Improve Your In-Home Sales Before It Costs You Jobs

As deductibles rise, strong in-home sales matter more than ever. Regular practice can help your team handle objections and close jobs more often. Here's how to do it.

 
In this video, I want to help you and your team sell more jobs by sharing a simple idea.

How many times have you started something new and become an expert on the first try? Probably never. How many times have you tried something new and been great at it right away? Not very many.

Look at me. I’m on video number 225, and I’ll be honest, there’s still plenty of room for improvement. You don’t have to agree in the comments.

So what am I talking about?

Our industry is rapidly becoming more of a self-pay world. I talk to clients every day who are dealing with homeowners that want estimates. People are afraid to file claims because their deductibles are so high. They’re worried about getting dropped. They’re unsure whether the loss will fall above or below their deductible. They’re concerned about non-renewals and rising premiums.

There are a lot of reasons why lower-dollar claims aren’t like they used to be. It used to be simple. You’d show up, present the work authorization, and say, “Sign here. Don’t worry about the deductible. We’ll deal with that later.” Those days are gone. $100, $250, $500, even $1,000 deductibles are becoming rare.

So what do you do about it?

You’ve got to be really good at the in-home sale.

I often talk about three different sales in the restoration industry.

The first sale is getting the referral. Whether it’s an insurance agent, property manager, or another referral source, you’re building trust and getting them to take action and call you the next time there’s a loss. That’s a sale.

The second sale is the intake call. The person answering the phone creates urgency, shows empathy, and gets the inspection scheduled. Their job is to secure that visit from the technician or project manager who will go out and secure the job. That’s the second sale.

The third sale is what we’re talking about today: the in-home sale. That’s getting the homeowner, property manager, or tenant to sign the work authorization and trust you enough to let you do the work.

So how do you get better at it?

We can’t expect our teams to do it well right out of the gate. What I’ve found is that role-playing the most common objections homeowners and property owners have is one of the most effective ways to improve. I have a workbook that walks teams through this process. If you book a call with me, I’ll share it with you.

The way to get better at anything is to practice. That’s hard to argue with.

If you can role-play with your team, I recommend doing it weekly at first. As they become more comfortable and the words start to flow naturally, you can scale it back to once a month.

I had a client try this for the first time. I asked him how it went. He said, “The role-playing went terrible. They were absolutely horrible. Total waste of time.”

What do you think they need?

More practice.

Of course they weren’t experts. They weren’t even good the first time. They had no experience with it. Repetition and practice are essential.

I’ve got a workbook that will take you through the process and help improve your closing rate. And if you’re not tracking your closing rate, we should talk about that too.

Book a call with me, and I’ll see you in the next video.