How To Upsell and Cross-sell your Landscaping Services

Acquiring a new customer can cost 5x more than retaining an existing customer.

But this begs the question: how do I grow my landscape business if the main focus is on my existing customers? The answer is simple: upsell and cross-sell.

Upselling and cross-selling to existing customers is always less expensive than acquiring a new client, and can be far more profitable if done right.

If you want to learn how to upsell and cross-sell your lawn and landscape maintenance services the right way, then read this quick post till the very end.

How to Upsell Your Landscape Services

Upselling is never easy. You can’t just go up to your client and say, “hey, we’ve got another offer for you that costs more than your current one.”

With that being said, upselling isn’t rocket science either. You’re good to go as long as you know how to persuade your client the right way.

Here are 3 great ideas on how to upsell your services convincingly:

1. Create a Case Study to Build Trust

If you have a client who is more than satisfied with one of your landscape and maintenance services, then capture their story in a case study.

Case studies are a great way to upsell because you get to use a story for informing your clients about the benefits of upgrading to one of your better services.

And as you may know: there’s nothing more engaging and persuasive than a good story, which is why we recommend hiring an expert content creator for crafting a top-notch case study.

2. Offer a Trial

Sometimes all your client needs is a trial of your service before fully committing to it. In fact, giving a free job is one of the most effective ways to upsell your services.

Depending on your business, but typically giving away an aeration or set of ‘plantings’ can build brand equity in your clients head. This is the goal of business now days, “how do I build brand equity”.

It may cost you more upfront, but you can easily make up for it in the long run. However, if giving a free trial isn’t a risk you’re willing to take, then you can always offer a discount instead, but it is highly recommended think of the easiest value you could give your client, regardless of what landscape services you provide.

3. Start a Competition Among Your Sales Staff

Keeping your sales team motivated is perhaps the most effective way to increase your sales, upsells, and cross-sells — and the best way to do that is by starting an incentive program.

It’s been proven time and time again, that money does NOT motivate. Once money is on the table, people perform worse. Typically, 20% of your sales team make 80% of the sales, and many sales programs are usually geared towards your entire sales staff. I’d recommend offering a trip giveaway to the top performers for X period of time. Or offer specific incentives to different services you sell, so a non-top performer could potentially win here or there. When I worked my last sales job, the company would offer weekly incentives to the top performers. Offering fast immediate rewards are much more enticing to get a sale today because the reward span only one week. I’d recommend offering:

• Extra PTO day to whomever sells the most aeration jobs in the month of April.
• Weekly gift card giveaways to the top-sellers of monthly contracts, fertilizers, landscape projects, cleanups, etc.
• New phone or all expenses paid trip in the off-season to this summer’s top performing team member.

Start an incentive program among your sales staff. Offer the winner a prize, which could be anything from a bonus to a promotion, and watch your sales soar.

How to Cross-Sell Your Landscape Services

Here’s a 4-step tried and tested method for cross-selling your landscape services to existing clients:

1. Segment your clients: Segmenting means to group your clients based on the services they’re currently receiving as well as those they are not receiving. For instance, clients in group A are getting only the lawn trimming service. This is the #1 tip of growing and managing your lawn/landscape services.
2. Determine services to cross sell: After segmenting your clients, the next step is to pick the right services to cross-sell. For determining the right services, ask yourself questions such as, “what other services naturally complement the service you’re already providing to the segmented client?” Upsell that fall cleanup with an aeration or fertilizer program.
3. Design your plan: Now, all you have to do is pick a medium to promote the selected services. We recommended starting a text messaging, email marketing, or voice broadcasting campaign.
4. Follow up: In most cases, one promotional message is not enough. You should always send a follow-up to confirm whether your client is interested in the service you’re cross-selling.

One last piece of advice, always add a personal touch to your message. Sounding impersonal is the last thing you want to do when trying to cross-sell your service.