March, 2007

Closing the Deck Sale

Educate your customer in order to make the sale on the spot. 

By Bob Heidenreich

As I mentioned last issue, I believe the most important part of a sales presentation is to first educate the customer—both about me personally, and then about my company. Only then do I share with the customer my three-part design strategy for decks. Along the way, I explain how and why we build our decks, and by the end of the presentation, 95% of my prospects love my quick sketch of their potential deck.

At this point, I’m ready to close the sale.

Close the Sale on the Spot

Once a customer and I have established a potential deck plan, it’s time to talk price.

I begin by adding up the square footage. Price isn’t a matter of design, but total square footage. I call it “deck math.”

For example, if a deck is 9x9 ft., I’ll charge for a 100-sq.-ft. deck because I can’t buy 9 ft. boards. Remember to round up. Analyze your past jobs and know what about this job is consistent with past work so that you can give a quote on the spot. Know your base price and go from there.
If cedar costs “X” per sq. ft., I know that a composite deck of the same size may cost 1.5% more. Include a cedar rail in your base price and know how much more it will cost to add more glass inserts, and so forth. Because I’m aware of my past numbers, I can change pricing in a second for any variable.

After an initial meeting with a prospective client, my competitors often leave the customer with a promise to get back to them with a price. Instead of leaving, I take my opportunity at that first meeting to close the sale. Three days or more can go by as my competitors shop around for the best price on material, and in the meantime, I may already be installing the customer’s deck.

Avoid 90% of Your Problems

The biggest mistake a dealer can make is to sell a project to a problematic customer. I get 90% of my problems from 10% of my customers. The same is probably true for you. Just think, if you could identify these customers right away, you could save 90% of your headaches! If you get a bad feeling from a prospect, don’t sell the project. It will consume all your time.

Customers are Like Apples

I use these sales techniques in my deck-building business and as a lumberyard. I also teach these techniques to contractors who buy from me so that they can be effective at selling decks, too.

Am I worried about the competition? No. I think that the deck-buying public is like an apple tree. You pick the apples you want to eat, and you pick the customer for whom you want to build. You can’t build for everyone. You can’t get along with everyone. Do the projects that fit your niche.

Lumberyards with installed sales need not compete with deck contractors. We all build differently and use different products so it is impossible to compete head-on. If I find that I am bidding on the same job as a customer of mine, I’ll back off, although we never ask who is bidding against us on a project, and I suggest you don’t either. Let the homeowner decide.

As long as we market differently and look for the apples we want to pick, we won’t run into each other in the field.

Try these techniques on your next sales presentation. Rarely will a buyer have to compare apples to apples. We’re all so different that we’re like apples and oranges.