Make Everybody a Salesperson!
In your operations meetings with your crew leaders, do you ever talk about the need for work? At times, you may hold back and not tell them, in fear that they’ll look for work with another company. Or, you may be worried that if you teach them how to quote work, they’ll leave to start their own business. Both of these could occur. However, if you desire to build a team, you must consider the benefits of doing this.
An “all hands on deck” approach to finding work will help keep everybody employed over the winter. Let your crew leaders know that “we need work”. Create an environment where everybody is a salesperson. Give them the tools to quote in a room, ceiling, closet, door, etc. Don’t leave money on the table by failing to capitalize on additional work order opportunities. If you’re the only one quoting on extras, you’re probably missing opportunities. If your crew leaders are trained to look for, ask for and quote on extras, you’ll be able to increase your revenue by as much as 10% without adding an estimator.
Consider training on Additional Work Orders (AWOs) this week. The basic components:
- Production rates: train them to think in terms of time and put a price on things. Encourage them to call you as they’re calculating an AWO.
- Quote sheet – make sure all crew leaders have an ample supply
- Scenarios – how to look for them
- Word tracks – how to ask for them
- Process – standards for submitting the AWO form to the office (to be added to the invoice)
- Contests – iPods or TVs awarded to crew leaders who sell certain dollar amounts create a fun and competitive environment.
For long time Summit members, if you’ve already trained your crew leaders on this in the past ….. you should do it again. Practice makes perfect. Nolan Painting just completed a tailgate training on AWOs last Thursday. Our focus was to make everybody on the crew aware of the need to look for AWOs.
Have an awesome week.