Effective Sales Training for Tree Care Companies

by | Jun 29, 2020 | Business Strategy | 0 comments

Effective Sales Training for Tree Care Companies

A strong, knowledgeable sales team is one of the most important tools to help tree care companies stay ahead of the game. Improving your sales team and selling more effectively is a significant key to your company’s growth.

While you may say that estimating and sales are the same job, they are not. Estimating is looking at the job and computing how much the tree removal, pruning, PHC, and etc. should be. Sales is finalizing the sale, getting the customer to say yes to the treatment, pruning or removal plan because the ultimate goal is enticing the customer to say yes!

A well-trained salesperson can easily influence a potential customer. With the right negotiation tactics along with arboricultural knowledge, pricing and presentation, the salesperson is ready to go and this can make all the difference. Hence, sales training is a critical factor in the world of sales. Here are five reasons why you should invest in a good sales training program:

Customer loyalty: Sales training improves the person-to-person connection which is required to gain loyal customers. According to a recent study, 71% of people base their buying decisions on trust and credibility. It is crucial that salespeople thoroughly understand their customers’ wants and needs and at the same time efficiently communicate the benefits of the services your company offers. Therefore, focus on sales training that will enable your staff to have better interaction with customers.

Improved Communication: Salespeople must make sure that customers understand the services offered. This is mainly possible through effective communication skills. Excellent communicators with fantastic people skills are an asset to any organization.

Brand Image: Salespeople are the face of every company. Being the face of your company, what the salesperson says, and how they say and do certain things create an impression in the mind of the customer. Good sales training will teach sales professionals about behavioral and attitudinal changes to leave a long-lasting impression on the minds of the customer and build a better brand for your company. Make sure your salespeople understand and reflect your company’s core values.

Overcoming objections: We must not forget that sales involve objections. Sales training can teach salespeople how to anticipate objections as well as techniques for overcoming them.
Up-selling: Good sales training can teach the salesperson when to recognize and recommend additional services for the customer.

In your company, you may have an excellent estimator. That person may be spot on – including everything in your estimate that you must get paid for, but that person cannot sell a pair of shoes to a barefoot person. On the other hand, you may have a salesperson that is fabulous – they can sell four pairs of shoes to a person with a hundred pairs of shoes, but they cannot estimate properly – forgetting to add in clean up or stump grinding, etc. Reinvent the wheel! Make those two people a team. It takes talent for both selling and estimating, and the goal is to GET THE JOB! Never forget that sales is an integral part of your team. Without a good sales person, you do not have a team.

Keep in mind that salespeople are a direct reflection of your company. Good sales training is vital to the success of your sales team. Your salespersons must be skilled in both industry knowledge and people skills. It is important for them to be authentic in establishing credibility. This will help them gain relevant information about the buyer’s objectives, provide a useful proposal, and, hopefully, create customer loyalty.

There are general sales training opportunities out there such as Dale Carnegie, but ArboRisk has a light training opportunity with the ArboRisk Thrive Program which is geared more for the arborist. In the future, Streamside Green/Victorian Gardens will be offering in-depth sales and estimating webinars geared for the Arborist. The training will be separate webinars, one on sales and a separate webinar on estimating. Click here to receive email updates on upcoming Streamside Green/Victorian Gardens webinars for arborists.

Written by: Margaret Hebert

Written by: Dawn Thierbach

COVID-19 and the Risk Management Process

by | Jun 8, 2020 | Risk Management | 0 comments

covid-19 and the risk management process

As an employer, risk management should be one of your top priorities. Simply put, risk management is the conscious handling of exposures that a business faces. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, tree care owners have been addressing a new risk to their business, viral infection, and using risk management techniques to minimize the impact upon their business. The purpose of this article is to help you understand how you can utilize the risk management process to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19 to both your employees and your customers. If you are fortunate enough to have participated in the ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification training, you should be familiar with the Risk Assessment Matrix. You likely use this tool in your daily work as an arborist to evaluate risks associated with trees. Here is how the same risk assessment methodology can be used to manage the risks to your business.

Risk Identification

Let’s start by considering how COVID-19 could impact our business operations. Obviously there are many ways COVID-19 could be transmitted, but we encourage everyone to begin to identify the potential hazards and interactions that increase chances throughout your operation. In fact, OSHA requires employers to assess hazards in which an employee may be exposed. The CDC also has a hazard identification assessment that may be helpful found here. Here are four common risk identification areas to start with:

1) Employee contracts the virus, and comes to work even though they aren’t feeling well.
2) Employee is asymptomatic and comes to work not knowing they are carrying the virus.
3) Employee interacts with customer, who is carrying the virus.
4) Virus is transferred from a surface area.

Risk Measurement
The likelihood and severity of COVID-19 impacting your business is not easily defined, but very important to study. You should have an idea of roughly how much revenue you’re generating per day and be able to calculate the consequence of an infection within your company.

