Earning the Sale
27 November, 2013
Posted by John Niewiecki
Earning the Sale: Fire, Water, Smoke Damage Restoration Sales Done Right
This page is part of the Fire Restoration leads' business development series for restoration companies.
Anyone who has been in any type of sales knows there are always bad actors in their field. The fire restoration industry is no different. At FireRestorationLeads.com, we work with restoration companies which have the highest of integrity. These companies are willing to make the investment into the “Cadillac” of fire, water, and smoke damage lead generation because they have a long-term vision of their business that includes community relationship building, and doing the right thing for their customers all the time. But in order to do this, one must respond quickly to the events occurring in their service territory to start the process of recovery as soon as possible for the people affected.
In a previous article, we spoke about “Fire victim care package must have items: Earn business with a big heart” in which we explored what people will need when their life has been severely interrupted by a loss of their home or business. Here, we would like to explore the rest of the sale, and how a well-intended salesperson can become the client’s worst nightmare . . . something that could truly damage the brand of a restoration company even when there is no ill will intended.
Know Your Customer
FireRestorationLeads.com provides real-time information about structure damage events nearly everywhere in the world. We can send an alert via text literally withing seconds of the call to the fire department indicating a need for restoration services. Our clients are able to not only quickly and easily find the address of the event, but equally important, the extent of the damage and its effect on the owners.
This is an extremely valuable piece of information for any restoration company seeking to help a family in need as soon as possible while also adding potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to their bottom line in a matter of weeks. But to close the sale right and do the right thing for the client while also protecting the brand equity the owners built, likely over years, more information is needed.
The approach to a person or family amid a loss of their home or business needs to be done understanding the full picture:
- Has everyone escaped safely?
- If not, should a salesmen get involved at all?
- Has anyone been injured?
- Has a pet been lost?
These factors are more than just a business decision, they are an ethical question that must be answered by the salesman and the leadership of the company.
Bad actors in the restoration industry oftentimes do not approach the victim necessarily to scam them, although a small minority do. Others are simply not well informed. When a pager network or a person listening to a scanner sends a group text to anyone willing to pay them tens of dollars a month for leads, they often must listen to dozens, even hundreds of channels to capture a small percentage of opportunities. Yet a scanner radio can only receive one transmission at a time, so these fire lead companies miss any other content that may be broadcast at the time they are capturing the address of the fire event. If there is a loss of a pet, or heaven forbid a family member, this information isn’t part and parcel of their efforts. So, far more often than not, this information is not captured or bother to be pushed to their clients.
Realtime Information is the Key
FireRestorationLeads.com offers real time information as thatit happens on the ground. So as a member of a fire restoration company proceeds towards a potential opportunity, they can listen to events unfold as they happen. This allows for a full understanding of the potential client’s disposition so the salesperson can approach the situation, or not approach the situation, informed.
This is the key element; some providers offer technology that ensures that simultaneous transmissions will be captured, indexed, recorded, and broadcast to a user's internet-connected device, such as a cell phone. In other words, two, three, four, or even more conversations are being captured even when they are happening at the same time. A person listening to a single radio could never do this.
By understanding the full picture of a potential client affected by a fire or any structure damage loss will not only earn a restoration company the business, but it will also preserve the extremely valuable brand that will always benefit a company’s long-term viability in the market.