Soft Skills Every Sales Arborist Needs

Written by Eric Petersen, CIC

Recently I was reading an article in an insurance magazine written by Kellie Lail (IA Magazine May 2025) that struck deep within me when thinking about sales arborists. All too often trees care companies move veteran arborists into the sales role simply because they’ve been with the company the longest or they understand how long it takes to complete the jobs. Management rarely assesses the individual for their people or sales skills. And worse yet, there are few tree care companies that actually have a plan to develop their sales people, which is why this article stood out to me. 

In the article, the author outlines six crucial soft skills that sales people need to possess to be successful. When reading through these six skills, think about how solid your current sales team is at each and what ways you could support growth in each area.  

1. Active Listening – This is number one for a reason. As professionals, every time a sales arborist goes on a sales call, they probably have predetermined what needs to be done before the customer even opens up their mouth. Seasoned sales arborists likely have created the whole plan in their heads while walking up the driveway to talk to the customer. Obviously experience is a huge benefit to the customer but the sales arborist must be able to actually listen to the customer and not make assumptions on what they want/need. Ask probing questions to try and get at the real reason for the call. For tips on how to dig deeper on a sales call, check out this article. 

2. Empathy – Let’s face it, most of the calls you receive from customers and potential customers revolve around an “issue” they are having with their trees. It may be a real issue for the health of the tree or present a risk to property damage, but sometimes the issue they call about is an easy fix. Regardless of what the issue is, a successful sales arborist will have the ability to empathize with their customer and talk on the emotional level with them. Showing empathy helps the customer feel heard and builds trust immediately between parties. We know people don’t buy services from people they don’t trust so use empathy in the beginning of your sales call to start on the right foot. 

3. Effective Communication – Providing top notch care can be a bit nuanced at times and your customers don’t always understand why you need to do the job the way you need to, so being able to effectively communicate with the customer is vital. Remember they called you to fix an issue for them that they’ve never had before or do not know how to fix it. Being able to directly explain what, when and how your team will resolve their issue is paramount to closing the sale. Effective communication doesn’t stop with the sales call, it must continue throughout the entire customer journey. For more on how to improve the entire customer journey, check out this article.  

4. Problem Solving – certainly being able to diagnose the issue and offer proper recommendations is one of the key skills of sales arborists and probably where most shine. But as we know, many projects have things that come up while the work is being done. The more the sales arborist can discuss potential problems and prepare both the customer  and their team with solutions, the smoother the sales process and better  experience for everyone involved. 

5. Adaptability and Emotional Resilience – A  true sales professional understands that they will be challenged on their proposals from time to time and certainly will hear the word “no” from potential customers. Sometimes it feels like that’s all the sales arborist hears during the day, but it is how they respond to those challenges that defines whether or not they will be successful. Every time a job is lost or a proposal is challenged, the sales arborist needs to have the internal resilience to learn from the experience and move onto the next one. If they are open to learning and growing from missed sales or mistakes they will out perform their sales goals faster than you would imagine. 

6. Attention to Detail – Lastly, it is very important to pay attention to the details when selling tree work. Especially if the sales arborist will not be at the jobsite when the work is being done. Specific notes about the property and work zone, the customer themselves, the neighbors, other trees, etc. should all be clearly detailed so the crew that shows up can fulfill the contract as efficiently as possible. 

How is your sales team with these six soft skills? Hopefully this article either confirms that your sales people have what it takes to be successful or has identified areas that you can help improve to better your whole team. If you’re struggling with training your sales team, reach out to an ArboRisk team member to get started with our Sales and Marketing Thrive Package.