Video Transcript:
In this video I want to go through the ways we find our clients are best at converting landscaping enquiries into sales — some of the tricks and techniques, if you like, that our most successful clients are using. First of all, it’s worth understanding the steps to making a sale.
The six steps from landscaping enquiry to sale
There are really six parts to it, and this is from the point of view of a homeowner. There’s the thinking period before they make contact, making an enquiry through the website, the first contact they have with you, the site visit, the quote, and the follow-up. I’ll go through each of these steps in a bit more detail.
This is really the process between wanting to have the garden or the driveway redone and actually going through getting a visit, getting a quote, and the follow-up that persuades them to say yes.
Who makes a landscaping enquiry?
For most of our clients, the ideal customer is probably in their 40s to 60s, mainly because a lot of our clients target higher value, more profitable work. They’re not looking to be the cheapest; they’re looking to have a good profit margin in everything they do. They’re a homeowner, relatively wealthy, and typically fairly cautious in how they spend their money — partly because they’re a bit wealthier, partly because of their age.
We also find that landscaping enquiries are generally about 60% female-led. The first enquiry tends to come in from a lady, whether married, with a partner, or living together. There’s a bit of a trend there in terms of the initial enquiry, and it’s fairly typical of most of the companies we work with.
What conversion rate should you expect?
In terms of turning an enquiry into a customer — or really turning a site visit and quote into a customer — the ideal we find is about one in three, roughly 30 to 35% of quotes turning into actual customers.
If the conversion is a bit low, typically one out of five, it’s often a case of either seeing the wrong people, seeing people who are never going to go ahead because they don’t have the budget, or not following up the sale properly. If the conversion is too good — more than one in two going ahead — that’s generally because of overqualification, checking on the phone that they can afford it and how much they have to spend, rather than using any persuasion when visiting them. Or it’s because the prices are too low, so they’re winning the work by quoting too cheaply.
So with our clients, the goal is around one in three quotes turning into work, and then things are generally about right. It takes time and effort to reach that ideal conversion, and there are lots of factors involved, but that’s what we target with them.
Step one: the thinking period
Let’s go through the actual process between making an enquiry and becoming a customer.
First of all, for most people there’s a thinking period — the time before they make an enquiry. With most, if not all, landscaping projects, there’s a want to do something, not a need. If the garden doesn’t get redone this year, or the patio doesn’t get relaid, it’s not the end of the world. If there’s a plumbing problem and the kitchen’s flooded, that’s a need — you have to fix it as quickly as possible. The garden, though, is more of a want. It’s very much a desire-based purchase for most people. They want a lovely garden, a patio area, an outdoor kitchen, whatever it is.
They also need to persuade themselves that it isn’t just something they want and desire, but something they actually need: if we don’t get a lovely garden, our quality of life won’t be as good, we won’t be able to have those family barbecues and have friends over, and so on.
During this thinking period, which often goes on for months or years, particularly for larger projects, there will be multiple touches with you without you realising. They’ll come onto the website several times, look at your social media, look at your past projects, and check your reviews. They’re finding out about you. So they need to come across you multiple times, in multiple ways, and always get a strong, positive impression of your company — what you do and how you work. As I said, it’s often a couple of years that someone is thinking about having their garden done before they get in touch with that initial enquiry.
Step two: the enquiry
Looking at the enquiry itself from the customer’s perspective, there’s a lot going on in their mind. There’s fear — a fear of making the enquiry, a fear of contacting a company they don’t know at all. There are worries about wasting money: we might get ripped off, we might spend a lot and not get what we want, we could use the money for something else instead, like a holiday or a new car. All these fears and worries go through their heads before they make that initial enquiry.
There are disreputable, dishonest companies around, so there’s the worry of picking one of those and getting ripped off — having some walls put in and the walls falling over, that sort of thing. There are bad people in this industry, as in any industry, and a lot of people have a natural fear of contacting a stranger. So there’s a lot a homeowner has to overcome before they pick up the phone, fill in a contact form, or send you an email. They have to get over all of this, after a year or two of thinking about it, just to make that first enquiry.
Step three: the first contact
The first contact with you is really one of four ways: they phone you, they fill in a contact form, they message you by email or text, or they speak to you in person — you’re working at one of the neighbours’ and they walk up and say, “Hello, we’re just down the road and we’re looking at getting our garden done.”
They’ll make that first contact at the point where they’re most excited about doing something. They’ve thought about it for a while, overcome all the fears and worries, and now they’re at the point of maximum excitement about transforming their garden. That’s when they get in touch.
So it’s very important to respond as fast as possible after they’ve filled in a contact form, partly so they don’t have time to contact anybody else. People will often contact multiple companies — they send a contact form, no one replies, so they fill in another for a different company, and they reach out to several. That fast response is key. If they phone and it goes to answerphone, call them back quickly. If they fill in a contact form or message by email, phone is definitely the best response — get them talking as quickly as possible. If you reply by email you’ve lost some of that impetus, and there’s a danger the email ends up in a spam folder rather than being read.
