Being the Bug Guy - Part II

As Joe pointed out, my last post didn't have much about the actual art of selling pest control, because I was trying to start from the beginning and beginnings don't always seem much related to the point. They are, nevertheless, intimately related. The beginning of our discussion was the assertion that a pest control salesman, should not first ask, “How may I be successful,” but “what is my role as a pest control salesman.” In other words, there are any number of shameless and dishonest ways to make sales, but the salesman’s goal should be more than making sales. The salesman should be conscious of the role that they play in society and how their work is beneficial in God’s great scheme of human relationships. (Perhaps that seems rather impractical, but there is a practical reason to be thinking about such “great schemes.” Salesmen need confidence and the best way to be confident is to know that you are doing something right and good.)

But before we get to all that we shall consider the related question of “Why pest control is particularly suited to personal selling door-to-door?” The main reason for this and the reason which you keep in the back of your mind as you talk to customers is that it’s convenient for the company and therefore it saves money for both the company and the customer. I always say something like this:

“We’ll we’re going to be here tomorrow treating some of the neighbors homes and we can do you home at the same time.”

Notice that I don’t even need to say, at first, that they will save money; just the fact that it’s convenient for the company is a good enough excuse at first. Moreover, this is a true statement. It really is much more convenient for the company to sign up as many people as possible in the same area and the same time. And the only way to do this is with door-to-door salesmen. The unique marketing strategy is suited to the uniqueness of the pest control service.

A pest control company that wants to expand is confronted with a unique set of obstacles. Firstly, pest control companies have to employ technicians to do the actual work of spraying houses and brushing down spider webs. Pest control is a service and so what you actually sell is the time of your technicians divided up into chunks. Therefore in order to be profitable you need a steady stream of customers available at multiple times of the day to purchase these time slots. A second problem is transportation. Customers are spread out all over the place, but pest control guys do not get paid for traveling. If a pest control company was to advertise, not only would requests come at an unpredictable rate, but they would come in from all over the city, spreading their technicians out too far. Lastly, not all customers are actually profitable to have. Some don’t have very much money and default on their bills and yet they have lots of bug problems and are liable to take a lot of the technician’s time and materials. Hence the advantages of the door-to-door pest control salesman:

· We produce a steady stream of customers to fill time slots. It’s as simple as hiring about 2.5 salesmen for every technician.
· We produce customers within the limited area of wherever we are working, to minimize the technician’s drive time.
· Finally, we are able to target consumers in the right income bracket. People who have nice homes that they are trying to protect from bugs, rather than people who already have ant infested walls.

Now, do the customers need to know all this? No. But the salesman does need to know it, because, as we saw above, it becomes the basis for your pitch. It is the excuse for why you are in the neighborhood: “We’re just trying to treat as many of the neighborhood homes as we can while we’re here.” People understand that. In other words, not only does this selling strategy make sense to the company, it makes sense to the consumer. And that enables you to get a lot further with the intelligent, affluent customers, whom you are targeting.

Now to take a closer look at the sales pitch, in light of the above explanation for door-to-door sales in the pest control industry: The first thing out of your mouth, when someone opens the door to you and stares blank-faced in your direction, is a sort of excuse:

"Hi, I'm the bug guy."

There is an ingenious subtlety in that statement. Firstly, it’s an introduction and a modest one. You wouldn’t want to say, for example, “Hello, my name is Marty Becktell, I’m trying to pay for college and so I’m working for Safeguard pest control.” People do not care about your name when they first see you on their doorstep and they do not want to here first off that you’re basically looking for a handout. “Hi, I’m the bug guy,” tells them exactly who you are, and—this is the subtlety—it places you in a social class that’s lower than the person in the doorway, which makes them feel important, and yet it’s a confident assertion, like saying, “Hi, I’m superman.” You’re there to serve them and solve their problems. Most importantly, it offers an excuse as to why you’re knocking on their door; bug guys work in neighborhoods. (Admittedly, you, the salesman, are not a technitian, and most people know that from the start, but I still think its honest to say that you are “the bug guy” for these reasons: You work for and represent the pest control company; and, if you’re like me, you’ve tried your hand at the technitians job for a couple of days, so you know how to perform the service. You are a bug guy who sells.)

Typically, after you say, “Hi, I’m the bug guy,” you follow with, “Are you the homeowner?” To which they will either say “Yes” or they will go get the homeowner for you. It’s not very common for people to turn you down at this point.

After those introductions, I always begin my pitch with a question:

“Have you seen our trucks working in the neighborhood?”

This let’s them know that you are not just interested in spouting off, you’re going to carry on a conversation and they will have to be active in this conversation. But interestingly, this is also a sort of excuse: “I’m here because my trucks have been working in the neighborhood” is essentially what you’re saying. (Now, of course trucks don’t work themselves, the pest technician in the truck works, but I am being economical with my words and people usually notice trucks. Often they will turn their eyes to one side and try to think if they’ve seen our trucks.)

After they tell me whether they’ve seen our trucks or not, I tell them:

“We’ll we’re going to be here tomorrow treating some of the neighbors homes and we can do you home at the same time.”

Again, this sentence, is another subtle excuse for why I’m on their doorstep. I’m trying to save time. I’m efficient. I already do some of their neighbors homes. It’s really a very straightforward and simple pitch. That’s why it works for me!

Well, that’s enough for now. I’ve made the point that pest control service is a particularly logical product to sell door-to-door. Door-to-door is simply the quickest and surest way to build a customer base of qualified customers. Secondly understanding the corporate strategy behind this sales method helps you to be confident on the doors. There’s a good reason why you are in the neighborhood and you must subtly suggest this to your listeners. The whole first part of the sales pitch (in addition to being an honest straightforward explanation of what you are doing) is essentially offering the customer an excuse for why you’re knocking on their door.