Residential cleaning is a people business. You’re in people’s homes touching their most personal possessions. They are inviting you into their home to perform a job and they need to know they can trust you and the service you are selling. So perfecting the sales process to sell your cleaning service is crucial to your business success.
Would you unconditionally trust someone in your home that you did not know?
Table of Contents
Sales Basics
Would it come as a surprise to you if I said we’re all sales people? It’s true.
Every time you have a prospective client on a discovery call, you’re making a sales pitch. Every time you tell someone about your residential cleaning business, you’re making a sales pitch. Every time you discuss your business with a friend, you’re selling.
Unfortunately, you’re not “on the spot” when you’re making these sales pitches. You’re behind the scenes on the phone, or making friendly conversation in the grocery store, or sharing with a friend.
You see – selling is merely having a conversation. You’re trying to discover what they need and they’re trying to find out if you can provide what they need.
So why do we continue to think we’re so bad at sales?
Sales Feels “Icky”
I hear this one a lot. You feel pushy or uncomfortable when talk turns to money. You don’t want to force anyone into a decision. You secretly think your rates are too high or too low, but you’re desperate to fill up your calendar.
I’m going to be honest with you. This is one of those things that only gets better with practice. But the good news is, you don’t have to be on the phone with a prospective client to get that practice time in.
Instead, use the technique self-help gurus have been advocating for years: Look in the mirror and talk to yourself. Practice saying your rates out loud. Practice your segue from discovery to sales pitch. The more you do it, the more natural it will sound, and the less uncomfortable you will feel when on a real call or during an in-home estimate.
“You’re not trying to get your prospective client to spend money. Instead, you’re offering a solution to her problems.”
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Fix Your Mindset
What if you weren’t selling anything, but instead were simply chatting with a friend about the incredible service that was going to change her life? You’re helping your friend to improve herself by sharing your experience with this new service.
That’s exactly how you should think about selling your house cleaning services. You’re not trying to get your prospective client to spend money. Instead, you’re offering a solution to her problems. You’re genuinely helping her to overcome her problem of a messy, dirty house or the inability to deal with the ongoing issue of cleaning her house.
When you can turn your thinking around from “sales” to “helping” you’ll find it’s much easier to have the sales talk.
One of my favorite sales people was Zig Ziglar. I didn’t know anything about selling when I started my house cleaning business and I was terrified of knocking on doors. I invested in one of his books and that’s how I learned to sell. He took the mystery and fear out of the process.
Enjoy this article about him that was written after his death and you’ll understand what I mean. This will also help with what I have to reveal next.
Putting this Into Practice
Design or invest in a script that you can tweak to make your own. I use two: 1) is for a phone interview to determine if the prospect is my ideal client, and 2) a script that I use to perform the in-home estimate.
You can use each of these to practice your pitch in your own home. Once you feel a little comfortable, call a friend or relative and use the interview script with them. Use the in-home estimate script to do a walk-through in your own home or work with a friend until they say you have “sold” them.
Practice your scripts until you feel comfortable with them. Of course, the real practice comes with actually using these scripts with real prospects. This is when you will learn what works and what doesn’t. This is how you grow into developing your own perfect script. Your goal is to constantly improve your conversion rate to turn prospects into paying customers.
“Most clients won’t say yes with the first call, and maybe not even with the second”
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Don’t Be Afraid of the Follow Up
Most clients won’t say yes with the first call, and maybe not even with the second. But good business owners know that many sales can be closed if you simply take the time to follow up. Send a quick email and invite your prospect to:
- Schedule a follow-up call to answer her questions
- Read some of your testimonials
- Review your service program outline or sales page
- Or even take advantage of a one-off special cleaning to give you a try
Don’t let that old “I’m not good at sales” thinking get in the way of making a real difference in people’s lives, and in growing your business and your profits. People in your community need your service – they just need to know what you can do for them. With these easy tips, you can quickly turn your sales blocks into a system for consistently filling up your schedule.
Next Step
Ready to get started closing more sales? Use my prospect questions list to perfect your phone inquires and understand the bidding process. Then use my script that converted at 98% to turn prospects into recurring clients.
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