Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Grow show, brought to you by Mardi Grunder's Grow Group, where we specialize in helping landscaping companies clarify their platform, grow their people, build their processes, and realize profits. Everything we teach is grounded in real experience. Our team's actively involved in the day to day operations of Southwest Ohio's Grunder Landscaping Company. New episodes are released weekly on Wednesdays and are made possible by the support of Aspire, Bobyard and Exmark. Remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever the case may be. This is Marty Grunder from Grunder Landscaping Co. And the Grow Group. Thanks for downloading the Grow Show. Today we're going to talk about sales planning. In this bonus edition of the Grow show, we're going to talk about sales planning for your landscaping company. How much are you going to sell next year? Where is that work going to come from? Who's responsible for selling it? How much do you already have under contract?
How much needs to come from existing clients? How much needs to come from new clients?
And maybe most importantly, what are you going to do this week to make sure it actually happens? Got a lot to share, really excited to teach here, but first a reminder. You can get the latest edition of the Grow show delivered to your phone, tablet or computer by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts or Watch us on YouTube for an enhanced learning experience.
The Grow show is the greatest thing since the national association of Landscape Professionals, or nalp. They're a brand new sponsor of the Grow Show. I'm happy to announce and I'm so pleased with this, folks. Nalp, what do they do? They do advocacy, they do education, they do support. They have wonderful events where you can network. A big shout out to CEO Brit Wood and Executive Director of Governmental Relations and the NALP Foundation, Mr. Andrew Bray. I appreciate both of you. I look forward to growing our partnership with you. And let's keep going, nalp. Thanks for all the good things you do. Okay, let's get into it. Start with a number, folks. Here's what I think sales planning is and where it goes wrong in a lot of landscaping companies. First of all, where it goes wrong, someone says we want to grow 10% next year. Okay, that's great. That's a nice number. Maybe doable, but why? Or we want to do 8 million next year. Okay, that's great, but where's the 8 million coming from? All right. Hope is not a strategy. Hope is not a sales plan. Your sales plan should start with the financial plan for the business.
What level of revenue do we need, at what gross margin, at what net profit, and at what level of sales can our organization actually produce? Because I've learned this the hard way, folks, more sales do not automatically create more profit. You can literally grow yourself broke. You can sell work you don't and not have the people to produce it. You can sell work at lousy margins. You can fill your schedule with the wrong clients. Not every dollar is the same. So don't start with how big do we want to be. Start with what kind of company are we trying to build. I think that's the delineation here to consider today on the grocery. Then you need to determine how much revenue you need to support that type of company.
So let's break into the sales goals and the pieces of it.
Let's say Your goal is 5 million next year. Don't just hand the sales team a $5 million target. Break it apart. How much maintenance revenue is already recurring? How much maintenance is up for renewal? How much design build backlog are you carrying into January?
How much enhancement work can you reasonably expect from customers? How much snow revenue is predictable? If that's part of your makeup, how much completely new business do you need now? Suddenly, 5 million isn't one big giant number. It's a series of small numbers that you can manage. And I think more importantly, that makes sense. Let me give you an example here. Maybe you have a 2 million contracted maintenance at your company. $2 million. Maybe you believe existing clients can produce another 750 in enhancements throughout the whole company. Maybe you're carrying a half million dollars worth of backlog going into winter. Okay, that's all good.
Now, your new business requirement isn't 5 million. It's 1.7 million. To get to that 5 million, that's a very different conversation. Do the math, folks. Make the number smaller. Make the number visible. Make somebody responsible for it. Make it so it's understandable and believable, folks.
Another point, retention is sales. Before you go running all over town trying to find new customers, protect the ones you already got. I say this all the time. Retention is sales. If you've got 2 million of maintenance contracts and you lose 300,000 of them before next season, your salespeople are now starting in a $300,000 hole. That's not growth. That's not good for your reputation. That's replacement work. Every reoccurring account should have an owner, a renewal date, a strategy, and a next action. Again, every reoccurring account should have an owner, a renewal date, a strategy, and a next action.
