No Control = No Sale in Home Improvement Sales
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Mastering In-Home Sales Scripts Through Control
Why Control Is Crucial in In-Home Sales Scripts
Learning why and how to be in control is important if you want to have a successful career doing home improvement sales.
Being good at Selling Home Improvements requires you to stay in control. This is because to sell effectively you have be able to follow some type of structured sales presentation to make sure you can cover everything. In a good sales presentation nothing you should do is unnecessary or fluff. Having structure makes it streamlined so you can give the information as quickly as possible without leaving anything out. You can’t do this if you are not in control.
What Happens When You Lose Control
If you don’t stay in control you won’t be able to follow your system and it tends to ramble all over the place and not be as effective. If the customer is controlling the presentation and you try to cover everything you will be out of order and what would normally take you 1.5 hours can take you 2 hours. Now if you don’t have a specific system or game plan and just go in telling them what you want and making it up as you go along then you probably don’t need to be in control but you also won’t be selling a lot as well.
Signs You're Not in Control
Signs you are not in control are that you skip things that you shouldn’t, speed up more than you would like because you feel rushed, let the customer dictate the order of what you tell them (such as giving them the price within 10 minutes of getting there), or anything where you are breaking sequence. Another sign you have lost control is that they don’t respect you or are rude to you. The classic example of this is that they treat you like a cheap salesperson. They are watching tv or both people don’t give you their full attention to what you are saying. I think the worst one I heard is a salesperson told me that the kids were upstairs throwing hotdog pieces at him the whole time and the parents did nothing to stop it and laughed with the kids…ouch….didn’t make the sale either….shocker!!! The key was not that the kids did it but that the salesperson didn’t stop it.
When to Walk Away
In the worst case if you can’t get control you need to shut it down. If they continue to be rude and not let you explain anything I explain politely that if they keep acting that way that I will have to leave. Keep in mind you still lost because you didn’t make the sale but at least you won’t compromise your self-respect and personal integrity. The worst is when you do give in and let them totally walk all over you. You still won’t make the sale but when you leave you will feel horrible because you will feel used and abused 😊 If you do have to shut it down don’t forget you won the battle but lost the war. You still have to take responsibility and figure out what you could do the next time to get better rapport and control so you don’t have to leave.
You Start in Control—Don’t Give It Away
The thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to take control. You are in control when you first walk through the door. For you to lose control the customers have to take if from you. And that happens when you let them.
Common Mistakes That Surrender Control
What causes that? Your initial demeanor when you get there. Do you start by saying “well what did you want know today” translation here’s control go ahead and take it. Or do you start by saying if you don’t mind can we use your kitchen table so I can show you what we do. Get rapport… Great now if you don’t mind I just have a few questions to ask you on what you need information and pricing on today so I can do this faster? Is that okay? You steer the conversation. They will start to steer if you don’t steer them because it feels like nothing is happening.
Influence, Rapport, and Respect in Sales Scripts
You lose or give control if you don’t have influence. Translation charisma or personal power which gives you authority. Customers don’t listen to what you have to say because they don’t believe in you or respect you. When I started selling, I looked very young and had to work twice as hard to study my craft so my personal credibility outweighed my looks. You don’t seem to know what you are doing so they are trying to make this as painless as possible and get you out as soon as possible.
How to Build Influence
What will help this is when you are prepared and know exactly what you are going to say and the sequence is locked in which means you don’t have to think about what you are doing but how you are doing it. Also going to the home with the attitude that you don’t care if they buy or not but are just there to give them an education. That’s the true leverage you have which keeps your control.
The Retail Trap: Why It Doesn’t Work in In-Home Sales
That’s why a lot of times people who come from a long retail background have problems doing this because they are not used to being in control. They are trained that the customer is always right that even if they are rude and abusive that you are to turn the other cheek and put up with it. In retail the customer has control. In home improvement sales we have control.
