You also might want to check out pages 115-117 of Dan Kennedy's "No B.S. Sales Success" Book. (Better yet, read the whole damn book).

On those pages, he tells of a real estate agent who uses "take away" selling as her main positioning strategy.

You could use similar techniques that she uses. For instance, as you do a few jobs, video tape some before-and-after sequences of your work along with your customers' comments about how good a job you do. Get as many as you can to fill up a tape.

Then, when someone wants a quote, just hand them the tape to watch in their VCR while you go out on the deck to measure it and look at it (or whatever you do to arrive at your estimate).

Then after you've done that and they've watched the tape, give them your estimate or "job quote". Most of the "selling" has been done for you from the video tape.

[Here's where the real estate agent in Kennedy's "No B.S. Sales" Book gets "ballsy" with the "take away", and something you might try] If they say the price is too high, then you can hand them a piece of paper with all the other deck renewal companies in the area and say something like:

"Here's a small list of other companies who do similar work. They don't do quite the same work as I do, but you might want to try 'em out."

If they don't have you do the work, then they will feel like they will be losing out because they've already seen all the good work and all the great things that people have said about you and your work (on the video). Plus, do you really think any other deck renewal company presents before-and-after work along with customer testimonials like you've just done?

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I do something similar, yet not as dramatic.

I market special sporting equipment to home basketball goal owners. A lot of the sales I get is from passing out flyers in upscale neighborhoods (only to houses that already have b-ball goals).

I get a lot of sales because I include testimonials on the flyers as well as the fact that I'm the best alternative to what they'd have to do otherwise. After realizing that, they purchase from me.

I know that's not as "hard" a "take away" sale that I've suggested to you above, but it works just the same.

Bill

P.S. I have another story you might be interested in, called, "Al, the plumber". It's another story of how to set a prospect up for a sale with minimal resistance. If you'd like a copy, I'll email it to you (and anyone else who'd like a copy). Just email me at [email protected] (Make sure to remove the REMOVETHIS part). Just put "Al" in the subject field.