[00:04:38] Speaker A: And.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: And don't wait until 30 days before the contract expires to go do this. Talk to clients throughout the year. Get a touch on them. Walk their properties. Send them photos of the work that the men are posting on your software. Ask them what's working, ask them what isn't. Ask them what to change. Show them ideas. The best renewal process, ladies and gentlemen, starts months before the renewal ever hits someone's desk. Okay. People do business with people they know like and trust. And. And I think we're losing our way a little bit there with all the technology. The best thing you can do is get out on your client's sites and talk to them or at least let them know that you were out there.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Okay? Okay. You listened to the Grow show, so you already know that my team and I have information that can help take your business to the next level. The next step. Join us at GROW 2027 in Savannah, Georgia in February. Tickets are on sale now, but the price goes up by $200 per person on November 1st. So save your seat and save yourself some money by visiting growgroupinc.com I'll see you there.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: All right, we're back. We're talking about sales planning today on the Grow Show. You know, I think the other thing you got to think about is go to where you already have trust, folks. And what I mean by that, one of the fastest ways to create sales is to look at the people who already know you. At Grunder Landscaping company, I'm always asking, what else does this customer possibly need? Not. Else. Not. What else can I sell them? What do they need? How can I help them? There's a difference, folks. Walk that property. Look for problems. Look for opportunities.
Maybe it's irrigation. Maybe it's drainage. Maybe it's a safety issue. Maybe it's landscape enhancements. Maybe it's lighting. Maybe it's some pruning, some winter pruning. Maybe it's an aeration and overseed. Maybe it's lawn care. Maybe the entrance needs renovated. It needs more color.
Maybe they told you three years ago they want an outdoor kitchen and nobody ever followed up your existing client base list, folks, is the one area you should delve into. It's the most valuable sales tool you own. Use it. Get on with the people that have already done business with you. It's so much easier to work with them. And then I would go back through your unsold proposals. Somebody who asked you for a proposal six months ago and Said no, might say yes. Now with a follow up, prime the pump. Call them. Not an automated email. Call them. Hey, it's Marty Grunder here. Wanted to leave you a message. I was thinking about that backyard project. We talked back in the spring. Would there be any value in me coming over and walking around with you and Fred again? We'd love to talk to you. Just simple folks. I think at times we make sales way too complicated. All right, the next one. Look at the schedule, not just the pipeline. Here's another lesson I've Learned in my 42 years of business success and failure. Your production schedule is a sales scorecard. I want to know what does the schedule look like 30 days from now, 60 days from now, 90 days from now. Next spring? Where are the holes? What kind of work would fill in there? If you're going into spring and you know it's wet, what kind of work can we do no matter what the weather does?
Maybe it's a commercial site with a lot of concrete that you can work there no matter what happens with the weather. But look and get the match. Because where the schedule is empty, it's too late to start selling. If you know you need $400,000 worth of work for March and you only have 175 sold, you got a problem and you know it. Now in October, November, okay, that's also clarity. Now the team knows exactly what they need to do. We're not just rambling, grabbing everything. Remember I said earlier, not every sales dollar is the same.
I don't want to hear. We have a lot of proposals out. Okay, Are they real? Have we followed up? Did you just generate a number? Did you really screen it? How do you know if you're a fit? What's the next action? What's the probability you're going to get it? How much is that quote? When could we start the work? Does it fit where we have holes? A giant pipeline, ladies and gentlemen, full of proposals that nobody is following up on. It's not a pipeline. It's a filing cabinet. Okay? It's nothing.
Next.
Every sale needs a next action. This may be the most simple point I can make in the entire episode. Every legitimate opportunity needs the next action.
A call Tuesday. A site visit Friday. A revision due Wednesday.
Customer presenting to the board November 3rd. Whatever it is, follow up the next morning, folks. Whatever it is, if there's no next action, you're probably not managing the opportunity. You're just hoping and praying. You're spraying and praying. We want our salespeople to be Order makers, not order takers. We want them to have control of the situation. Talking to people that we know are a fit for our business. They are our ideal client. And good salespeople don't just sit around waiting for leads. They create activity. They follow up. They ask questions. They find opportunities. They ask for referrals. They get a lot of referrals. Naturally, when you please someone, folks, you'll be amazed. They build relationships again. People do business with people they know, like and trust. They stay visible. They stay in touch.
Turn the yearly plan into a weekly plan. Break it down into small bites.
I think this is where sales planning becomes sales management.
If somebody has a $2 million annual goal, what does that mean monthly? What does that mean weekly? How much needs to be proposed? How much needs to close?
