“Sales Tools” & “Marketing Tools”
That Help Your Designers Sell More Pools
Some pool designers & sales reps are so good that all they need to sell a pool is a blank piece of paper, a pencil and a prospect. I applaud these people, and I applaud YOU if you have someone like this on your team.
For the other 99% of the sales reps, and for anyone who wants to crank up their closing ratios, we’ve created a variety of “selling tools” that are designed to help you readily communicate how and why you’re different from the pool builder down the street:
- Custom “Pool Ideas” DVD
- Custom Brochures & Reports
- Leather Bound Photo Book
- “10 Reasons You Should Buy Your Pool from Us”
- 60-Second Elevator Pitch
- On-Hold Messages
- Photo Cleanup Service
Click here for more information on why sales tools matter…
Brochures & Reports
Brochure design $249 per page
Can be any size you want, as long as you keep in mind that number of pages has to be a multiple of four. (E.g., 4, 8, 12, 16, etc.) Sixteen to twenty-four pages is typical for most of our clients. It’s gives us enough room to brag about you, your products, your capabilities, and still sneak in plenty of compelling comments from your happy clients.
Report design $249 per page
Typically one to four pages long, these act as an excellent “low-risk offer.” Perfect if you’re not quite ready to invest three months and $19,500 to produce a super-impressive but highly compelling full-blown custom “Pool Ideas” DVD. Here are some typical reports we can produce for you:
- “Backyard Ideas” courtesy of (your name here)
- “Pool Renovation & Remodeling”
- “How to Choose The Right Pool Builder”
- “15 Questions to Ask Any Pool Builder”
- “New Breakthroughs for a ‘Maintenance-Free’ Swimming Pool”
- “How to Choose a Hot Tub”
Leather-bound Photo Portfolio / “Brag Book”
This is a beautiful, professionally laid out book of up to 100 pages. We recommend a 12″x12″ format, but smaller sizes are available. We can lay it out any way you like, but we’ve found that this general layout seems to work quite well for everyone:
- Residential Pools
- Custom Features
- Finishing Touches (tiles, decks, etc.)
- “Our construction process” (typically an 8-photo pictorial)
- “About Us”
- Photo Testimonials
Every sales rep should have one of these with them on every sales call, and you should have at least one in your store or office, especially if you have a “waiting area.” Some of our clients have figured out that it’s also smart to give these to selected home-builders and architects that you regularly work with (or would like to work with).
Set Up & layout $1,995
Printing of books Typically $75 to $200 each*
* Cost of printing depends on book size, type of cover, and the number of pages. You can order / reorder as many as you like. Discounts are usually available from the printer for orders of ten or more books.
More Sales Tools…
Elevator Pitch creation (2 versions) $399
Whenever you meet someone, you never know whether that person may be interested in a pool, and/or if they know someone who’s thinking about buying a pool. You should always take this opportunity to clearly and succinctly explain what you do and why it’s better & different than your typical competitor . The more interesting and natural you make it, the more effective it will be.
But here’s the other side of the elevator pitch regimen that will affect your company for years to come. When you require your employees to actually say the words out loud -first to you and their co-workers, and then ultimately to customers, prospects and total strangers, on a daily basis – They actually begin to believe it. And more importantly, it starts to affect their thinking and decision making. When faced with the usual day-to-day challenges and problems, they will increasingly decide in favor of your “inside reality” vision and mantra.
On-Hold message script $399
To save yourself some money, you might consider using your custom “Elevator Pitch” as your on-hold message. After all, both of these sales tools should be telling the same interesting and compelling story about you and your company.
On-Hold message voice-over recording $199
Photo management / touch-up / clean-up $5 ea.
In our business, we’ve seen a lot of great photos, and we’ve seen a lot of crappy ones. Sometimes we can “clean up” a mediocre photo by adjusting the colors , the sharpness, the cropping and/or other attributes. We can’t guarantee that we can improve every photo, but we can guarantee that we won’t charge you for any photos that aren’t improved enough to be usable.
Custom DVD Production varies from $1,000 to $19,500
Creating your own full-blown, professional DVD is tremendously powerful, it’s a major undertaking, and it’s not cheap. But there are alternatives that are very attractively priced. You can learn more about our custom DVD programs here.
