New To Home Improvement Sales
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How I Found Success in Home Improvement Commission Sales
Nobody Plans to Be in This Business—But I’m Glad I Am
I think that selling home improvements is the one job that nobody who does it ever planned to do it. I don’t think anybody growing up ever said I can’t wait to be a home improvement salesperson. I thought they would be in the NBA, a rock star, an internet guru maybe… but definitely not selling home improvements. I went to the University of California at Berkeley thinking I would be a doctor but 35 years and 16,000 home later I am so glad I didn’t because I love this industry and the life it gave me. I ..like I think a lot of people got into sales because I fell for the “easy money without doing any work trap” but once I found out what it was really about, I loved the work and the income. I learned quickly that you can’t make money without hard work but in this industry, it’s worth it. If you really want to know I believe the reality is that most people who start in this business got into it because either they screwed up somewhere else or got screwed by where they worked before or they wouldn’t even be trying this.
4 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started Selling
Here are the 4 things I wished I had known when I first started selling in this business that would have made my journey a lot easier and faster if I knew these things from the start. Please watch until the end to see all four. If you like these type of videos and want more free home improvement sales training please check out my blog listed in the description below and please subscribe so I know I am on the right track.
1. Master the Basics First
The first thing you need to do is get the basics out of the way such as learning everything about the product you are selling including measuring and pricing. Learning the sales presentation your company uses and understanding how to do all of the paperwork and how the financing works. These are just the tools you need to do your job. Most of this requires you to study and memorize some things. These are things you could teach a high school student to do. This is what you could just put on a mp3 and push play to tell your customers. This is not what the real selling and what you get paid for is about. Don’t practice and learn things like this in the customer's home. Learn and practice these things in your home. Study the product so that you really are an expert and won’t have any customers know more about what you are selling than you. The biggest thing they are buying is you and your advice and if you don’t know anything you have nothing to sell. Learn the sales presentation so you don’t have to think about what you are doing to follow the order and convey all of the information. Until you do much of your time and energy is going to be focused on thinking about what you are doing and what to say instead of what you should really be focused on the real selling which is reading and getting rapport with the customer, determining what their specific needs are and then showing your product in a way that solves the problem while keeping control and keeping the customer involved. Then learning to build value and get commitments. Until you do this you can’t and shouldn’t even be focused on the last part which is closing.
2. Learn to Close—But Only After You Can Sell
Once you get that down then you can focus on the 2nd thing to do which is learning how to close. Remember the close won’t work unless they want it so until you get the first part down learning to close won’t mean anything. That’s why in a way there are 2 places to quote “close” them before the price and after the price. If you do a good job of selling them before the price you make them want it and the closing is easier. If you don’t do a good job selling them before the price then the closing is more like you making them do it or the typical high-pressure salesperson. That’s why the close is important but if you had of choice of learning how to sell your product vs learning how to close I would choose learning to sell any day of the week. If they want it you could be a horrible closer and a lot will still buy. The close would probably be something like them saying “Look could we skip all of that and I just write you a check?” But you could be the best closer in the world and if they don’t want it the close won’t work.
When you are learning how to close the best way to do it is to practice with your peers. It’s too costly and inefficient to practice this in the home. You can be in the home for 2 hours and lose a deal by saying one wrong thing in the close. Think what’s involved in practicing how to deal with I want to think about it just one time. Driving home sitting there for 2 hours and then for a couple of minutes you get to practice and deal with it when you are new. Hours of time to practice it once. Now if you sit down with someone and role play the close you could do it ten times in ½ hour. You need to be ready and prepared to handle the three things you are always going to hear in the close. I need to think about it. It’s too much money and I want to shop around or get 3 estimates. It seems hard at the start but this is what you do for a living. The good part is once you master this it’s like riding a bicycle and you know how to do it for life. It's not a moving target. They always deal with the same thing. It is a specific skill for a specific situation that you only have to learn once. You learn this and you will be gold.
3. Commit to Lifelong Self-Improvement
The third thing I would recommend is to commit yourself to self-improvement. Forever. This may be the third thing on this list but in terms of success, it’s first. The reason you don’t make enough is that you aren’t good enough. The reason you aren’t good enough is that you don’t know enough yet. That’s all. That’s why I love commission sales because it’s the fairest form of pay. You get paid what you are worth. If you perform below average you get paid below average. If you perform average you will get paid average. So If you want to get paid above average you have to perform above average.
The salespeople who sell more than you simply know more than you. They know how to do it better than you. You can get this knowledge two ways by experience or by learning from people who already know how to do it. If you went to 16,000 homes and spent 35 years doing this like me you would probably be better than me. But why would you want to do that and go through the brutality I did if other people who already did can show you how instead?
Every day you are in the car and while doing that you should be learning by listening to podcasts, and books and taking all the training you can get your hands on. When I train new people I always tell them that if they spend 30 minutes a day learning that’s it is impossible for them not to succeed. I have never had anyone tell me I was wrong. Never make the mistake of thinking that you are there. Not wanting to learn more is like saying you don’t want to earn more. One trap in this business is that all new salespeople sell. I see it over and over even if they don’t know what they are doing yet. That’s because in its basic form sales is a transfer of enthusiasm and when you are new and not brutalized yet you are still having fun and don’t know that “these types of people never buy” and “everybody wants to get three estimates” and “everyone elses price is cheaper than yours” blah blah blah. You are still fresh and not jaded like the old timers who justify their lack of performance on anything but themselves. My strategy when I train is that I know the new salesperson will make sales to survive from this initial enthusiasm during the first 90 days but there will come a point when that enthusiasm dies. Then they need to sell on real substance. It’s almost like you get a 90-day grace period before you have to know what you are doing.
That’s why during the first 90 days in the field I always try to reinforce the initial training with much more so they are ready when the initial enthusiasm dies down. People who don’t understand this and start off making sales think they are there are then aren’t ready when real life starts to happen. Sometimes by the time they figure that out they can’t recover in time because working on commission they don’t have the extra time to learn when they should have been working on that the whole time.
Here’s another tip. It’s important especially when you start that you are either making a commission or paying tuition. Every time you don’t make a sale find out what you could have done differently if you meet someone like that again so you could make the sale. That way you are constantly getting stronger. Learn from your mistakes.
4. Commit Fully or Don’t Bother
The fourth and most important thing you can do to be successful is to commit and be prepared to give 100%. This job is not easy. That’s why if you are good it pays so well. There are going to be good days and bad days. You have to make up your mind that you are not going to stop until you succeed. I always like to say “It’s not over until I win”.That’s why I always tell people that if they are thinking ‘well I’ll give it 30 days and if I don’t’ make it by then I do something else” they should turn in their stuff immediately because they will never make it with that attitude. I’m sure you have heard quitters never win and winners never quit. The people who make it are the ones who decide that they are going to make it and think“They are going to have to drag me out of here before I stop.” With an attitude like that and if you put in the dues to learn your product, practice and learn the close and work on yourself every day to get better nothing can stop you and you will succeed. Happy Selling
