Boost Your Conservatory Sales With Check-lists

If you sell conservatories or windows, you'll know it's a complex process (which is why people take a while to get good at it!)

. During the process, you will have a mental list of things which need to be asked. If you write down this list, you might be surprised about how long and detailed it can become.

Your list will change dramatically depending on the answers to previous questions. For example, if the customer wants you to provide the electrics, another series of questions need answering - how many sockets, what style, how many lights, what type of switches, where do they go etc. Some questions can rule out whole sections. For example, if the customer is going to install their own electrics, most electrical questions immediately become irrelevant.

Accomplished sales people will also use questions as gentle way of up-selling. For example, "Have you considered temperature control?" is a gentle way of asking "Did you know you can have air conditioning, heating, blinds, solar control glass, electric roof vents etc in your conservatory, and that we can supply them all?". Such questions can often elicit responses such as "I hadn't really considered that", or "I didn't know that was possible". If the customer chooses that option, then you've up-sold, if not you've reinforced your credibility as an expert, and removed a potential source of disappointment later.

During discussions, it can be very hard to keep track of what remains to be asked - in fact it can be argued that this is a key sales skill, albeit one that can take a long time to learn. As I'm sure you know, some of the bigger retail companies have been aware of this problem for years and provide multi-page "survey" forms containing these questions, which their sales staff may spend days or weeks learning to use.

I'm sure you already have a list of options you offer to help you calculate your job prices. However it's really worthwhile to extend this list with all the other questions which don't necessarily have a bearing on price (What's the conservatory going to be used for? Have you had a conservatory in the past?...) - it can give a great overview of how you sell. Now sort the questions into a logical sequence, grouping them together, and you've just documented a significant part of your presentation process. This can be used to help you train new sales staff and hopefully ensure you never forget a critical question again. Remember, this represents a snapshot of your process and you should expect it to evolve as new situations arise.

Many of our more IT-savvy customers have developed spreadsheets of varying levels of complexity - this has massive benefits for the sales process, but this is not a task for the faint-hearted (and it is quite easy to inadvertently "break" the spreadsheet, with catastrophic consequences for your pricing).

We became aware of this issue a few years ago from a highly profitable window and conservatory companies. They found that sometimes asking a few extra questions could make a HUGE difference to their profitability, and some sales software now includes check-lists in their higher-end offerings.

by: Dave Blakeman

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