5 Ways to Strengthen Your Sales Team

Your sales team works hard to bring in quality clients who can provide meaningful cash flow to your company. Just like how you invest in new trucks and equipment for your field staff to operate successfully, don’t forget to evaluate how you can come alongside and aid your sales team’s efforts.

Create A Demo Area

If a picture is worth a thousand words, can you imagine how helpful it is to convey your landscape design/build capabilities with a demo area? Having a showcase space at your headquarters allows you to display different styles, materials and layouts of outdoor living spaces.

“It introduces a layer of trust and allows clients before they commit to a project to see what we are capable of building,” says Cara Doyle, vice president of Summit Hardscaping. “It has become the ultimate referral of sorts. Clients recognize that even though their project may be completely different, they can trust that it will be well built.”

While building these spaces is a significant investment of time and money, the ROI is considerable. Companies who have built these spaces not only see an increase in projects but also are able to use these areas for team-building activities.

Develop A Lead Qualification Process

Another way to help your sales team is to develop a strong lead qualification process. Rebecca Snow, a landscape designer with Bella Terra Landscapes & Garden Center estimates they have cut at least 40 percent of their wasted lead time since they started qualifying prospects better over the phone in 2019.

Create a playbook your team can go through and ask the same questions for consistency. Determine the client’s needs, budget, authority, timeline and positioning with your company. You can have clients answer these questions online in a form, or you could have the receptionist handle qualification so your sales team is only working with customers who are already a good fit.

“You can learn everything right at the beginning before you invest any of that time or effort, but we don’t,” says Neal