Increasing Upsells through your Crew Leaders

Upsells are awesome! You are already on-site, have your equipment there, and your team is there as well. So, when upsells happen – BAM!

Because all your mobilization costs are already covered under the original job, you increase your profit from that job.

That’s just one reason.

Upsells have a lot of benefits and upsides:

• Little to no mobilization costs
• Instant cashflow (unlike normal jobs where you are scheduling it weeks or months out before you collect payment in full)
• Higher profit margins
• Easier to close (you are already there, gained the love and affection of your customer, easy peasy close)
• Less admin work, scheduling, etc.

So, how can we get more of those awesome upsells?

Do you want my opinion on the best way?

Empower and equip your crew leaders to be your upselling MACHINES!

When I was in the field at Tussey Landscaping, my best year, I did over $300k in upsells.

At a $4m (at the time) company. That’s more than 7% of the total company revenue! And nope, I wasn’t the sales guy. I was the foreman doing the work with the crew. And that was just me, one of 4 foremen!

The point I’m making is you can make upsells a significant revenue/profit producer for your company. You just need an army out there making the upsells happen for you…. like your crew leaders!

Why your crew leaders?

Aren’t they supposed to be just making the work happen?

Sure they’re supposed to be making the work happen, but every member of your team is there to make the company successful.

If the company is successful, then everyone on the team can be successful too. So, I’m suggesting that as a crew leader, if you find opportunities to upsell, the company will make more money, then you can make more money.

Why am I focusing on the crew leader and not some other role?

Well, because they are the ones spending the most time with the customer, building that relationship and rapport, keeping the client up to date on the job progress. AND, (this is a big “and”) they tend to let their guard down and trust the crew leader’s opinion.

They don’t view it the same as when your salesperson shows up on their doorstep. They don’t expect to be sold to by the crew leader.

So when you are getting close to wrapping up the job, and the crew leader suggests to the client, “Hey, we could add some path lighting to this new walkway for $——, and it’d be cheaper to do it now than if we’d have to come back….

What do you think?”

Bam!

Sold!

When I did this, the client often thanked me for the suggestion. They trusted my opinion.

So how can you make this happen? There are a couple of things I feel are important to this working out well for you and being effective.

Bottom line – everybody’s gotta win.

• Promote this to your crew leaders. Define an upsell structure, make it easy.
• Provide commissions to the people that suggested and got the upsells.
• Show/communicate to your crew leader any line items the customer didn’t go for on the original proposal as upsell suggestions.

Upsell Structure

All you need to do is make sure you are clear on how it works when anyone in your company does an upsell.

Simple is better.

Just make a one-pager with a few sentences that state something to the effect that ‘if you generate an upsell, you earn X commission,’ and define what an upsell is.

And maybe address how you handle splitting the commission especially if it was a team effort where two or three people were involved in making the upsell happen.

For example, if the upsell was complicated and required the help of you as the owner or salesperson, you need to be able to handle that.

Or even if crewmembers and the crew leader tag teamed closing the upsell with the customer. The crewmember needs to get a share.

If the upsell was simple and didn’t require the sales person to get involved (like selling lights at $300/ea or a pond kit that you had already pre-priced and the foreman was just selling it off your menu) then the crew leader/members could earn the entire commission.

Hint: here’s why having menu pricing for simple things is so powerful!

Non-sales people can sell from it!

At Tussey, we had menu pricing for all our water features. And we had flat “per fixture” pricing for lighting, making it super easy.

Commission

Make it enticing and motivating! At Tussey, we got 5% on any type of water feature or lighting related, and 2% on everything else like hardscaping, landscaping, etc.

Make sure the cost of paying these commissions is figured into your pricing, or into your budget.

If you already figure out the commission of your salesperson into your pricing, then you’re good to go. The crew leader is just acting as another salesperson for you.

I’d also recommend a “Leader Board” in your shop or something where you show everyone’s upsells this year or quarter to inspire competition amongst your team to be the top upseller!

Better yet, set a prize (paid day off, gift them a day on the lake with boat rental, gift card, etc) for the top upseller of the year or quarter.

Line Items from Original Proposal that Didn’t Sell

This is a BIG one. I used this constantly! Everytime I kicked off a new job, I’d open the SynkedUP app and check the Digital Job Folder for any line items in the job that were “On Hold”. Meaning the sales person had suggested something on the original proposal, the client rejected it, and now that particular line item was just sitting in the job, “On Hold”.

If your crew leaders aren’t doing this, show it to them in the app, and foster a culture of doing this.