People and Competition Flashcards
What kind of people are you likely to meet in Ohio?
- Very friendly people in general, who sometimes will like to shoot the breeze with you and waste your time (be careful)
- Older white republicans
- Families that have pretty strong values and attend church regularly
- Very involved neighbors, people know each other. This is 50/50. Sometimes they don’t even know their next door neighbor.
- Conservative people with adequate amounts of money, even in smaller, older homes.
- Jews
They can be cop happy (but who cares…Jeremy went to jail for 2 hrs and nothing is on his record)…yes, true story.
Be confident..
Most of the people where we sell actually like the fact that you are working and not just being lazy, so automatically you should feel comfortable about going up to talk to them (that is, if you are moving fast door-to-door and LOOK like you’re working hard and fast). But many times, their initial impression won’t give off this job. They try to blow you off initially, but they are actually impressed with your drive.
If they are exceptionally rude, just politely help them to see you as someone just trying to do your job and provide for yourself.
Most areas you will have permits for. During these days, you have a right to be there and can be bold with people, and be less willing to let them walk all over you.You still want to be tactful, however.
Hoban
Local company mostly in Avon Lake and surrounding areas.
Of all the local companies they are the best. Luckily they have no door-to-door salesmen and are only in basically one small town. They are very customer friendly and have great customer service reps. They do a good job with servicing the homes.
Customers are very loyal to them because they have made themselves out to be the local guys trying to compete with corporate America.
Limitations: Over promise (they tell their customers 1 treatment will solve all their needs for years to come…but they also have many qtrly customers), Products are decent, service is nothing special just a regular treatment.
We are just as good. Basically, you can switch them if A) you can compete with price, B) they are still seeing bugs with them, or C) they just fall in love with you and want to switch because they like you or believe your service will be even better.
Lucky for you, we will avoid Avon Lake entirely this year. It wasn’t worth our time this last summer because it was so hard to switch people from them. We will only go the Hobenville if we get desperate, because it’s challenging even for an experienced rep.
Terminix
Ideally Terminix should be one of the best since they buy the best products, unfortunately this is many times not the case. They occasionally skimp on treatments or will cut corners to save time. Some technicians are good, but most are not so good. People who switch from Terminix to us usually have a problem with quality and quantity of time. They spray the house for 5-10 minutes and leave.
They typically do only a qtrly service, and they can cancel at any time, even BEFORE their 1st year is over
Cost: Anywhere from $85 to $130 per quarter. You’ll need to ask them. If they are paying $85, it’s gonna be a tough one to get because they lowest you can go with Insight is $99. If they are vocal about how crappy Terminix is, you can maybe switch them in this situation.
We have a gentlemen’s agreement with Terminix that we won’t deliberately switch over their customers all summer (because we worked for them in Cleveland the 2 summers before last), so when you meet these customers, don’t push them. Just find out how they like their service and talk to them about ours a little bit. Only switch them if it is clear it will be an easy sale (probably because they aren’t too impressed with what they have). Don’t ever say, “Oh I used to work for Terminix” in your pitch. If they find out we are switching their customers in any pushy or unethical way, you could go to court, and you’d lose. Terminix has a lot of money and we have a good relationship with them. Let’s be ethical and keep it that way. Just tell the customer what Terminix does, then what we do, and let the customer decide who is better.
Basially, do not talk too negatively about Terminix to build up our value.
Most common service out there, them and Orkin
They theoretically do everything we do except for granulation, which is a BIG deal .And their de-webbing poles only go up 15 feet, whereas ours reach 30 feet high! Many times, the technicians will skip de-webbing altogether and just spray the house for 5 minutes, leave the ticket on the door, and leave. It can be REALLY bad…but again, don’t PUSH this on their customers…just point it out as a fact if they are visibly interested in what you have. If you know their service better than they do…well, they will be more apt to trusting you as a valid source of information.
Orkin
Very similar in how they treat the homes to Terminix. They do everything we do except for granulation, which is a BIG deal. And their de-webbing poles only go up 15 feet, whereas ours reach 30 feet high!
Limitation: price (in general this service is the most expensive), bimonthly services (the products we use last 90 days so every other month treatments is only to get more money), their product lasts 60 days and ours lasts 90 days
Cost is typically $90-100 every other month, which is $540-$600 per year. You can and DEFINITELY will switch Orkin customers over AND save them at least $100 per year. Our service is higher quality AND cheaper.
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Local Companies
LOCAL COMPANIES
All others are usually Ma and Pa local companies that typically just do 1-time treatments for the customer. Being able to switch them to our qtrly program is either fairly easy, or hard. As a general rule, if they know their technician’s name by heart and speak of him fondly, or they’ve been with the same company for 10+ years, or they have a family member or good friend who works for/owns the company…good luck. It’s gonna be tough because of the loyalty factor. But many times when they mention they have a company they call in the summer, they aren’t particularly “loyal” to that company and they aren’t with that company for any special reason. You will get people to use our service ALL summer long who have had a random bug guy treat their house for a problem in the past. In fact, many times when they say they “have a bug guy,” it’s been YEARS since their “bug friend” has come to their home. Especially at the start of your pitch, this is many times a way to simply get you off their door, because they don’t think you’ll keep talking to them if they throw that one at you. Just say, “Great, I’m glad you do something, because there are a LOT of bugs in Ohio and it’s important to have a service. Just so you know what WE do and why WE’RE here…” and go through the service. Easy as 1,2,3!!! I will teach you how to overcome silly concerns that aren’t really “concerns,” just rejections.
