How to structure the bid walk through process for commercial cleaning accounts.
This is a quick tutorial on how to structure a commercial cleaning bid, estimate during a walk thru.
When we contact a prospect or lead selling our services, the first step is they usually invite us to a walk thru and tour the building to ask questions.
Here we will look at the skills required to communicate with customers, elicit information to satisfy their needs and ensure that you are able to build and maintain long-lasting relationships.
The first step in getting cleaning accounts is the bid walk through or estimate process. This is when a building owner or manager invites us to walk around the building and ask questions, measure the square footage, etc.
Here are 4 steps we can take to structure the sales process. Often cleaning contractors can become stuck in the weeds of technical cleaning. This article is more about the sales process.
The four steps are:
- Listen
- Acknowledge
- Invite
- Inform
First Step in the Bidding Process Is Listening
Listening to what building managers have to say is always going to be the first part. I know we when go out to sell we have all these messages we want to get out and points to make but the prospect might not be interested in any of them.
It can take some discipline and practice to teach ourselves to stand back and listen.
Acknowledge The Managers Point of View or Concerns
While walking throughout a building manager will begin asking questions or even pointing out problems they are currently having. After listening intently then we want to acknowledge their concern or point, even if we don’t necessarily agree with them. At this point we just want to take in all the information and let them know we are paying attention.
Body language might be nodding, smiling or commenting “I can see that” or “I have experienced that before also”.
Invite More Discussion by Asking Follow Up Questions
After acknowledging some of the concerns a prospect might have, next we invite them to explain more in depth by asking follow up questions. Our goal here is to try and understand more and make sure we can pin point what challenges they are having and how important are each of these challenges.
Sometimes a manager will point something and then after a follow up question, admit they don’t really care all that much, they were casually pointing it out.
An Example “let me get this right” and repeat what they just said or “I just want to make sure I understand, can you elaborate a little more”.
Inform Them What Will Be Included in Your Proposal
This final step is where we can inform, this can be informing the manager about some solutions you have to their questions, how long it takes to write a proposal and what is included. We always want to layout what is included and ask if there is anything else they might need.
If you have any sell sheets or brochures, this is the perfect time to whip them out and point out a section that applies to the conversation.
What is the Point?
We are trying to gather as much intel as possible so we know what to highlight in our proposal. This conversation and the notes we take is where we figure out what to include.