Why “Sales Tools” are Important…
First of all, we should recognize that there are fewer people in the marketplace right now to buy swimming pools. Then, we must realize that many of this smaller group of prospects are struggling with a lack of confidence – In you, in your competition, and in their ability to make a good, sound & safe decision. Once eager, anxious and excited to get started on their backyard dream, now many homeowners are thinking twice and holding off on their plans.
In the last year or so, has your closing ratio gone down? If so, don’t blame the advertising. And don’t blame the leads. It’s just a question of confidence.
Can we blame them? The dreaded ripple effect of troubling times reaches out to many souls. But that doesn’t mean people will stop buying pools. People still have money, and they still have a burning desire to live the American dream of owning a swimming pool. They’re just a little more skeptical than before, that’s all.
So what do you do? First, let’s consider the fact that the “minor issues” or misgivings that might have been swept under the rug in years past are now much more likely to get closer scrutiny. To keep your closing ratios up, your selling process is going to have to be a little more comprehensive. A little more comforting. A little more compelling and convincing. And definitely a lot more confidence-building. How do we do that? We start with your sales tools.
Do your brochures, reports, “brag books” and other materials tell a genuine and sincere story about you and your company? Do they provide real evidence about your awards and accolades, your accomplishments and expertise? Or are they still laden with “platitudes” and empty promises that fall on deaf ears? Or worse – is your “brochure” more or less just a good-looking co-op folder with a stack of product brochures from your kind-hearted supplier shoved inside?
Do your sales tools inspire confidence?
You probably know that we’re big fans of DVD’s as the ultimate marketing tools for any pool builder. When properly done, they give the perfect sales pitch, over and over, on the homeowner’s big screen TV, right there in front of all the kids and everybody. The homeowner can see the beauty, the options, the shimmering water. They can hear the waterfalls, the splashing, the squeals of delight. And they can learn more about the company than they ever dreamed. At their leisure. People may not trust or believe a sales rep. But a DVD? That’s definitely a few notches higher up on the credibility ladder. And that’s what inspires confidence.
What about these photo books?
If I’ve learned one thing about this industry, it’s that the prospective pool buyers love to see photos of your work. (It builds confidence, you know….)
For starters, it clearly shows them what you’re capable of doing. But it also gives them a hint of how many pools you’ve built, which is more important to them than you might think. And thirdly, it helps them get a better sense of what they really want. That too builds confidence, as it makes them feel better about this great big no-turning-back-I’ve-never-done-this-before-gosh-I-hope-I don’t-make-a mistake decision they’re about to make. Yes, this is definitely not the time to look like an amateur.
Something else I’ve noticed – it seems that no two sales reps use the same method of showing off their portfolio of your pools, even when they both work for the same pool builder. (Maybe you’re the exception to this, and if so, congratulations.) It’s usually some form of a 3-ring binder, with various photos slipped inside a vinyl sleeve. This isn’t bad, but the reps seem to decide for themselves what photos and other info they want to include and/or exclude. Your photo book can help to standardize this a little.
Here’s our books are better than something you might do yourself at Shutterfly.com. After we collect all your primo photos, we arrange them in a logical order that’s ideal for any designer on a sales call. For example, we may group all the vanishing edge pools here, and the formal / traditional pools over there. We’ll put all the waterfalls together in one area, and the water arches, fountains and other water features in another.
Then we go a few steps further, to class it up a bit. For example, we’ll create a professionally-designed “title page” with logos and a tag line, so it looks like a real published book instead of just a homemade photo album from Aunt Mary. We’ll create an “About Us” pages or a “10 Reasons To Buy From ABC Pools” page. Then we throw in several pages of testimonials, with photos of the homeowners if you’ve got’em. We’ve even found some really nice quality labels that can be applied to select pages, to separate each of the sections, if you like that.
When we’re done, it’s a beautiful 12″x12″ leather-bound “brag book” that’s inviting and easy for any homeowner to browse while the sales rep is out measuring the yard.
So once again, if closing ratios are an issue, take a closer look at your sales tools. The DVD’s and these photo books are just two ways we can help you sell more pools. Call us if you want more ideas.
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