The Home Improvement Sales Process, Step by Step

I was listening back to a recording a rep had sent me. Van on the drive, kettle on, nice enough couple. Eight minutes in he'd got the brochure open on the kitchen table and was telling them about the glass. By minute twenty he was on to the price. They hadn't told him a single thing about why they'd rung.

You can guess how it ended. "We'll have a think and let you know."

A home improvement sales process, step by step, is seven stages in a fixed order: Frame, WHY, Offer, Objections, Pre-close, Close, Consolidation. Each one sets up the next. Skip one and the sale doesn't fall over where you skipped it. It falls over at the end, when the customer says they'll think about it and you can't for the life of you work out why.

Most salespeople I coach do have a process. It just runs backwards. Product first, price second, and the questions only start once the customer's already backing towards the front door.

I can't stand the word pitch

I don't use pitch, demonstration or presentation. I hate those words. What you're having in that living room is a conversation, and a sale is the natural end of a properly built one.

Think of it as sitting on the same side of the table as the customer. Not across from them, pushing and pulling. You've got your arm round them, so to speak, saying tell me what the problem is, and let's see if we can get you out of it.

That's the whole job. The seven steps are just the order you do it in.

Step one: the Frame

When I started out, you'd walk in, spot the fish tank or the dog, and chat about it for twenty minutes. That worked in the days when getting a second price meant a week of phone calls and a pile of newspapers. Now they can get another quote with a couple of clicks. You get one bite of the cherry.

So the first few minutes are about authority, not being their mate. Big smile, introduce yourself. If they offer you a cup of tea, take it, because the bit of chat while the kettle boils does more for you than any small talk about the garden. Then set out what's going to happen and how it ends: "I'm not going to ask you for a decision today, unless you want to give me one."

This is also where you take the get out of jail cards off them. Who else is involved in the decision. Whether they're looking to do it now or down the road. When I was selling gas central heating door to door, we never talked about the product until we knew they could afford it, or that we could help them to. Same idea. Find out early.

Step two: the WHY

This is the big one. If a cosmetic surgeon sat you down and said "I can see why you're here, look at those ears, and that chin", you'd walk out. The good one asks what you don't like, and you tell him. Customers have to diagnose themselves. Your job is to get the diagnosis out of them.

"How long have you been putting up with it?" Then shut up and let them talk. You'll often find the draughts aren't the real reason at all. It's that every time she walks up the path the frames look tatty and she's embarrassed by them. That's her driver. You won't find it by telling her about U-values.

A home improvement sales rep I coach normally sold between £120k and £185k a month. A few weeks into our coaching, using better "tell me" questions to find the customer's why, his July finished at a personal record of over £300k. That's one person's result, not a promise. But look where he changed. He didn't learn a new close. He got better at step two.

Steps three and four: the Offer, then the Objections

Only now do you offer anything, and the offer should be built out of what they told you in the WHY. Most salespeople sell the flight, the spec and the brand of hinge. The customer is buying the destination. A warm back room. A house they're proud to pull up outside.

Then objections. People don't buy for five reasons: no need, no desire, no money, no hurry, no trust. That's the full list. If you've handled them properly by this point, there isn't much left to object to. Price is only ever an objection when they can't see the value.

Steps five and six: the Pre-close and the Close

People buy when it's the right company, it solves their problem, and it fits a price and timeframe they're happy with. The pre-close is checking the first two are settled before you put a figure in front of them. If they're not, the price will get the blame for something it didn't do.

And then the close is short. "Would it make sense for us to get this sorted out for you today?" A lot of people just say yes, because you've done the work. Own your price when you say it. If you look shifty about it, they'll feel it.

Step seven: Consolidation

Most reps get the signature and start packing their bag. That's how you end up with a cancellation two days later. Before you leave, ask "Is there anything missing?" Go back over why they wanted it, and let them hear themselves say it.

Where people go wrong with this

They treat it like a checklist and rush the WHY to get to the bit they're comfortable with, which is talking about the product. About 70% of the appointment should be the WHY, 20% the offer and 10% the close. If you've spent forty minutes on the windows and five on the customer, you've had it the wrong way round.

The other mistake is learning the steps and never changing the words. The order stays the same for every job, from a bathroom to a solar install. The exact questions you ask inside each step have to fit you, your product and your customers, and that's the part we work on together in coaching, by listening back to your real appointments.

If you'd like to know which of the seven steps is costing you sales, take the free 2-minute Sales Leak Assessment and book a free 30-minute discovery call with me.