How many appointments are needed? How many follow ups are needed? How many existing client walks are needed? Don't think you manage sales by yelling at someone or putting pressure on them. At the end of the month, why didn't you hit your number? Manage the activities that lead to the number, which is meeting with people and getting out and being about and being active and being engaged with this next action.
We've talked about this many times at Grunder Landscaping Co. And if we taught this ad nauseam on our virtual sales events that we do here at the Grow Group online, you got to know what the goal is. Where are we right now? What's the gap? What are we doing next? That's sales management. Ladies and gentlemen, let's wrap this up.
Sales and operations have to talk. This is something I see in a lot of companies. We just hired a brand new salesperson. I'm really excited about this young man and I'm making sure he spends a lot of time with operations before he gets too far. Because it's just so important, folks. We gotta have rapport. And I think it's something a lot of owners miss. The sales plan cannot live independently from the operations plan. If Sales sells $3 million worth of Oric for April, can can they actually produce $3 million worth of work in April? Do you have the people? Do you have the trucks? Do you have the equipment? Do you have the materials? Do you have the subcontractors, the supervision, the cash?
This is why your equipment planning that we talked about a couple episodes ago is so important. Your hiring planning and your sales planning all have to talk to each other. This is where operations comes in. Sales determines a lot of what comes next. With no gas in the pretty Ferrari, it ain't going anywhere. Sales are to a company what gas is to a car.
If you know what you're going to sell, you can plan what you're going to need. We need sales. If you don't know what you're going to sell, you're just guessing, folks. And guessing can get expensive. And when you guess, you run harried and you don't plan well and you get off the rails and you don't do things in an organized fashion.
One last thing here. Protect your margins. Don't celebrate bad sales. A million dollar job at a lousy margin isn't necessarily a win, folks. It's a loss.
Revenue is vanity if the work doesn't make money. Know your estimating assumptions. Trust your kits that you have inside your software. Know your production rates. Know your gross margin expectations. Know where you're discounting and why. And when you lose a job. Learn from it. Was it the price? Was it the scope? Was it the timing? Did you not listen well? Did you not have a relationship? Did you not follow up? Were you late for an appointment? Did you not listen well and not have a well delineated proposal? Do we misunderstand what the customer valued? Every win and every loss should make the organization smarter. If we're doing this the right way, folks. So let's wrap this up with a simple sales planning checklist. So say you're listening to this and you're thinking. All right, Marty, I like what you had to say, but what do I actually do? Well, here it is. And you can rewind this and listen to it or watch it a few times. Number one, sit down with your team and answer these questions. What is our revenue and profit goal? Where are we? That's number one. Number two, how much revenue is already secured? All right. How much revenue do we already have secured? Number three, what revenue do we need to retain? What revenue do we need to retain? Number four, what can we realistically sell to existing clients?
Number five, how much truly new business do we need? How much new business do we want? For that matter?
Number six, who owns each part of that number?
Number seven, what does our 30, 60 and 90 day production schedule look like?
Number eight, what activity needs to happen every week? Go back through these eight things, folks. This is your sales plan. It doesn't need to be 47 pages. It can be all on one page. It can be eight pages. I don't care what you do. You got eight things there I just shared with you. It needs to be clear, it needs to have numbers. Then it takes on a life of its own. It's got to have an owner. There has to be account and we have to refer to it and review it constantly.
One final thought I'll leave you with I have an adage that I learned from Dave Sullivan in the late 90s when he stood in front of a class I was taking and he said all planning is good. I love all planning is good. But you know what's better than planning? Action. Action is better. A beautiful spreadsheet will not sell anything. A sales meeting won't sell anything. I a CRM won't sell anything. People sell. People do business with people they know like and trust. Relationships sell. Follow up sells. Asking great questions sells. Solving problems sells. And disciplined activity week after week after week after week will create a predictable sales platform for you. Don't wait for the phone to ring. Go make that phone ring. Go make something happen.
Well, that's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow show, folks. If you haven't done so already, subscribe to the Grow show. And if you can give it a rating or share a comment that really helps more people find us and helps us spread the word to help more landscape pros. If you're watching us on YouTube, subscribe here below and share this episode with somebody you think would benefit from it. Thanks for joining us on the Grow show this week. We'll talk to you next week.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the Grow show and a special thanks to Aspire, Bob Yard, and Exmark for making this episode possible. We'll talk to you next week.
