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Green on Green: Upsell Opportunities Grow With Green Programs
1 Apr, 2008 By: Thomas A. Green Pest Management ProfessionalThe easiest way to earn more revenue and profits is by selling more to current customers. They already know you. If you're doing good work, they'll buy from you faster than any new prospect.
 Thomas A. Green |
It's easy to communicate: You're already sending appointment reminders, invoices, renewal agreements and, hopefully, satisfaction surveys and referral requests.
It's cheap to get there: You're visiting regularly to inspect, provide services and perform quality assurance
What do upselling and add-on services have to do with green pest management? Plenty. "Green" is least amounts of least-toxic pesticides, which means focusing on eliminating pest-friendly conditions.
For too many companies, though, that translates to leaving a notes for customers to fix problems. "Please clean the drains." "Please trim the vegetation touching the building." Most technicians leave it at that, and shrug their shoulders as they leave the same notes, visit after visit — until they stop bothering.
Other companies see gold in those ignored recommendations. If you get into the mindset that our job is to solve problems, not just point them out, you'll see the green in green.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
Make a list of customers with whom you want to do more business. They pay on time, are pleasant to work with, are within profitable travel distances and have additional facilities or connections to other hot prospects. What services might they appreciate, especially tasks that will make your job easier and can be done during slow times of year? Get your technicians involved — they know.
 Green Add-Ons & Upselling |
Don't forget preparation work. For example, many companies send a bed bug prep list before treatments and walk away if tasks aren't completed. That's money left on the table.
One big caution: Don't underestimate skills and training needs. For example, the wrong sealant, expanding foam, can create a lovely temperature-controlled mouse house. Sub-contract to experts while you decide whether it's worth tooling up in-house. Carefully decide whether the task will be a specialty for one or more technicians or one that all will perform.
"Ma'am, you purchased our best — our green service. We want your home to be as pest-proof as possible. We can save you a lot of time and hassle by fixing these exclusion issues right away for a small fee. Sound OK to you?"
When finished to your client's satisfaction, ask for referrals. Sell add-ons to non-green customers, and when you wow them, upsell them to your green program. When you find winning services, use those to stand out from the competition when going after new clients. Don't forget to offer incentives to technicians for selling and suggesting new services.
Green directs the IPM Institute of North America and manages the Green Shield Certified Program. He can be reached at
ipmworks@ipminstitute.org.
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