That first bit of contact is also about getting some kind of commitment as to what happens next. That commitment might be that they’ll send you some photos, or that you’ll go out and visit them. It could be something else, but get a commitment to a next step as early as possible, because from the homeowner’s perspective, once they’ve made a decision they can forget about it and leave it until the next thing happens. They’ve made a decision to get in touch; then, when you’ve contacted them back, they make another decision — “when I get home from work I’ll take some photos,” or “you’re coming to visit next Tuesday and we’ll look at the garden together and I’ll tell you what I’m looking for.” Once they’ve made that decision, they stop thinking about it, stop contacting others and searching on Google for alternatives. They’re happy because they’ve taken that first step, and now it’s a case of seeing what happens next.
Step four: the site visit
The site visit itself is obviously key — it’s your chance to make a very strong face-to-face impression.
Phoning before you go is well worth it, and we recommend it to all clients: confirm on the phone before turning up so you know they’re definitely there and you don’t waste the journey. It also overcomes any last worries they have about meeting a stranger. A pleasant phone call — “Hi Fred, I’m just about to leave, I’ll be with you in half an hour, looking forward to seeing you and hearing what you’re looking for” — makes a real difference.
Confirm all the decision makers will be there. The worst thing is to turn up and find the husband, the wife, or whoever it is isn’t there and you’re talking to one person. You need everyone involved in the decision present so you’re getting the right information. Often the person missing is the one least interested in doing something — and they’re the one you most need to see, so getting them to the meeting is important.
Arrive on time. If you make an appointment for one o’clock and turn up at half past, it’s a negative first impression — they’ve set time aside to see you and you’ve turned up late. It plants a feeling that other things won’t be so good either, that you’ll turn up late for the work itself.
Take the approach of a consultant, not a salesperson. You’re there in an advisory role, on their side, talking to them about the garden and what they want to do with it — they’d like the barbecue over there and a seating area down the end — and advising them on the best way to do it based on your extensive experience doing this for other people. You’re consulting with them, not trying to persuade them to “use us for your patio.” It’s more, “we can work together and get the best outcome for you,” and part of that is that you’ll do all the work for them too.
Having samples, either on the initial site visit or a subsequent one when you go back through the proposal in detail, is key, because you want to get the other senses involved. You want people touching and feeling the materials, seeing what they look like, and starting to imagine them in their garden — that porcelain paving, those bricks, whatever it is. They’ve got their fingers on it, they’re touching it, and they’re visualising it.
A key question is the money one. We always recommend steering clear of “what’s your budget?” It’s a horrible question, too focused on how much money you’ve got and what you’re looking to spend. People will often go low on it — they’ll think, “well, if I say my budget’s £40,000, the quote will be £39,995.” So they’ll go in low.
If you reframe it as an investment question, it changes the way they think. It’s not money we’re spending, it’s money we’re investing — it’s going to increase the value of our home. This comes back to the earlier point of moving them from a want to a need, and getting them to justify it to themselves: as well as making their home better for them, their family and friends, it’s also going to increase the value of the house, so if they do decide to move in future it’ll be worth more. It’s not just an expense or a cost, it’s an investment in their family’s wealth and their home’s value. So asking “how much are you looking to invest?” changes the framing. People will still go in a bit low, but it shifts things in their mind.
Step five: the quote
Once you’ve done the site visit, the next step is the quote — and everyone does this differently. With some of our clients the initial quote is for the design, so they sell the design and then sell the build afterwards. Others bring people into a showroom and go through it there before the site visit. There are lots of ways of doing it, but broadly the site visit — looking at what they need, getting an understanding, measuring up — is the first step, and producing a quote is the second.
It’s worth remembering that after the visit they’re at peak excitement. You’ve been talking to them about ideas, and they’ve been telling you all the dreams they have for the garden and how they’re going to use it. The important thing here is not to write the price down on the spot. If I stand there and put down a figure of £25,000, as a homeowner I’m thinking it says £25,000 but it might really be £21,000 — I can probably get that price down a bit, because it’s just a top-of-the-head number. By going away and sending it through, you give the impression that you’ve thought it through, worked out all the prices, added up how many paving slabs, bricks, and materials are needed, and given them a very carefully considered price.
With the quote, we often recommend going one step further and making it a precise number rather than a round one — so not £25,000 but £24,737, something like that. An exact figure gives the impression that you’ve worked out every single detail to arrive at that final sum.
Send the quote within seven days, really as soon as possible. It doesn’t have to be within 24 hours, because people don’t expect that, but longer than seven days and they start losing the initial excitement and wondering what’s happened to it — maybe they should get another quote to compare. Within seven days is very effective.
