Building a High-Performing Sales Team: Strategies for Moving Company Owners

A successful moving company requires a loyal customer base and a sales pipeline of steady, incoming leads. Think about who handles your sales management now. Are you monitoring your sales calls? Do you feel confident that your moving company sales representatives are closing deals and following up consistently on every lead?

When it comes to building a sales system, your company may be faced with the decision of whether to build a high-performing sales team internally or outsource your sales operations. In this blog post, we will explore what it takes to create a sales team from the ground up and why Oncue Booking is an option for those moving companies who don’t want the headache of that process.

How to Build a High-Performing Sales Team

Building a high-performing sales team takes time, work, and intention. Be strategic and know your objectives and goals from the start. Determine sales targets such as revenue, new customer acquisition, referrals, and other key performance indicators (KPIs) that are meaningful to your moving company. You will want to ensure every team member understands their role in achieving these goals. Here are our recommendations for cultivating a strong sales team:

Build a culture of engagement among your teams

For sales leaders, engaging your team is your most important job, according to Hubspot. This means aiming to maximize each team member’s performance and motivating them every day. You want your team members to think like owners and drive business accordingly. Employee engagement is how employees think and feel about their team and how they act based on those thoughts and feelings. 

Communicating with transparency, setting clear expectations, allowing team members to take ownership of their work, rewarding teams for a job well done, providing professional development opportunities, checking in with them regularly, and creating an overall positive work environment all help to build a culture of engagement among your team. You want your team to feel motivated and committed to your moving company’s sales goals. Find out what matters to your team members and make those incentives a priority. What would you add to this list?

Onboarding & moving company sales training

Comprehensive training is essential for any moving company hiring new employees. Training should include providing your sales team with an in-depth understanding of the moving industry, your company’s services and values, customer personas, step-by-step sales strategies, cold-calling techniques, tips on objection handling, and effective communication skills. 

Training should be provided on an ongoing basis, as needed. In addition, your sales team should feel like they can come to management with questions and feedback during any part of the sales process.

Recruit and retain the best talent

According to the 2021 Bureau of Labor Statistics report, finding talent is tougher than ever before, as the annual employee turnover rate is closer to 57%. So when it comes to recruiting and retaining the best talent, you need to get creative and comprehensive with your offerings. In an article published by Business News Daily, job seekers want to work for inclusive organizations that offer great salaries and benefits as well as be part of a company culture that aligns with their goals. 

For moving companies hiring sales teams, it’s important to have a clearly written job description and advertisement targeted at sales professionals. Use multiple channels to expand your reach and leverage your current employees for referrals by offering incentives. Make sure your branding is strong and prospective sales team members know your moving company’s values, culture, and path for growth. 

During the interview process, be sure to ask questions directed at the candidate’s skills and sales experience. Determine if they are able to understand the sales process and know how to build relationships with customers. The best salespeople know how to handle hearing “no” frequently, and are persistent when it comes to following up on leads. 

When it comes to retaining top sales talent, make sure they are well compensated with a base pay and be clear if you have a commission structure. Reward them with performance-based incentives for when they do well and close deals. Offer professional development and career advancement opportunities.

Maximize leads closing

Lead conversion is critical for closing moves. A prompt response to customers, a qualification process to identify leads more likely to convert, effective communication illustrating how your company can make the moving process easier, transparency about pricing (no surprise costs), a reputation of having professional movers on staff, and five-star reviews on social media all help to close the deal. 

Moving companies can maximize closing their leads when they outsource to Oncue Booking. Oncue Booking enables your company to scale sales efforts based on demand and also provides seven-day-a-week availability for enhanced customer satisfaction and accessibility. Now phone calls can be answered over the weekend if your sales representative is out sick. 

Oncue works with Move Matcher, a quote tool that connects customers shopping for a moving company with you. Each customer is sent to your business by a phone call, which Oncue books for you. In addition, Move Matcher sends leads to your email that are directly imported to Oncue, so the customer’s information is immediately stored. This lead import allows you to have a seamless sales process and easier follow-up with Oncue’s automation.