How Control Slips Away
When you lose control, it doesn’t happen all at once. It happens bit by bit. You ask them to come with you while you measure the furnace, and they say…go ahead do it by yourself. Or they start to be rude, and you don’t call them politely on it.
Stop It Early
When is it easier to stop a child from taking candy from a dish? The first time or after they have done it ten times already? So, if you are losing control over the course of your visit by the end when need to most control you have the lease control. So the instant you start to lose control ..ie they are rude by making phone calls while you are talking to them deal with it immediately before it get’s away from you. “I know I’m a guest in your home and I appreciate you listening to what we have to offer but is there anyway you could make those calls later because otherwise I’m afraid this will take too long and I don’t want to waste your time?”
Control Helps the Customer Too
The flip side of this is that it is in their best interest to for you to be in control. If someone is spending thousands of dollars should they sort of know what is going on or know exactly what’s going on? When you give them all of the facts, they can make an educated decision which is in their best interest. When they take control and don’t let you give all the facts you are hurting them. When done right all you are doing is educating the customers to what they are getting for their money so they can see if it’s worth it to them. Now if you don’t know what you are doing and are rambling and talking about things that have no interest or concern to them, they won’t let you have the control for long.
How to Maintain Control in Your In-Home Sales Scripts
So, what are some things you can do to keep the control you have when you enter their home?
Make Your Script Relevant
The most important skill that will help you keep in control is your ability to get rapport with anyone. Rapport equals control. People you have great rapport with you can get them to loan you money and people you have no rapport with won’t give you the time of day.
Match Their Pace
You can keep control by talking about the benefits of the features you are explaining so that what you are saying has interest to the customer and keeps them wanting to be involved.
The Paradox: Sometimes You Give Control to Get It
You can keep control by you doing a good needs analysis so you are correctly solving the problem and not annoying the customer. For example, you find out that they want to update their kitchen to sell the house and you don’t spend 10 minutes talking about the lifetime warranty. Or they tell you they are going to spend the rest of their lives where they live and then you spend 10 minutes talking about how new windows will give them a great resale value. There’s a famous sales story about an hvac salesman who is sitting in front of an 80 year old widow and after he goes through an explanation of btu, load calcs and how a variable speed furnace motor works he asks her if she has any questions. She replies with “Just one question will this furnace keep me warm in the wintertime?
Final Thoughts: Control Equals Income
You can keep control by tailoring the pace of the presentation to match the customer. Are they a driver/to the point customer and you are taking your sweet time with a bunch of small talk? Are they a sociable person and you are talking a mile a minute about just the facts with no bonding at all.
A key point to remember is that sometimes you have to give control to get control. The fact is that when I give them control means I am still in control. For example, sometimes you go in the home and the customer start taking control in a wild way. You know...let me tell you what I want…I want to do this and then this ..and I don’t want to go through a sales presentation.
Instead of fighting them immediately I may give them control to let them go on and get it out of their system then when they take a breathe I say “wow you have a lot of good ideas and know what you want so this should make my job easier. Now if you don’t mind along with what you’ve just told me can I ask you some other questions so I can do this even faster and don’t waste your time telling you about things you don’t want to hear?’ Then I get back to the next step which in most presentations after the warmup should be your needs analysis and I’m back into the sequence of what I normally do. You have to have your system locked in so if you do give them control by breaking sequence for a bit that you know where you are to bring them back to where you should be. If you don’t then sometimes it goes too far, and you are lost. For example you give them control when they ask you a question about your company in the warm up and maybe not to be rude you may answer it but if it starts to go further and they ask you more questions you need to be able to take the control back and say “that’s another good question but if you don’t mind let me finish up finding out what your needs are and then I will tell you all about our company okay?” Otherwise, you end up giving your company story out of sequence.
If you learn to keep control in your sales call then you control your income as well.
If this topic helps you don’t forget more free training listed on this website and check the out the post on How To Sell To Different Personalities or the category list on Closing .
Happy Selling!
