When it comes to your contracting business, sales coaching is the key to driving phenomenal sales. But how can you effectively coach sales without a repeatable-documented selling system to train Techs how to do sales the right way? The answer is you can’t.
The Tech selling system I teach has five steps. Each step needs to be taught and demonstrated in a certain order because one step builds on the other. If you skip steps, the system falls apart and sales suffer, as does customer satisfaction — a lose-lose scenario that can be avoided!
The five steps of the tech selling system:
1. Open the Call the Right Way
2. Gain Permission to Survey the Premises So Nothing is Missed
3. Price the Work That You’re Recommending Correctly
4. Present the Menu With What Must Be Done and Extras Worth Considering
5. Write the Kind of Work Order that Gets Signed
Documenting this sales system has been documented and training your techs on it is only half the battle, however. To gain traction and build a good sales culture over time you will also need to provide never-ending sales coaching for it.
Remember, Techs aren’t normally happy to talk to customers, let alone help them make good decisions. Most would love to just do the work and skip ever talking to a customer. It’s human nature but my experience has taught me that it’s especially so with Techs.
The only way to overcome this is to provide ongoing great sales training, great sales coaching and a great reward system. This is how to move Techs out of their comfort zone to where they must be, since these days the Service Tech position is also a sales position.
Selling is a skill. And like all skills, to get good you need to train-train-train-coach-coach-measure-adjust-repeat.
Think back to when you first learned to drive. No one tossed you the keys and said, “Why don’t you take the car on the highway and see how you do?” At least, I hope they didn’t.
Maybe a brave family member let you drive around an empty parking lot. Then, you probably drove a few blocks when there weren’t many people around and you worked your way up. You might have taken driver’s education classes at school or went to a privately owned driving school.
Good vs. Great sales coaching
Only repetition can instill the skill you desire. But, the learning curve is easier and more effective with good coaching. The same applies to constantly doing the sales process with excellent sales coaching. Here is what I recommend to make your sales coaching great:
- Have a documented sales system that Techs get trained on
- Have weekly classes that always covers a portion of your sales system so it’s always fresh
- Do a lot of role-plays in class
- Do role-plays in a hands-on training center where you can simulate a call that uses all the steps of your selling process
- Have Mystery Shoppers who are trained on what your sales process entails give you, the owner, the feedback about what your Techs are doing or not doing when it come to the real world.
- Do ride-alongs with your Techs a minimum of once a month. The goal being to catch them doing something great and making a big deal about it. And if there are things that need work it’s time to head to the training center and practice.
Suppose you don’t have a fully functioning training center…what can you do? Use your building or your home to practice running calls the right way from start to finish and focus on great communications that lead to great sales.
Sales coaching like this will get your Techs selling, keep them selling for the long haul, and enable you to grow your business with less stress and more success that much faster.