In some states, like Colorado, there are mandatory shutdowns that are being required for businesses that have an infection outbreak. Per Colorado’s CDHPE’s Workplace Outbreak Guidance: preventing, reporting, and mitigating outbreaks are necessary if you experience the following:
One case of infection – the affected areas are to be closed for 72 hours and disinfected
Two cases of infection in 30 days – entire facility disinfected and closed of 72 hours.
Three cases in 30 days – entire facility disinfected and closed for 14 days.

Think about the impact these mandatory shutdowns could have and use these numbers to express to your employees how serious you are about safe workplace practices. Also, consider if you could lose jobs after notifying customers you aren’t able to operate due to a COVID-19 shutdown?

Risk Mitigation

Mitigating the risk comes with two trains of thoughts.
1. How to we prevent it from happening originally?
2. If it does happen, what do we do to control it?
Using an example of having two employees in the same truck driving to the jobsite, I’m sure you can come up with some pretty simple ways to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19. Many tree care companies have moved towards having employees drive their own vehicle to avoid multiple employees in one truck cab. Simple adjustments, similar to wearing a mask when within 6 feet of another employee, can make a huge difference in stopping the spread prior to an outbreak.

Masks can lower the risk of COVID-19 infection to you, your employees, and your customers. Masks and or face coverings used at the appropriate times in conjunction with proper hygiene and social distancing can greatly mitigate much of this risk. Research shows that people who have no symptoms can spread COVID-19, so wearing a non-medical face mask or face covering helps minimize the spread of the virus.

Your company should also have a response plan in place, detailing the actions necessary for limiting transmission if an employee does test positive for COVID-19. You’ll need to know who the employee has interacted with, which area they’ve been active in, and what equipment they’ve used at the very least. Note that other employees may have to quarantine as well if they’ve been in close contact, and again consider the impact that could have on your business.

Review and Monitoring

At this point, you’ve already done a lot of the leg work. Review the effectiveness of your program and make sure you update your response program as we learn more about the virus. Moving forward, you’ll be ready if there is another wave and will not have to rely on emergency measures for similar situations.
The ArboRisk team has been very active in helping tree services with proper risk management during this time. Reach out to ArboRisk today to get help directly or visit TCIA’s COVID-19 webpage for additional guidance on policy development that is provided specific to tree care Once developed communicate the policies to all that are exposed to these risks.

And remember, the risk management process can and should be used for more than just COVID-19!

Sources(Image):
https://www.comindwork.com/weekly/2018-10-29/productivity/risk-management-process

Written by: Malcolm Jeffris, CTSP

Hiring During Times of High Unemployment

by | May 22, 2020 | Employee Management | 0 comments

Hiring during high times of unemployment

Hopefully, like me, many of you are trying to find the positives during this on-going pandemic. One of the positives is with the record high number of unemployed people, your recruiting efforts may have gotten a lot easier. I know that may seem counter-intuitive, however, the longer this pandemic carries on, the more willing people will be to search out a career change. If your tree service is like many that I’ve talked to in the last two months and continuing to thrive, now could be a great time to get new employees.

That said, times of high unemployment does not necessarily mean that hiring will be easier. With so many people out of work, you will be getting more applicants for an open position that you have, many of which will not be qualified to do the work. Sorting through the additional applications will obviously add extra cost to the hiring process, so if you haven’t established a hiring procedure within your tree care company, now is the time to do it.

Job Descriptions – Putting together a solid hiring process starts with having written job descriptions for every position within the company. There are many different places that you can find job description templates to get you started. Use the template and customize them to your organization.

Career Path – Once you have the job descriptions done, create a logical path that an employee could progress within your company. Make this a visual document that is easy to understand and read. We have an entire article here on career paths.

Paperwork – What forms and paperwork do you need to bring a new employee onto your team? What background checks require a signature from the prospective employee. How will you accept applications? These are all questions you need answer and prepare yourself for before opening up a position.

Interview Process – How will you be handling interviews, via phone, Zoom, in-person? There are a lot of different ways you can set up your interview process, the main concern however, is that you follow the same process. You do not want one candidate to get a perceived advantage or disadvantage because you had a variable interview process. For more ideas on the interview process read our article here.

Who Do You Want – Especially with the potential to receive many more applications than before you need to be laser focused on who you want as an employee. This could be personality characteristics, physical qualities, tree care experience, etc. Hone in on what that perfect team member will look like within your organization and write this down.

Having the right employees on your team is one of the fundamental building blocks of a tree service’s risk management program. That’s why we have been helping tree services with their hiring and recruiting efforts for years now. If you would like any more help on your hiring and recruiting efforts, reach out to an ArboRisk team member today.

Written by: Eric Petersen

Better Relationships = Better Recruiting

by | Dec 10, 2019 | Employee Management | 0 comments

Better Relationships = Better Recruiting

Recruiting new employees to your company is typically one of the hardest parts about owning a tree care company. There are so many creative ideas to recruit new employees that one article can not simply cover them all so I want to just focus on one very powerful way; organizations.

