How to Prepare for Sales Calls with Potential Commercial Clients
In my last column, I discussed some of the profitable niches available to self-service laundry owners within the vast realm of commercial laundry accounts.
This time, I’d like to follow up on that article and talk about some of the prep work that goes into making a successful sales call on a potential commercial client. Two of the strongest commercial candidates for laundry owners to target are small, local coffee shops/restaurants and corporate gyms – so we will focus on these two niches.
Beyond trying to develop some sort of personal connection with the prospective client, the keys to winning sales calls are understanding the client’s business, along with what his or her laundry needs might be. You want to be able to quickly answer any questions that come up, as well as provide solutions to problems the clients may not even know they have.
Meeting with the owners of a local coffee shop or small restaurant, you know they’re going to have some standard items to be laundered, such as mop heads for cleaning the floors and an assortment of at least two different types of towels – one type for polishing stainless steel and the other for cleaning all of the other surfaces.
(As a word of caution, I would suggest you stay away from restaurants that serve a lot of fried foods or feature menu items that are very oily. Unless you’re willing to engage in the higher water temperatures and aggressive chemistry needed to properly deal with that type of commercial work, you’d be running the risk of starting a fire in your laundry. Steer clear of these types of establishments; there are still plenty of other opportunities within this niche.)
What other opportunities are there for you? If you own an ironer and the restaurant has custom napkins, you may be able to land that additional work. A lot of smaller restaurants today are presenting themselves in unique ways, and tables linens are just one of those ways.
In fact, some restaurants now put out fresh towels, rather than napkins. And another popular trend is putting out what some might call wash cloths. These are great opportunities for laundry owners.
Other opportunities may include logoed employee uniforms, aprons, chef coats and unique table linens for display tables. In addition, at my store, we launder drapes and curtains quarterly or a couple times per year for some clients. These are just more ways to upsell to this niche during the sales call.
Another strong niche for laundry owners are corporate gyms. These businesses might prefer a service like ours – versus the larger linen companies – because they want to provide their clients with plusher, nicer towels; or they may want to offer colored or branded towels, rather than standard white ones. Some gyms also might have bathrobes and gym bags, as well as bath towels.
It’s all about understanding the clients’ specific needs and how to approach them. For instance, some corporate gyms are not fully attended; in those cases, it may be critically important what the finished product looks like – custom folding could make the difference between you and a large commercial laundry service. For example, if you rolled all of the towels a certain way or returned all of the robes on hangers, those unique little touches could help you make the sale.
Another factor to keep in mind during your sales calls is storage capacity. For instance, a potential client could be a large linen account that simply doesn’t have capacity to store the linens they go through every day. And perhaps the large commercial laundries want to service them only once or twice a week.
Understanding a client’s need based on capacity to store finished and dirty linens can play a critical role in the decision-making process. So, be sure to ask that question and understand the client’s storage capacity needs.
Again, you should be constantly looking for unique opportunities – items that the client is more than likely doing at home or that are providing some sort of challenge to the large commercial laundries.
Knowing ahead of time what the linens are and how you’re going to process them are crucial elements to a successful sales call with a prospective commercial customer.
Next time, we’ll examine ways to leverage social media as you prepare for sales calls with potential clients.
#Article #Public #CommercialAccounts #TheLaundryDoctor #PlanetLaundry