It’s also well worth telling them when the quote will arrive: “I’m going to go back, work on the quote over the next couple of days, and send it to you on Tuesday or Wednesday.” Then make sure it’s a timeframe you can manage, and meet it. That gives them confidence that the next step is going to happen — the same as at the initial enquiry stage. Giving them a next action, whether that’s booking the next visit or them sending photos along with the quote, means they’re not left thinking, “I don’t know what happens next, I’ll sit here for a few days, get a bit bored, and start searching online for other landscaping companies and other ideas.” If they know the process is underway, that you’ve got it under control and you’ll be back to them by 5pm on Tuesday with the quote, they can forget about it and get on with other things in their life.
Step six: the follow-up
The last part is the follow-up. You’ve visited them and sent them a quote, and now all they have is a piece of paper with a large sum of money at the bottom, trying to decide what to do.
It’s really a six-week deciding period, and during that time you’re no longer there and the excitement is starting to wear off. They’ve gone from the dreams of a patio, paving down the bottom, and a little seating area, to a quote with £50,000 or whatever it is on it. That’s a lot of money — what else could we spend it on? An extension, a new car, holidays, all sorts of things. Generally, of the two partners involved, one will be keener to go ahead than the other; the keener one is trying to persuade the other that they should do it, and the less keen one is trying to persuade them to spend the money on something else. There’s an awful lot going on.
During that period — often about six weeks, though for some people it’s less because they’ve already decided and roughly know the cost — the follow-up is key. You need to keep giving them reasons to go ahead, and things to help them make a decision: useful information, examples of other projects you’ve worked on that they could draw ideas from, reviews telling them you’re reliable and a good supplier, samples you can send out physically, and more about your company and your team. There are lots of ways to provide this information.
At the same time, have multiple contacts with them. Over a six-week period it’s quite easy to have five, six, seven, or eight interactions to keep moving them towards a decision.
What you need to avoid is the repeated calls and texts saying “do you want to go ahead?” There’s nothing worse — and I’m speaking as a homeowner who has bought an expensive garden and been through this whole process. There’s nothing worse than someone who keeps phoning and texting asking “have you made up your mind, do you want to go ahead?” The answer is, “I’ll decide and I’ll let you know.” There’s no value in that message. There is value in samples being sent out, links to other projects, photos of gardens, ideas and inspiration, more about your company and team, and reviews other people have left. All of that helps me, as a homeowner, make up my mind whether to go ahead — and whether to go ahead with you or with somebody else.
Bringing it all together
So those are the six steps to getting someone to make a decision, and ideally the right one. It’s worth understanding them all at a high level.
The thinking period is often one or two years or longer, because this is a want and a desire, not a need. We don’t need the patio done; we’d love to have it done. The initial enquiry comes at the end of this long thinking period, after overcoming all that fear. A lot has gone into it, so it’s worth asking why they’ve made the enquiry this week rather than in three or six months’ time — something has probably happened that’s spurred them on to get in touch. That first contact needs to be as soon as possible after the enquiry, to catch them while they’re in that state of excitement and enthusiasm about the project.
The site visit is your chance to give a really good first impression of your business — the physical meeting, your interest, your ideas about what they could do, showing them samples and examples of other gardens.
The quote is clearly a big negative, because we’ve gone from all the excitement to “this is how much it’s going to cost.” The majority of our clients do expensive, higher-end projects and are never going to be the cheapest quote, so if someone gets two or three quotes, they’ll be the most expensive of them — because they’re doing the best job, with the best materials, and keeping a good profit margin. Once that quote lands, all the “what else could we spend the money on” thoughts and the fears and worries come back.
That’s why the follow-up is key, during the four, five, or six weeks someone is thinking about it. You’re no longer with them physically as you were on the site visit, so it’s about giving them reasons to say yes without asking “what do you think, yes or no?” Instead, give them other things to consider: here are some projects, here are our reviews, here are some samples — reasons that help persuade them to say yes while they’re thinking about it.
The goal here is to go from maybe one in five people saying yes — or even less for some of the companies we start working with — to about one in three. Ideally, one in three quotes turns into work. As I said, if it becomes one in two, chances are you’re either a bit cheap on pricing or you’re overqualifying and only seeing people who are definitely going to go ahead. You need to see some who aren’t certainties and persuade them, using your experience, your ideas, your inspiration, and what can be done with their garden, to show them you’re the right company to go with.
I hope that’s useful — there’s an awful lot to it. Most of the companies we work with were started by someone who began as a landscaper, was very good at it, and slowly grew, hiring more people and becoming more of a marketing and salesperson over time. So a lot of these things don’t come naturally. It’s about viewing the process through the eyes of your ideal customer: what are they thinking and feeling, what are they looking for, and meeting them with the way you approach it — not in a pushy, salesy way, but in a consultative, advisory way that helps them get to what they want, whether that’s the dream garden, the wonderful life, or whatever it may be.