Automate your sales force

When it comes to your moving company’s sale process – you have a choice. You can do it all on your own and build a high-performing sales team from the ground up, or you can outsource your sales operations to Oncue Booking. Every member of Oncue Booking is highly trained on the moving industry and our customers’ specific policies. This leads to more effective sales conversations and higher lead conversions. 

In addition, Oncue Booking’s training agents are skilled sales professionals and know how to handle various leads, overcome objections, and close deals efficiently. Every call is monitored by Oncue’s Quality Assurance (QA) team, ensuring a successful customer experience.

No more stressful sales team headaches with time-consuming, expensive trainings. With Oncue Booking, you can expect improved sales performance, increased revenue, and high customer satisfaction. For more information on how Oncue Booking can bring you more sales with less stress, contact us for a free demo. 

Automating your sales force is a game-changer for moving companies. Aside from helping you maintain your relationships and improve communication with your customers, your entire workflow will become streamlined. A higher level of efficiency shows customers you are conscientious and managing their move with care. With Oncue, you can send emails and text messages to customers regarding their upcoming move, including move estimates, inventory, and electronic Bill of Lading. 

For moving companies with sales teams, using a customer relationship management  (CRM) system will be important. A CRM is a technology platform that manages your company’s relationships in one central place. This helps to automate communications such as leads, bookings, follow-up emails, contracts, and invoices. Now, all your documents can be signed and stored online and accessible by a dashboard.

Automating your sales force with Oncue can be transformative for your moving business and for your life as a moving company owner. When you outsource your sales process to Oncue Booking, you’ll find a wide range of benefits that help your company keep costs down. By not hiring and training a sales team, you are eliminating recruitment expenses and overhead costs of salaries and paying out commissions. A monthly subscription will provide coverage every day – even during the weekends – offering you scalability and flexibility to adapt to changing sales requirements. 

One of the benefits of Oncue Booking is that you have booking experts at your fingertips. Our booking experts answer calls, provide quotes to customers, work leads, and book moves for you – not just during regular business hours but seven days a week. With Oncue you can view, edit, and contact your leads via the dashboard and get detailed insights of your lead conversion.

Provide internal support

It’s important to always provide internal support to all your employees. The management of your moving company is charged with creating an environment where employees and team members feel valued. When you are leading a sales team, it’s essential that salespeople feel motivated and empowered to bring in new sales and contribute their best efforts to the company’s success. Whether it’s talking through a customer objection, helping a salesperson upsell more effectively, or celebrating a new booking, providing internal support leads to improved morale, reduced turnover, and ultimately, enhanced operational efficiency. Internal support also includes providing team members with the tools they need to do the best job possible, cross-training products and services, and mentorship and coaching for new salespeople and veteran team members.

Give consistent feedback

Along with internal support, it’s critical to give consistent feedback to not just your sales team, but all your employees. Set aside a regular time for weekly, biweekly, or monthly meetings. For those on the sales team, feedback should include setting clear expectations and goals. When giving feedback, try to be as specific as possible by focusing on behaviors, actions, and results rather than being general. 

Always start with positive feedback, if possible, and then talk about how the individual can improve. Watch your tone and stay neutral when you share something that can be perceived as negative. Be consistent with sharing feedback among your sales team and always recognize efforts. During the feedback session, be sure to listen actively, and be open to any feedback coming back to you, as well. Sometimes an employee can share feedback that can make a drastic difference in a process or workflow. Be open.

Establish trust with your customers

For salespeople, trust is paramount. Customers will not usually buy from people they don’t trust, so focus on building genuine relationships with your customers. Always be transparent in your communication with leads by clearly explaining your moving company’s services, pricing, and process. Be responsive and answer any questions they may have quickly. 

Unexpected fees or bloated quotes not only erode trust but will likely lose you customers. Be as accurate and timely as possible with your quotes and share details as you have them. All invoices and contracts should be clear and personalized to the customer. Ensure your customers understand the contracts they are signing. 

Consistent branding across all your moving company’s communications including emails, contract, invoices, website, and social media instill trust and demonstrate credibility. This can easily be done by creating branding templates for all the communications you send out regularly.

