Once the site survey is booked, your Fire & Security company has a great chance of getting a new customer. But there’s a big difference between a good sales person and a great one.
Racing to the bottom
Does your representative start by banging on about how great your company is:
- reputation
- been doing this for years
- accreditations
- blah de blah…
They might as well just bring up the website on the laptop and let the customer read that.
And then do they just try to sell burglar alarms, CCTV systems, access control and fire safety equipment?
Is their primary goal to give prices and offer to send a quotation?
This is a transactional sale.
It commoditises your business. And you’re now involved in a race to the bottom.
Sales coach, Dave Kurlan says:
Transactional works if you have the lowest price in your space and a full feature set. Of course only one company can have the lowest price. And companies rarely have a full feature set. So you’re probably not going to win in this situation.
The cream rises to the top
The best Fire & Security sales people know that there are a lot of competitors out there. They certainly don’t want to be compared on price.
So these experts will try to differentiate themselves. S/he will ask a lot of questions to uncover problems, issues, consequences and emotions. Then provide a solution for that. It’s a consultation.
The consultative approach makes sense for Fire & Security sales to both domestic and commercial customers. The desire to buy is usually based on an emotion.
Fear.
And the prospect will want to choose the company who can best protect them from the cause of that fear.
For most homeowners, it will be an intruder in their home.
But for commercial businesses, it could also be the potential for down time or big fines if they don’t comply with legislation.
The best sales people will know what questions to ask to agitate that emotion until the prospect asks for their help.
Donald Miller of Storybrand expands on this. There are basically 2 things every prospect is looking for from your sales rep:
Empathy and Authority.
Empathy – I understand your pain. I hear you, I understand what you are struggling with. The great sales person will repeat it back to them.
Authority – Demonstrate competency. The best sales person will actually know more about the prospect’s problem than the prospect does!
The prospect is alone with their problem but your great sales person meets prospect after prospect after prospect who has the exact same problem. That makes your sales guy an authority about solving this prospect’s Fire and/or Security problem.
S/he will be sure to tell them how your company has solved this problem for other home owners or commercial buyers. And how often. By phone, email and during the site survey.
Dave Kurlan says:
It’s more difficult but if you want to shorten your sales cycle, significantly improve your closing rate, make sure the deals you close actually close and retain those customers, you’ll do the work to learn to sell consultatively.
Feed warm leads to your great sales team
The majority of your website’s visitors are researching a solution to their FEAR. But does your website exude EMPATHY AND AUTHORITY?
It is much easier to close a sale if your prospect already knows that you understand their fear and have the expertise to solve it.
Imagine if…
Your Fire & Security website delivered a consistent supply of the right quality customers…
Not just £500 domestic alarm enquiries. But the big £50k-100k jobs that will keep you in work for weeks.
Download this checklist. It highlights simple improvements you can make straight away. Get more customers from your website and your sales team.