Selling Against Prospects Staying Status Quo

In this episode of Cleaning Processes with Jerry, he discusses the challenge of beating the status quo in the cleaning industry. Whether it's selling chemicals and services or offering cleaning company services, Jerry shares his experiences in trying to win over clients who have been with their current provider for a long time. He provides insights and tips for overcoming this obstacle and expanding your market. Stay tuned for Jerry's contact information and his plans for a future Facebook group.

Different Sites Below
https://direct.me/jerrybauer

Jerry Bauer
Hospitality Cleaning 101
Jerry@hospitalitycleaning101.com

Transcript

Welcome to Cleaning Processes with Jerry.

My podcast is dedicated to building an online community of like-minded individuals and businesses in the chemical and cleaning industry and actually any industry. We're going to share some ideas, some tips, solutions, and tell some stories to hopefully solve problems and even expand our markets. Please join me every other week where infrequently we're gonna have a special guest that just couldn't be you. We are considering starting up a Facebook group soon and would love your opinion. So please send me an email. At the end of the show, I'll give you my contact information. I work for ChemStation of Boston as a Senior Sales Consultant servicing New England. I also have a blog at HospitalityCleaning101. If you ever have questions, feel free to reach out, and I might answer on a future podcast if you like. Again, at the show's end, I will include my contact information. Today, I'm going to be dealing with one of my biggest, I started to say pet peeve, but it's not a pet peeve. It's just a situation that we all have to deal with. And that is where we go and talk to somebody about the status quo. So stay tuned. 

One of my biggest challenges in selling chemicals and services as well as if you work for a cleaning company and you're selling your services, as well as any career, has always been to beat out the status quo. That's when the current company you're calling on and you're trying to offer your services is using a current company that they've been doing business for an extremely long time. They haven't put the business out to bid for you necessarily. Possibly it was through a cold call, an email. They've allowed you to come in, give them some information, allowed to give you some pricing. They're pretty well set in their ways of wanting to stay with what they have. They might be nice enough to look at your pricing, but in the back of their mind, it's going to take more than usual circumstances to get their business. The problem with this is we as salespeople, we have to ask better educated questions to get deeper into what's going on there. Because there's a lot of disadvantages to a company who's just continued to use the same company for 20 years. And we'll be talking about that. It's people don't want to change. You and I don't want to change. We don't want to change certain things within our own lives. Just because somebody has something new and improved, we probably want to stay with what we have. And the way to look at it is, it's the devil you know versus the devil you don't know. You might have heard that expression. The devil, you know, you're comfortable with. Things aren't perfect, but you're comfortable with it. You can live with it. The devil you don't know is the new vendor who's coming in and promising a lot of things. 