Share your positive reviews and testimonials proudly on your website, Google, and Facebook. Oncue helps you do this easily with our review widget. This gives you social capital and allows your customers to read about other people’s experiences with your moving company in their own words. 

In addition, always uphold ethical business practices. Be honest and transparent when communicating with your customers and if you don’t have an answer at the moment, let them know you will find it. Demonstrate high standards when it comes to customer interactions and the services you provide. Follow up after you close the job to make sure your customer has what they need and understands the process. This shows that you are invested and you care about the outcome of their move. People will notice. 

Encourage reps to set personal goals

Moving company owners and sales team leaders need their sales representatives to set personal goals when it comes to closing leads. The best way to encourage this is to set an example and share the personal goals (and progress) your leadership has set for themselves. This demonstrates a goal-setting culture and makes it a norm among teams. Inspire a mindset of entrepreneurs who are working to build your business instead of their own.

Engage your sales team to identify their strengths, areas for improvement, and aspirations. This will help them feel involved in the process and increase their self-awareness as it relates to their performance. 

Another way to encourage your sales reps to set personal goals is to make those goals specific and measurable. This sets up your sales team to succeed because they know what they are targeting. Without specific goals, it’s more difficult to track outcomes. 

Regular check-ins also help reps review their personal goals and identify challenges, while also making adjustments as needed. During those check-ins, illustrate how your sales team is meeting their goals, provide mentoring when needed, celebrate their accomplishments, and share how they are impacting your company’s growth. 

Make a strong online presence

It goes without saying, but every moving company needs a high-functioning website to capture leads for new business. Your website is your digital front door and when your customer lands on your front page, they want to be welcomed and know they are meant to be there. With Oncue, your moving company can capture leads through an embedded form via its website and customers can book entire moves, making the process seamless. 

A strong online presence can expand your reach and attract new customers while enhancing your reputation through testimonials. Make sure your website shares high-quality, valuable content that would be of interest to your customers as well as clearly present your services and value proposition. If you want to take digital marketing to the next level, landing pages can help your customers take targeted action such as a service discount or promotion. In addition, take advantage of search engine optimization (SEO) to make your website easily found in search engines. 

Consider investing in online advertising such as Google Ads and social media ads. Target specific demographics and geographic areas to reach potential customers and offer an incentive for booking with your moving company. Be sure to use LinkedIn to connect with local and national professionals in the moving industry and beyond. Nearly everyone needs moving services!

Email marketing is also an effective way to stay in front of your customers. Build a list of your customers, prospects, leads, and vendors. Send out regular emails to keep them up-to-date on the latest services and promotions. 

In addition, make sure to regularly monitor your online reputation and respond to both positive and negative feedback in a positive manner.

Use data to identify engagement issues

When it comes to how customers are engaging with your moving company, choose software that allows you to see your performance analytics. Knowing what data points to monitor and measure can help moving companies make better business decisions about their sales cycles. For example, with Oncue, you can use our Reporting and Dashboards feature to get a detailed view of your company’s performance on booked jobs, revenue, and inbound leads. You can gain forecasting insights on trends, patterns, metrics, areas of improvement, and more. With data, you can get a handle on all the business activities in your company and hone in on any details you want to give more focus. 

Bottom line on building a sales team

When it comes to your moving company’s sale process – you have a choice. You can do it all on your own and build a high-performing sales team from the ground up, or you can outsource your sales operations to Oncue Booking. Every member of Oncue Booking is highly trained on the moving industry and our customers’ specific policies. This leads to more effective sales conversations and higher lead conversions. 

In addition, Oncue Booking’s training agents are skilled sales professionals and know how to handle various leads, overcome objections, and close deals efficiently. Every call is monitored by Oncue’s Quality Assurance (QA) team, ensuring a successful customer experience.

No more stressful sales team headaches with time-consuming, expensive trainings. With Oncue Booking, you can expect improved sales performance, increased revenue, and high customer satisfaction. For more information on how Oncue Booking can bring you more sales with less stress, contact us for a free demo.