In 2017 my business was not doing so hot. We were only closing about 1/5 bids that we put together, despite doing our best to weed out the tire-kickers and price shoppers. But by the end of 2018 our close rate had jumped up to 41% (and our profits were up by far more than that). So what changed?
The one big thing was that I taught my project managers (who do all the sales calls for my business) the following three sentences, then forced them to actually USE them on every initial meeting they went on:
Sentence One – “My goal for this meeting is to listen, find out exactly what you want to accomplish, and then work out the best way to make that happen.”
You use this sentence at the very beginning of the sales call, right after the greetings and opening rapport building. It makes the prospect feel like you are on the same side, and makes you seem like more of a consultant than a salesman. And it also happens to just be a great way to conduct business.
Sentence Two – “What are the criteria you’re using to determine which contractor you will pick to build your project?”
You want to use this one in the middle of the meeting to figure out what is important to this prospect specifically. Do they value price more than anything else? Quality? Little details? Professionalism? Cleanliness? This lets you know how they’re evaluating their contractors so that you can position yourself properly and maximize your chances of closing the sale.
Sentence Three – “So realistically, what’s your budget for this project?”…followed by, “If I could get the job done under or around that price point and I prepared a proposal for you, would you be willing to move forward?”
This one is for the very end of the meeting, and the goal is to get a commitment from them that if you did the work to prepare them a quote, they would be ready to sign. They still won’t always sign even if they say they will, but I did notice that using this phrased helped a lot to preemptively stop the “we’ll think about it” response when you pitch them your price.
These three sentences are very simple and easy to use, but I’m always surprised at how few contractors actually use solid one-line scripts in their sales meetings. Practice these a couple times, then try them out on some of your prospects. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised with the results on your close rate.
