Snow Drift January 2009: Selling Liquids to Customers

In this current economic climate, convincing your existing customers to make any change is difficult. The natural tendency during times like these is to hunker down and maintain until things get better. Due to increased and intense competition from new entries, along with challenged salt supplies and rising costs, it may be time to consider adding liquids to your services.

An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and there will be a large part of you that will drag feet and resist learning a new skill and then selling it as a service to customers. You might feel that your customers, never having been exposed to liquids, will resist too. You might look at the numbers and feel that it will be challenging for you and your company to invest in new learning, material, and equipment to add these services. There may be truth to these concerns, but looking at liquids as an opportunity to position yourself as an expert to your clients, one who is indispensible, may be a fair trade off.

If you are serious about snow, chances are you are going to be approached by a client to use liquids, if you haven’t already. What will your answer be if they ask the question? Here are some tips from a number of members who have used liquids for years:

• Research your local government snow counterparts; if the city or town that you live in is using liquids, this can be a great point to bring up when selling liquids.
• Many liquids work at lower temperatures than straight salt, a distinct advantage in colder events. Pre-treating the pavement and pre-treating your salt supply are both options.
• The price of salt has gone up enough that using liquids is not as big of a jump financially as it used to be.
• Liquids are another tool to accomplish a task, and the more tools you have, the more options you have for you and your customers.
• Selling liquids is not always the best approach; selling expertise and service is generally more effective.
• Some customers will want all the details on the products you use, especially those with environmental concerns. It’s a good idea to know and work with several products, so your customers have more options based on their needs, and in case supply of one product becomes an issue.
• The internet can help and hurt your liquids program, make sure you share enough information with your customer to satisfy their needs, as they may find erroneous or confusing information online that causes undue concern.
• Some contractors put liquids as an option on their contract, citing some of the benefits, and let customers decide if they’d like to use them.
• Make sure you know what is in the products you use, and that you have MSDS sheets and understand all of the potential hazards of any product.
• Sell your liquids as a package with plowing/salting services, emphasizing a reduction in ice and hard pack build-up, can be a sound way of introducing and selling them to clients.
• If you are using a liquid product that is environmentally safer than salt, this can be a great selling point and may mean a lot to your customer.

In general, you want to do everything you can to position yourself as the expert for snow and ice in the eyes of your customer, which may include learning a new way to approach snow and ice!

Article Contributors:
Brian Birch, SIMA
Bob St. Jacques, CSP, Four Seasons Landscaping
Scott Zorno, Care Enterprises
Rich Arlington, CSP, Arlington Lawncare, Inc.

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