldn’t feel so elusive or confusing. It shouldn’t feel like rocket science, either.
We have figured out the processes and systems needed to produce sales success…and we’re here to share them with you. Instead of having to ask: Is the tree business profitable? You’ll have the answer for yourself. It absolutely can be…when you follow all the right steps.
Fortunately, we’re here to guide you. You can always lean on us for success with selling tree services.
Are you ready to grow a successful business from strong roots? Joshua Tree Experts has the proven systems and processes in place to help. Request a meeting and begin your journey today.