Earlier this month, my team and I wrapped up our second Field Trip of 2024 with the team at NALP. As I sit reflecting back on what we learned while we were in Chicago at Sebert Landscape, I'm struck most by two takeaways I had:

1. Sales is About Hustle
This isn't news to me, of course, but the Sebert Landscape team shared the systems they have in place to track sales activities, their sales goals, and what tactics are working for them to generate more leads in commercial maintenance. Their business development team is focused on finding and closing sales all day, every day. 

There were too many great tactics shared to list them all, but I thought it was especially clever that the team will host fall container workshops where clients and prospects can come and assemble their own floral container. They said this was particularly a hit for their retirement and nursing home communities - they bring the workshop to them!

2. Sales is Also About Systems
Their team works hard, but all that hard work would be for nothing if they weren't organized. They use a different system to stay organized than we do, but the important lesson is that they have a system. 

Raise your hand if you've ever had a different salesperson call on you after you talked to someone else from the company recently. 🙋 Systems help avoid this. Having a system isn't enough. If you have a system in place but your sales team isn't logging all their activities in it, it's worthless. Garbage in means garbage out. 

Tracking outreach and prospecting activities helps teams to better coordinate with each other and it gives prospects the right first impression: that you are organized and easy to work with. 

If you missed out on joining us at Sebert Landscape, it doesn't mean your chances to improve your sales skills have passed for the year. We'll continue sharing tips we learned in this weekly email, and we're also hosting our Virtual Sales Bootcamp on October 2-3 to share the sales strategies and tactics that have worked for my team at Grunder Landscaping Co. and the ACE Peer Group Members we work with. Sign up to join us!

Marty Grunder
Founder & CEO
The Grow Group & Grunder Landscaping Co.