What I mean by organizations, are the membership based groups that are well established and have a mission to help their members. Your local ISA chapter, a military veteran organization, a local chamber of commerce are all examples of established organizations whose goal is to serve their members.

Recruiting within organizations does not happen immediately, but when done correctly, will create a long pipeline of future employees for your company. To be successful, you need to create a positive relationship between your company and the organization. Volunteering your time and talents for the organization is the quickest way to provide value and begin to create a great relationship that will turn into a recruiting hot spot for you.

Now with so many great organizations out there, how do you choose which one to invest in to see the best results? Below are the four areas that you should look at when assessing each organization that you are contemplating working with.

– Members – You need to get a feel of what their membership demographic consists of. How many total members are there? What are the ages of the members? Does the organization know what the positions or titles of their members are? All of these questions will help you understand if your ideal employee is a part of this organization or not.

– Events – The best way to meet a potential new hire is in person. So ask the organizations what they have for events. Are there any Job Fairs or specific hiring events? If so, how many potential employees come to them? How about informal networking events? What about any multi-day conferences?

– Marketing – Learn how the organization communicates with its members. Gain an understanding by simply asking the organization if they send out a newsletter or email blast? Would you be able to write an article within their newsletter so prospective employees begin to see your name? Are there any sponsorship or advertising opportunities that you could engage in? The more your personal name and business name get promoted by the organization, the better reputation and more likely it is that new employees will come to you for their next job.

– Leadership – Understanding who the centers of influence are within each organization is a critical task to choosing which organization to partner with. This isn’t necessarily apparent from looking at an organization’s website, so you’ll have to do some digging to find this out. Is there an Executive Director who is a full time position? If so, get to know them personally. Are there long-standing Board members or very influential members who provide advice and direction for the organization? Who is in charge of the events? Each of these questions will help identify who are the movers and shakers within the organization and are the ones you need to connect with to get in front of more new hires.

Learning about these four areas for each organization will help determine which one you should focus on for recruiting efforts. As you know, a solid recruiting plan takes effort to build deep relationships, so do not try to get involved with too many organizations.

If you would like more help with Hiring & Recruiting for your tree care company, please contact ArboRisk today!

Written by: Eric Petersen

4 Tips to Minimize Credit Card Risk

by | Dec 3, 2019 | Risk Management | 0 comments

4 Tips to Minimize Credit Card Risk

Credit card fraud is everywhere and it’s scary, especially for tree services!

Just this past week, an underground website called Jokers Stash claimed to have 4 million credit card numbers for sale taken from fast food chains and that is just the most recent example.

Because most tree services accept credit cards in some manner, I consulted with Spencer Shimon of Heartland Payment Systems, the nation’s 5th largest payment card processor, to learn how tree care companies can minimize their credit card risk.

The first thing Spencer mentioned was that the lowest risk transaction will always be one that done in person by you or your team; via Swipe, EMV (Chip Card), or Contactless (entering directly into a web portal). When doing this you do not keep any of the information as the service is paid for right away.

If you ever write down credit card information, whether taking the payment over the phone or asking for the payment information online, you are subjecting your company to a much higher risk level, ultimately risking higher processing rates.

That said, Spencer’s four tips to reduce your risk are:

Mobile Card Reader – Get a mobile card reader and encourage your team to take payments out in the field. This way, no credit card information is written down or stored by your company and will help ensure you’re being PCI compliant. If you do have to write the credit card number down, you must shred that document immediately after use. It should also help you get payment faster!
Proper Information – Make sure you get as much information as possible when taking a payment over the phone. If you’re only getting the Card Number, CVV, and Expiration, then you’re missing very important consumer verification information. Always get the Zip Code and billing address to go along with the credit card info to ensure your customer is using their credit card.
Verify – Make sure you have a system that’s designed to catch user errors. Mistakes happen, and people give the wrong information and sometimes enter the wrong information. Understand the credit card processing fees that your business is being charged is based on your level of risk. Catching those mismatches will help in paying less fees over time.
Documentation – Keep good documentation on what services were agreed upon and what is being paid for with the credit card. If your gut tells you that something is fishy about the way the customer wants to pay for the services, ask more questions and get everything in writing. You don’t want to have a customer paying for your services with a stolen card.
If you or anyone on your team is interested in finding out how to make sure you are PCI compliant, or interested in reducing your overall risk for processing credit cards, please reach out to a Thrive member today!.

Spencer Shimon is a Relationship Manager for Heartland Payment Systems, the 5th largest processor in the United States. They deliver credit/debit/prepaid card processing, mobile commerce, e-commerce, marketing solutions, security technology, payroll solutions, and related business solutions and services to more than 400,000 business and educational locations nationwide.

https://www.merchantbillofrights.org/

Written by: Malcolm Jeffris, CTSP