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Whether you are a small cleaning operation or operate a large commercial cleaning service, figuring out how to direct customers towards a sale is a key factor in helping you grow your cleaning business.
This is why we have compiled a list of 11 helpful sales tactics and cold calling tips that you can use to help close sales leads for your cleaning company. Keep in mind that the method that works best will vary from customer to customer. It's important to listen carefully to the concerns they have and the verbal cues they give to identify which tactic will work the best in each situation.
How to close more sales calls for your cleaning business
1. Involve the right people
2. Build a personal relationship
3. Listen and sell solutions to customer problems
4. Ask leading questions
5. Use a time sensitive offer
6. Provide a recap to build trust
7. Highlight your unique selling points
8. Offer an extra bonus or discount
9. Use social proof to build credibility
10. Assume that you have already won the business
11. Consider the right timing
1. Involve the right people
When talking to a new customer, you want to make sure that person is the decision maker or a gatekeeper to the person who will have the final say. Otherwise else you may end up spending a lot of time selling to someone who has no control of whether they will purchase your services or not. If you find that the person you're talking to cannot make or influence the decision, you can ask nicely for the contact information of the decision maker and see if they are comfortable with you reaching out directly.
2. Build a personal relationship
Never underestimate the power of a personal connection with someone. After all, think about your own experiences as a buyer. Aren't you more likely to favor someone’s business over competitors when you know their family or have a personal relationship with them?
Though relationships take time to cultivate, you can begin planting the seeds for a lasting connection and move towards closing a sale when you intentionally bring up common ground between you and the customer. Engage in dialogue that fosters connection such as light questions about where they call home and how they like living in the area. For example, you could bring up certain recent community events in your town or describe how your business is family owned for two generations. Once you have established this common ground, you can transition the conversation back to your business services.
3. Listen and sell solutions to customer problems
Sometimes people don't know exactly what they’re looking for, but they do know one thing - the problem they currently have. Many people are fed up with the tedious job of cleaning the dust off of their window blinds, or vacuuming the carpet before they have friends and family over. Your job is to make them aware of this. People are a lot more willing to seek out help with they have a better understand of what they need and what options they have.
You can do this by using the information you learn during the initial part of the conversation. For example, if you learned that a potential client has three children, you could begin discussing how much work it must be to do all of the laundry on top of trying to keep the home tidy. Taking the time to listen and understand what the client is thinking about, will make it much easier to provide a cleaning solution that resonates with with them.
4. Ask leading questions
A great way to close a sale is to let the client feel like they are coming to the conclusion of hiring you all on their own. This can be accomplished by asking certain leading questions that direct the client towards your goal. For example, you could ask your client “Do you think our sanitation service would be able to alleviate some of your stress about your family coming to town?”. The answer to this question is almost always going to be yes, but by letting the client think about this and come to the conclusion themselves, they are less likely to feel that you are trying to oversell them and more likely to feel that you are just trying to help.
Many pros find it helpful to create cold calling scripts that outline the key points and questions they would like to get across. Taking the time to think through what to say in the sales process can help reduce your nerves and makes you sound more professional.
5. Use a time sensitive offer
No one wants to look back and think that they have missed out on a good deal! Thats why it can be helpful to include some sort of motivation for people to act quickly before a good offer escapes them. This can take many forms. It could be that if a customer signs up today, they get 20% off their first service. If your potential client has expressed that they have family coming into town, you could remind them that if they sign up for a cleaning slot today, you can ensure that your team will have enough time to get their house in spotless condition before their visitors arrive. The key takeaway to remember is that you need to create an incentive for committing early by outlining the offer and then stating a specific time frame during which the client can access the offer.
6. Provide a recap to build trust
Sometimes sales calls can go on much longer than you might initially expect, which means that customers have time to lose track of all of the value that you are offering to them through your cleaning services. That's why it’s always helpful to provide a review of everything you have to offer before that final moment of decision on the client’s part. You can say something like “So just to recap, we are able to offer you full house cleaning, window washing, and will even do special deep cleaning in your high traffic areas”.
7. Highlight your unique selling points
Whenever you have the opportunity, it's important to highlight any of the differences that make your service different or better than other local cleaners. For example if you only use the best cleaning supplies, you could mention how you only use eco friendly non toxic chemicals for cleaning. Similarly if your business has been around for a long time, you can mention the number of years of cleaning experience you have.
8. Offer an extra bonus or discount
If you have a potential client that is particularly hesitant to sign up, you can often nudge the deal to a close if you throw in a little something extra. By giving the client an additional bonus, you not only show them that you are willing to go the extra mile for their business, but help them to understand what a good deal they are getting. For example, you could say “I can even throw in bathroom cleaning at no cost if you would like to sign up today”.
Keep in mind that you should save this tactic for hesitant clients, instead of using this tactic upfront to avoid additional unnecessary work on your part.
9. Use social proof to build credibility
An effective way to build instant credibility on any sales call is to provide social proof that you have a successful cleaning business. A great way to do this is to direct them to reviews you may have on google, facebook or any other review sites. If you have worked on other cleaning jobs in the neighborhood or have many referrals from others inside the community, you could also mention it casually as a way to highlight your trustworthiness. Perhaps the best way is to send over a link to your website, where they can see photos of previous work as well as testimonials all in one place. If you've been too busy to build a website, we have you covered! You can sign up at Prophone and have a sample website built for your business 100% free.
10. Assume that you have already won the business
One tried and true method of closing a sale is to assume that you have already won it! This tactic works when you have gauged that your prospective client has a decent amount of interest in your cleaning services and sees the value of what you are bringing to the table. You carry out this assumption by moving forward with questions like “Is there a preferred day and time you would like me to come by and walkthrough the specific services?”.
11. Consider the right timing
When you contact a customer and when you decide to ask for a sale can be critical to closing the deal. Think about when would be the best time during the day for a client to respond favorably to your sales pitch. Avoid the common mistake of calling at extremely early or late hours when customers are either too busy getting ready for work or unwinding after a long day.
It's also important to find the right time in a conversation to begin selling your services. If you start selling too hard before even understanding the customers requirements they will be too turned off to listen to anything else you have to say. On the other spectrum, do not hesitate to make a sale if the customer starts asking you for pricing details and your availability. Usually this is a good sign that they are genuinely starting to consider whether or not to purchase your services.
Final Thoughts
Even though sales calls can be discouraging at times, remember that just because a caller did not commit to becoming a client today, doesn't mean they won't change their mind at some point in the future. An effective way of gaining more cleaning clients out of initially uninterested callers is to keep track of contact information for each caller. If your company's marketing strategy periodically includes email marketing campaigns or sending out newsletters, it could pay off to put the caller's contact information on your email list. If you have access to it, you may also want to consider including the caller on a physical mailing list if your cleaning business sends out flyers or business cards. Hopefully these tips and tactics can help you close more sales and grow your business!
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