Original Research: 1 Crucial Finding Your In-Home Sales Team Needs To Be Told About

THE BIG IDEA:

Salespeople are creatures of belief. Strong data can shape those beliefs in a positive direction and in this study we examined the effect of telling a formalized company story on customer attitudes and buying behavior. We found that a strong delivery of a well-constructed and “tight” company story is a key driver of purchasing behavior in the home services context. We also found that there appears to be very little data to support the belief that a company story is a ‘waste of the customer’s time,’ or causes a level frustration that inhibits sales.

Demographics At A Glance

Introduction:

 How “on process” is your sales team today? If your team is like most, each salesperson, and sales manager, has their own beliefs about what works and why. Those beliefs drive their behaviors, and not always in the best direction. When belief takes over, training flies out the window and they revert right back to old habits.

Sales managers have long known that outside sales teams lean on subjective perceptions, almost to a superstitious degree, to inform their decision making process when placed in front of a customer. I reasoned that presenting them with objective data about homeowner attitudes towards different parts of the sales presentation process may help drive positive behaviors and reduce mistaken beliefs about what prospective customers want, and/or may find annoying. 

Large Scale Homeowner Opinion Study

In this study, I surveyed 1,007 respondents in a large national sample of homeowners aged 45 to 75. The sample was roughly evenly split between two income level groups: respondents with a household income between $50,000 and $100,000, and respondents with a household income over $100,000. The margin of error was calculated to be approximately +/- 2.8% in the full sample, and higher for some age and income subgroups. As of this writing, I believe that this is the most comprehensive study done on this subject to date.

The study was based on one primary survey question and a series of qualitative interviews: Assuming it didn’t take too long, how did they feel about being presented with a company story during the sales presentation?

“Contractors often tell homeowners about their company history and team during a first meeting so the homeowner can feel more comfortable knowing who they may be doing business with. Assuming this took no more than a few minutes, please tell us which one of the following BEST reflects your feelings about this practice.”

An Important Note: 

Baked into this question, as well as the qualitative interviews, was the idea of time. No one wants to have their time wasted by a poorly constructed presentation dragging on forever. It didn’t seem fair to the intent of the study to assume that the company story might be poorly built or delivered, though it probably is reasonable to expect that many company stories are not being delivered in an ideal way today. This may be partly where the belief that company stories are boring and/or annoying comes from. Some (or maybe even many) of them probably are.

That said, part of the intent behind this research was to determine if it was worthwhile for a company to spend time and money punching up their company story. Why spend money just to annoy people, right? Or could it be that when done well, company stories help the customer to bond with the company and the sales rep, and that bond creates value that you can capture even if you are not the lowest price? If a company story builds trust, and trust commands as premium price as I showed in the research piece on The Risk Premium, then it stands to reason that investing in a strong company story presentation would deliver a meaningful ROI to the company, especially when done at scale. But does it add value, or inhibit sales? Here are the results:

Results

After the question, each homeowner was presented with one of five options and asked to choose the one they felt best represented their feeling about the practice of being presented with a company story. The options were presented to each homeowner in a random order to reduce answer order bias, but have been reported here in order from most desirable to least desirable. 

Less than 2% of homeowners, which is within the study’s margin of error, do not want to hear a company story while a staggering 66% either want or need to hear it in order to make a hiring decision. The remaining 31% of homeowners would not find it objectionable which is significant because this finding undercuts the belief that a company story may be perceived by homeowners as being a waste of their time.

It is clear from these results that homeowners overwhelmingly want to hear a “tight” and well-executed company story. This finding was echoed repeatedly in a dozen qualitative interviews… and it just makes intuitive sense, right? We know that they are concerned about getting a good outcome, we know that remodeling is expensive and that expense carries added risk, and we know that homeowners don’t necessarily feel like they know how to make a good decision. Put those three things together and trust goes a really, really long way, especially when a company is coming in at a higher price than someone else offering to do the project on the cheap.

Your sales team needs to know that customer purchasing decisions are based on more than the project, price, and logistics. Homeowners put a value on YOU that is incremental to the work being done.

YOUR trade expertise lowers their risk of a botched job, and the company story should demonstrate that.

YOUR history of results provides social proof that reinforces your trade expertise.

YOUR philosophy of customer service tells them what happens if the worst happens, and lowers their anxiety.

YOUR promises, and knowing that you can be held accountable for fulfilling them, show them what kind of company you are. 

All of this and more gets woven into a company’s story. The companies that deliver their story well know that even the homeowners in the 31% who don’t think they really need it get value from it, and become easier to close. 

 Homeowners want to feel great about their decision to hire you, and they want to be able to get the social kudos that come with telling a friend what a great connection they can offer to help solve their friend’s problem.

The results of this study tell us that those outcomes get further away if you are just a person with a price.