“I’m a builder not a sales person!”
This is the most common excuse and mistake builders or a tradies makes.
Sales is one of the major keys that help a business grow and the way you handle your clients and making a connection with them decides the course your business will come to.
Relationship Selling
In my workshops I ask people if they are married, got friends or had a good conversation with someone in the last week, most will say yes.
Now in today’s world, we use relationship selling more then ever.
You only have to look at the growth of social media to see that we rely heavily on relationships. In the old days – or in some of the sales training and coaches I’ve been to, it’s still all about the “press hard, 3 copies” – convincing people by putting pressure on them to buy.
Now this in my opinion, is a short-sighted way of selling. If you feel pressured, how likely are you going to refer that person to somebody else?
That’s why we use our TLC model of sales which are Trust, Listen, Commit.
You firstly need to build trust, since people will buy from people that they like, know and trust.
So building rapport is a big part of sales in today’s world. Part of this has to be shown by you the sales person (so to speak) but a lot of the heavy lifting can be done by your marketing.
Take the time to map out a proper sales process and get all of the touch points in, so that you have natural rapport when your sitting with prospects.
It helps with some of the tough questions that most builders or contractors have like what the budget is, are others pricing on this project etc.
Sales is all about having a process, using this process to help build trust and credibility, then you as the Builder or Contractor sales person, being able to relate and continue building the trust. It’s as simple as having a conversation, using a framework and helping people to buy from someone they like, know and can trust – that’s you!
