How I Do It: Boosting Route Density Through Value-Based Door-To-Door Sales

When Green Lawn Fertilizing, based in West Chester, Pennsylvania, was looking to scale up the business eight years ago, they decided to invest in their residential outside sales team. Now, their door-to-door sales are up 100%+ year over year.

Patrik Khosrowabadi, market sales director for Green Lawn Fertilizing’s West Chester branch, says that their outside sales team is great for helping build up their route density.

“It only makes sense that we service people already in the neighborhood,” he says. “Why not go back there? They’ve seen our trucks. They’ve seen our technicians. Why not go back there and talk to the neighbors?”

Khosrowabadi estimates that their outdoor sales team generates 15% of their business.

Strengthening Their Sales Team

Khosrowabadi says that when he joined Green Lawn Fertilizing, he spent several seasons recruiting outside sales reps. They now have three outdoor sales teams and plans for even more.

He says part of the reason they have been able to improve their sales year-over-year is thanks to their culture.

“If we hire the right people, and they like the culture, they’re going to take care of the business for us,” Khosrowabadi says.  

Green Lawn Fertilizing also puts the time into properly training their reps versus immediately sending them out in the field.

“They should come to the office first,” he says. “Start with a meeting and share best practices. You don’t need to recruit salespeople. I’ve been doing this for 15 years now, and I can’t count how many great reps I’ve had that had very little to no sales experience.”

Instead, Khosrowabadi asks behavioral questions during the interview and how the candidate answers gives him the insight to know whether to give them a chance.

“I also picture them going to the door,” Khosrowabadi says. “Is this someone that someone’s going to like or dislike? To be honest with you, that’s sales in a nutshell. If they like you, they’ll listen to you and buy. But they dislike you, regardless of how good you sound or your process, they just won’t buy from you. I take all those things in consideration.”

He also recommends hiring slow but turning over fast. Khosrowabadi can tell in the first three to four weeks if someone is going to work out.

“Lawn care is not rocket science,” Khosrowabadi says. “It takes a week to understand. The rest is the rep understanding the process and learning objections. Just be motivated and have a positive mental attitude.”

While they do have some discounts available as a discretionary tool, Green Lawn Fertilizing’s outside sales reps have been trained to focus on value-based selling.

“We don’t call ourselves door-to-door reps,” he says. “We call ourselves canvassers. There’s a difference. Door-to-door reps just come up, pitch price, and say we’re in the neighborhood. What we teach our people within our sales process is you have to build rapport. You need to build value, find a need, ask questions.”

One aspect they’ll highlight with leads is the overall quality of the company and their strong Google star rating.  

“We can go out and be confident in what we’re selling,” he says. “When we’re confident that the lawns are going to look great, it helps with the value-based selling.”

Khosrowabadi says because their reps are selling on needs and wants, they can make sales without having to depend on discounts. His sales reps role–play in the morning to practice responding to common objections such as ‘I already have a lawn care company’ or ‘I do it myself.’

“We do checkups so we can review the day, so they become more and more prepared each day for when they hear those objections,” Khosrowabadi says.

They also conduct in-field coaching. Khosrowabadi and his field supervisor will spend certain days out in the field with the reps.

“We have check-in sheets that they fill out, and they write comments in there,” Khosrowabadi says. “As a team, we just focus on sharing best practices. That goes a long way with everybody.”

Boosting Employee Retention

Employee retention is particularly strong for this role at Green Lawn Fertilizing. Khosrowabadi says it’s all about motivating the team. They run various structured sales incentives but also have the budget to create different weekly contests.

“We’ll play games, get little gift cards, anything to keep them motivated,” he says. “It is a hard job. You’re going up to someone’s home unannounced, uninvited. Someone’s having a bad day. They could just unload on you. It could just kill your day.”

Khosrowabadi touches base with his reps regularly to see how things are going and discusses what’s working or what’s not.

“Every day we just want to get 1% better,” he says. “We also have an awesome team. They work with each other. They help each other out. No one’s out just for themselves. They understand the importance of the team. They understand the importance of the company.”

Green Lawn Fertilizing provides their sales reps with a base pay as well as weekly commissions. Khosrowabadi says they can earn additional compensation by meeting monthly and quarterly goals.

“The incentives we have, the numbers that they can hit at the end of the month and then the quarter, it motivates them, and especially once they’re confident in what they’re doing now,” he says.

Door-To-Door Strategies

Khosrowabadi says it’s important to quickly establish rapport with a homeowner because when you go to someone’s house unannounced, they are in a defensive mode. He says their reps will often mention they take care of a nearby neighbor and point to the property.

“Plus, professional attire is one of our values, so we have a clean uniform, big smile, and we call it the Forrest Gump wave,” Khosrowabadi says. “It helps ease the tension. Honestly, once people like you a little bit, who doesn’t want to talk about their lawn?”

Khosrowabadi says the sales process only begins after the homeowner has shown they want to talk to the rep.

“Nobody likes to be sold,” he says. “They want to buy. That’s how our sales process is designed; it’s designed for people that want to buy, not for us to sell them.”

Khosrowabadi says their reps are knocking on doors from late morning into the mid-evening. In the past, a lot of sales were made in the evening, but the increase of remote work has shifted that window.

Green Lawn Fertilizing expects their reps to visit at least 100 homes a day.

“If reps are not getting to enough homes every day, they’re not going to achieve their results,” he says. “That’s something you want to avoid doing. Having reps who just can’t get to their activity goals. Because if you’re not talking to enough people, the numbers game doesn’t play in your favor.”

He adds it’s not all about closing someone in the first contact.

“We’ll leave them with information,” Khosrowabadi says. “They can call us back or we call them back. The follow-up part is important as well.”

Khosrowabadi says they will circle back at some point, even if a homeowner says they’re not interested at the time.

“Next year we show up, now they want to switch over, so there’s always future possibilities,” Khosrowabadi says.

Khosrowabadi says the pacing of each month’s targets determines which neighborhoods they choose to focus on. For instance, they identify properties that already have a lawn care company to reach out to earlier in the season. They’ll concentrate on DIY homeowners later in the season. Their big push starts in late February and goes into springtime.

“We put in a lot of hours in the springtime,” he says. “We give some time back in the summer and fall, but we call it the 100-day commitment.”

Advice for Others

Khosrowabadi stresses you shouldn’t overlook the required solicitation permits as the rules vary from township to township if you’re just starting an outside sales team.

Additionally, Khosrowabadi recommends you familiarize yourself personally with going door to door.

“You have to know what the perception is, how people feel,” he says.

Once you’ve developed a winning formula for door-to-door sales, then you can craft your sales playbook to share with the sales reps you hire. Khosrowabadi says you also have to show this strategy in action.

“That’s what I do,” he says. “That’s what the field supervisor does with every new hire. It’s like, okay, we did the training. Now watch me make a sale. You got to know that part. Otherwise, people are not going to believe you. They’re not going to be confident. They don’t think they can do it, and once you change that mindset in an individual, that’s when the progression really starts to scale.”