Tag Archives: sales

[VIDEO] Overcoming Customer Objections

When thinking through how to overcome customer objections, its important to remember that objections are normal! No one wants to spend more money than they have to, or make investments in areas that they can’t personally see as being necessary. However, this can be overcome with planning and strategy. Today’s leading contractors are able to find customer “hot buttons” and cracks in their own business strategy to find ways to push back against customer objections without alienating key clients.

In just 2 minutes, learn five tools you can use to overcoming objections from customers!

REMEMBER: You can watch all of our 2 Minute Drill series at videos.pinnacledg.com, and you can download the Pinnacle Development Group App to watch your training videos on any iOS, Android, or Windows device.

 

 

Asking For The Sale (VIDEO)

In today’s 2 Minute Drill video, Brad lays out how contractors and those in the construction industry can make sure they always ask for the sale with clients. Asking for the sale can be intimidating to some, but is necessary to continue to grow your business. You can go through all the strategies during the sales process, but you never end up asking for the one thing you need!

We need to completely rethink how contractors can ask for the sale by confirming with the customer along the way. Take two minutes to start improving your sales process today!

Features Tell – Benefits Sell

When going out on a sales call, it is vital to understand the difference between “features” and “benefits”. Of primary importance is to remember the phrase, “features tell; benefits sell.” There is a technique in selling that we at Pinnacle Development Group have used personally for more than twenty-five years to very good results to assist in making this distinction.  It is based on three components. The three components are:

Feature

Features, or facts, represent what the actual characteristics are.  Features might represent the chemical make-up of a material used in the construction project, the rock size used in asphalt, or perhaps even the multiple step process followed by a work crew.

Benefit

Benefits sell you and your company, and represent what advantage, savings, or “profit,” that a customer will receive from the feature or features purchased.

Transition

A transition is a simple word or phrase that smoothly transfers the technical aspects of the feature to a benefit in the eyes of the customer.

I refer to the three components as having a FTP.  Thus, for every feature about my company, the product that we use, the equipment that we operate, or the process that we follow when completing work, I must transition the featured aspect into a believable benefit to the customer.  If I fail in doing this I risk losing the trust, interest, and worse yet, any future business.

benefits sell

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Now, let me demonstrate the FTP technique using a hypothetical situation

Feature 

Premier Sealer has 10% more of a chemical bonding agent than do most of the other available blends of sealer.

Transition

Which means that we can offer you…

Benefit

A written three year guarantee on the product as it will provide a longer life for your parking lot.

Many sales professionals within the construction industry have undoubtedly recognized features or facts about what they sell.  It is also critically important to realize that customers rarely buy features.  Instead, they wish to purchase the benefits provided by a product or service.  Until the connection between feature and benefit is made in the mind of the customer they will refuse to make a buying decision

The transition in the FTP technique is the most important part of the “triad.”  This may sound strange to many contractors since knowing the products and services is so important.  Again, all the knowledge in the industry will not help your sales unless you have a method to plant the features of your materials, your team, and your equipment efficiency into the head of a customer and leave them agreeing with the great benefit that will be experienced, and enjoyed!

Assuming that many readers of this article already have a stable of knowledge, or are building one, of their company’s features and the benefits that can be realized by buying the features, let provide a few more examples of transitions that you may want to try.

  • …which provides you with…
  • …so you will receive more…
  • …this allows you greater…
  • …enabling you to spend less money…

Remember … features tell, but benefits sell!

Features really do just tell us about our products, services, and company.  Benefits sell and are what our customers want to experience.  Tying the two together may very well be your biggest improvement opportunity to increase your own sales success and the increased business for your company.