I'll use this as an example. Let's say a current company is having a problem with the deliveries. The delivery person that they're using from XYZ company, and you're ABC company, XYZ is using the delivery driver just drops the stuff at the back door and doesn't even bring it in the building. It could be raining it could be snowing he just drops it there is his job drops it there he just goes on. Well, they've been doing business with the company so long they become accustomed to that. They've been able to overcome it may have an employee who brings it in and puts it away properly. It's not the happiest relationship because of this one incidents that they know of they're gonna stay because they quite honestly don't know how well your drivers gonna do. That little situation might not ever come up in the sales presentation, might not ever come up with a resistance, might not even be known. You don't even know about it. So you have to look much deeper than frequently just the person you're talking to. You might be talking to an owner or general manager. During your survey, walking around, it's good to ask everybody what's going on. Do you have any problems, any concerns, deliveries, I'm a day, things like that. Because sometimes the owner and the manager aren't even wearing. I remember once that I was with another chemical salesman and we're walking by and he looked at one of the employees as if he knew him and he had overheard his name and said, Hey, Joe, are you still having problems with the current chemical company? And the guy just. unloads with all of these, you know, we got this problem, this problem, this problem. The gentleman overheard his name and they act like they were, I'm sitting there, odd man, I thought they were old friends. She never knew him no more than I knew him. The gentleman gave him about five or six key things that we could put in the proposal that we could use to get an advantage. There's the devil you don't know. The devil you don't know is we're on the outside looking and we don't know what is their devil. So we're looking for different ways people don't like to change and why changing. They might be missing out on efficiency or the quality of the product. In the last ten years and again your company abc and their company xyz. XYZ might not have changed different things with different formulas my name is the new technology that's coming out new products that have come out new dispensers have come out. You have the newer things they have the older so possibly the customers missing out on that. Think to frequently that we all in sales people just believe it's price i can do it in less money i can do that frequently just gonna stay within the app. Also there's a disadvantage in chemical energy is change so much that some of the older companies that haven't changed they haven't updated. Look around for the SDSs, the wall charts, the different things that, are they getting the training class? Because some of the older companies aren't in tune to that yet. Or their health and environment concerns. Well, at Advantage, who I work for, we have a refillable tank program, and we can address that because we're picking up empty containers, and we're not leaving 55-gallon drums behind. What do you have to do with the look for your advantage environmentally look for your advantage sustainability. Those are the things that people are looking at. People have been doing business with their vendor for twenty years let's be honest sometimes the chemical guys got a little lazy. He's become too well and i've been doing i'm personal friends. You've got to look for what it is that can move the needle, possibly on cost. Are they looking at the cost per gallon or the use cost? Use cost per month, use cost per volume. Emphasize this enough that people frequently still only look at the cost per gallon. I would have thought This would have been going to the wayside but it hasn't possible as i said they missed opportunity on innovations. Different things that have come out different sanitizers come out things for listeria things because of coming out of covid. My pet peeve today is going out to restaurants that are still using bulk hand soap dispensers, where you look at the bulk hand soap dispenser and they're just putting pot and pan soap in there. I mean, hasn't COVID taught us anything? I'm not talking about us, the chemical person. I'm talking about the restauranteur, the restaurant owner. Some have lost their advantage. and they just stay with it because they've been friends with the individual and stuff like that. How do we move forward? Well, we have to understand the current situation. You have to get a full picture, a full survey of the complete operation. You have to ask people outside of who you normally ask. What's going on ask the person who's back on the loading dock ask the person who's using it out in the front. They are in a different department. Are they having problems with it foaming are they having problems with the dispensers if they're using again xyz bring up somebody you've sold recently who is using xyz. You're not here to bad mouth the competition, but bring up, well, yes, I saw a similar problem down at so-and-so, and they were using this company with this product, and why don't we give them a call? Give them a call and find out how they like our new system. Well, you're doing about three things right there. You're recommending a better product that's going to be put in their mind, you're not necessarily you're not bad-mouthing the competitor because that's not professional, but you're showing where someone has made the business decision to move away. Since you're just recommending them as a reference, you know that they're already happy. Find out what the pain points are. Every customer has the pain points. Again, it goes back and I'm bringing back to the driver. They don't realize the owner the manager either one who's receiving the proposal made. You know what's expression you don't know what you don't know they don't know. Different problems that they might have is our job to find that. Also discuss the potential consequences what would it mean by you not changing. What does it cost? What's the current rate for an OSHA violation? What is it? Ask them. Ask them about their surveys. Ask them about their inspections. What is the potential? What was the problem the last inspection you had? Well, we had a couple of problems here, but we've been able to overcome it. Put that all in your proposal. Make sure it's down there of what exactly is needed for demonstration. Bring in some product. Again, find out what the needs are and combat the needs of what their pain points are. Always be prepared to address their objections, what their objections might be. Again, going back to discussing the potential of what would happen if you don't change can really add up because it'd be a loss of business. It could be a fine. Have you ever had to close? Have you ever had this problem? Have you ever had this? What is the deadline that is needed on this? You'll learn a lot by that question. What's the deadline? If I get you a proposal back at this date, If we meet in two weeks, are you looking at something for the spring or something next month? When is the best slow time for a potential changeover? Frequently, a big concern is there's existing product in-house and they're scared of what to do with it. You just can't pour it down the drain. They don't want to lose money. Work that out in advance, bring that up in your presentation. I realize you have this much in stock. We can work it out this way, that way, this way. We don't want you to throw anything away. We're going to show you how we're going to use it up, rate it out, move forward. Big concern. Actually people don't like to bring up again you're coming up with solutions problems in the back of the mind if they don't want to bring up when i got. I don't want to change because they might lose some money and stuff like that. Bring up the objections before they do i like them i like your success stories again how you been able to come back. Similar problem what your solutions were. Again, go back to a deadline. I'm going to bring back a proposal at this time. Again, this is more important with the status quo customer when you're going to the person who's really going to hug to the person he's got before you leave the building. Have the date and time. And I'm guilty of this more than many. Have the date and time you're going to return with the information. You're not going to email proposal, you're going to come back and you're going to say, I'd like to bring service manager. Your boss like to bring somebody ask them who they would like to invite. Is your party your step that would like to be involved in this? Can we get the person on the dock should we get the person who runs production can we include them into the buying decisions because they will help you a lot. Last ride of without being too aggressive. Try to create a sense of urgency. Again, if we get this started now, because in two weeks we can do this, in four weeks we can do this, we all know that in five weeks from now you're going to be busy for the next three weeks. If you're going into the summer, you know you don't want to change during the summer. Can we do this now, before the summer, while it's still spring? Of course, right now, as I'm speaking, it's November, but there's an example. Bring those things to light. Bring those things up ahead of time so that there aren't any objections that we've already spoken about this. We've gotten the okay for this. We can move forward. I hope one or two of these ideas have inspired you, helped you. I'm sure there's many more that I've missed that you probably could bring to me. Again, send them to me. I appreciate you listening today. Hope you write me an email with some suggestions, and thanks for listening. I wish to thank each of you listeners today for joining us. As we're slowly adding subscribers to our show, this will be show number 31. Currently, we're on most podcast apps, including iTunes. If you have time, please rate and like our show and share some. If you have enjoyed the content today, please send me an email. If you'd like to be involved with our Facebook group, send me an email. Hope to talk to you soon.