Selling
Technician Guidance
Q:
Do you have any guidelines for adding selling technicians to your team?
Technicians tend to sell lower-end products and units rather than systems, so, if you add them to your team, you will need to manage them closely to make sure they don’t negatively affect your average sale and gross profit dollars generated by man-day.
Personally, I prefer to use Comfort Advisors as a sales force and then train and reward technicians to turn over sales leads, but I can understand why a small company would want to leverage its sales force by allowing technicians to sell — even if it’s just during the busy seasons.
If you are thinking about implementing selling technicians, here are some things to consider:
- Technicians may be restricted to sell certain products depending on the company’s policy, so it may be best not to let them sell lower-end product.
- Keep track of your estimates and other metrics (closure rates, average ticket amount, etc.) by having technicians call the office for prices before giving estimates. This way, the estimate can be entered into the lead tracking system, and you can manage open leads when the technician didn’t make the sale.
- Sales training courses, like Service Sales Excellence™ from HVAC Learning Solutions, are great tools for refining your technicians’ sales skills, but make sure to reinforce the training with some one-on-one coaching.
Gary Oetker is the Lennox business coach and is available for on-site and phone coaching with individual dealers. If you wish to ask Gary a question, please send an email to lennoxnews@dcustom.com.