Home Improvement Sales Training: Tips, Tools, and More

“It is much easier to build upon character and traits that are already present.” — Pete Marchmont, VP of Sales at GatorGuard

Pete Marchmont, Vice President of Sales at GatorGuard, likes to work directly with individual sales reps on specific topics and interactions they face in the field. He says they often have an open mind to training and topics that more experienced reps may not be as receptive to. But he has training techniques ready for reps at all levels.

When it comes to home improvement and remodeling sales training — and as with most successful teams and organizations — culture comes from the top. Leadership is best expressed by example. And regardless of whether you’re showing new reps the ropes or are holding focused, specialized training for seasoned sales pros, there are tips and tools at your disposal that can benefit your entire business. 

With Pete’s help, we’ve put together a list of a few of our favorites. Discover remodeling and home improvement sales training tips and suggestions for tools that can help your team boost ticket sizes and close more deals.

Home Improvement Sales Training Tips

To find success in the home improvement sales industry, reps need training that focuses on sharpening their skills and enhancing their ability to close deals. Consider the following tips for new ways to help you build a stronger, more capable in-home sales team.

Push for Product Knowledge Mastery

Pete really emphasizes the need to “hammer home” product knowledge. And in an industry like home improvement and remodeling, you have to appreciate that choice of language. 

He says reps need to be experts in their craft. This “starts with complete confidence” and the “ability to answer any questions or concerns about the product they are representing.” And they need to express this confidence in a way that aligns with the customer’s needs.

Typically, the way to really get to know products and services is through doing and repetition. Talking about them, demonstrating them, going over product information in different settings — any type of “studying” takes time. And reps’ home improvement sales training is essentially studying for mastery of your company’s offerings.

Implement a Standardized Sales Process

Pete explains that the cornerstone of any sales training needs to be a “measurable process with defined steps.” This process is the standard by which to measure reps’ sales success.

Your sales process needs to be a step-by-step system that helps to ensure consistency and scalability during in-home selling scenarios. In fact, our research shows that following a structured sales process leads to 4x higher ticket sizes. This process looked like this: 

Although your definition of “success” will differ depending on business offerings, there are a few key performance indicators (KPIs) that can help most salespeople chart their growth:

• Sales close rate (conversion rate)
• Net sale per lead issued (NSLI)
• Sales script compliance
• Interactivity with customers

These metrics will provide reps with hard data about their progress and demonstrate to managers areas in which reps may need more work. 

Let Data Be Your Guide

Speaking of metrics, Pete says that data allows high-performing reps to “hone in on specific parts of their process and change." Data enables managers to refine their sales strategies and top reps to “master their weaknesses” and grow exponentially. 

And not only is it important to track KPIs and examine hard figures, but it’s also critical for reps to gather data on soft skills like empathy and active listening. “As humans, we allow our emotions and mental flow to impact our perspective,” Pete says. Using tools to track sales conversations eliminates subjectivity and provides “undeniable data to coach off of.”

Encourage Reps to Leverage Financing

Arthur Ashe once said, “Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can.” And in the world of home improvement and renovation, “what you have” is often a flexible solution for services for your customers.

Offering financing options to your home services customers can help sales reps close deals and increase ticket sizes. When field sales reps speak to customers about their financing options, it benefits everyone by:

• Making products and services more accessible to customers
• Instilling trust that reps have customers’ best interests in mind
• Boosting sales conversion rates
• Driving higher revenue per sale

It’s important to equip reps with sales techniques and training that allow them to present customers with financing options that effectively meet their needs. And the way to accomplish this is by practicing role-playing scenarios.

Plug the Power of Promotions

Along with financing options, your sales training program should also teach reps how to discuss promotions with customers during field sales encounters. Conversations about active business promotions have been shown to increase closing rates and significantly boost average ticket sizes in home services sales. 

When reps personalize promotions to fit customers’ behaviors and lifestyles, it can help them overcome price objections and create a sense of urgency — and this inspires quicker decision-making. Promotions are sometimes the key to nudging customers who are on the fence about making a large purchase for their home.

By monitoring real-time conversations between reps and customers using a virtual ride along platform, managers can track the effectiveness of promotion discussions and adjust their training accordingly.

Practice Role-Playing to Sharpen Reps’ (Soft) Skills

Pete explains that the ability to present information and engage with customers is only part of the rep’s job. He says that “training has to include adequate space for role-play and failure and learning to handle, overcome, and anticipate objections from prospects.”

And this is done, in large part, by using soft skills. Training on interpersonal skills like adaptability, emotional intelligence, and problem-solving is essential for providing reps with a solid sales foundation. Pete shares that managers need to have one-on-one interactions with reps where they can share, teach, and showcase the company’s mission so reps know the “why” behind the “what.” He says that “facetime between reps and managers is the most viable plan for affecting culture and the character of a rep,” — and this can be accomplished through sales ride alongs and role-playing with real-life customer interaction data.

Home Remodeling Sales Training Tools

For most sales teams, technology plays a key role in their success — even in a small tech stack, the right tools matter. The following are just a few home remodeling and home services training tools you can use to be the best sales coach possible.

Virtual Ride Along Platform

These days, in-person ride alongs are becoming a thing of the past. Most teams are transitioning to more nomadic sales training and coaching practices using digital sales tools like virtual ride along platforms. As Pete says, “Estimates, paperwork, communication, and training all take place on our iPads.”

A virtual ride along platform like Rilla can help managers track things like script compliance, which is the first skill Pete’s team works on with new reps — and the skill he monitors most with experienced reps. Before using Rilla, Pete says that coaching and follow-up were based on lagging measures (i.e., data from past actions instead of real-time data).

By reviewing reps’ sales conversations and tracking key language, managers can help reps make the most of their time in customers’ homes.

CRM Platform

Customer relationship management (CRM) platforms can help field sales reps maximize their efficiency and manage customer interactions effectively. CRM tools allow managers and reps to track sales activities and streamline training and follow-ups in a way that highlights customers’ needs. 

CRMs also help sales teams:

• Update customer records easily
• Reduce errors and duplicate work
• Maintain alignment by working from a single source of truth (SSOT)
• Automate routine tasks
• Gain insights into sales performance
• Prioritize leads and lead-generation initiatives

With customer information at their fingertips, managers and reps can identify sales opportunities and close deals faster.

Sales Performance Dashboard

Sales performance dashboards offer real-time insights into KPIs like close rates and NSLI. And when managers use Rilla alongside their sales dashboard, they can also track factors like talk speed and script compliance to discover sales correlations.

For example, when Pete saw that his reps’ customer engagement and interaction scores were down, his managers were able to infer that their reps needed to slow down their conversations with customers. This led to increased sales. He says, “While we can’t measure the humanity of a rep or customer interaction, we do know that by slowing our reps down 10 to 15% over the past year, we have seen more positive engagement with the prospect.”

Sales performance dashboards help managers model desired behaviors, base their training in data, and make quick adjustments to sales strategies on-the-fly. 

Level Up Your Home Improvement Sales Training With Rilla

Home improvement and home renovation sales training is about more than just saying pretty words and using fancy programs. It’s about creating an atmosphere in which you’re building on the strengths your reps already display.

So whether you’re training brand new reps or helping seasoned pros refine their sales skills, fostering a company culture rooted in growth starts with those at the top, planting the seeds for success. And with the right mindset and tools — and a focus on personalized training — you can help your reps close more and larger deals and create better customer relationships.

Rilla can help you get started. Contact us to book a demo.