13 - Why Leads Aren't Your Problem - Your Phone Is...with Brigham Dickinson

SPEAKER_03 0:22

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Selling in the Dwelling. I'm your host, Alan Langer, and this is the GoTo Podcast for the in-home selling and trade industry. And we've got another great guest coming up today to talk about not only the trades, but the real trades. You know, I've talked about windows, siding, roofing, but now we've got an HVAC plumbing electrical expert coming up in Brigham Dickinson. But before we get to Brigham, two quick things. As you know, the title sponsor of Selling in the Dwelling is Paradigm Vendo. It's paradigmbendo.com forward slash dwelling. Check them out more on them later in the episode. And also the website is sellinginthedwelling.com. And I bring that up because in the top right corner of the website is the Ask Alan segment. You click on that button, send me a question, like Damon did from Minneapolis that we're going to get to later. And if I read your question in an upcoming episode, you get a free Selling in the Dwelling t-shirt. So without further ado, Brigham, thank you for joining me on the podcast this afternoon. How are you today? I'm great, Alan. Thanks for the opportunity. No, no problem. So for the people watching, we're going to give you a little disclaimer here. Brigham's internet is a little wonky today. So he might freeze a little bit. He might have like a little Max Hedram Coca-Cola commercial stuff going on. But his voice is coming through. So we're going to go through with this because he's full of really some great industry knowledge. And I wanted to bring Brigham on because there's a big, huge area in the industry that a lot of people don't talk about. And it's really service techs. When you look at Brigham's bio and what he's done, one of the things that jumps off the page on me, he wrote 17 years ago, he learned a lesson that most home service companies don't have and never realized. And he says leads aren't the problem, conversions are. Tell me what you meant by that and how that led to your basically you started PowerSelling Pros, which is your company.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Yeah, well, it's because I had a company that went bankrupt. All of that had to occur before I came to that conclusion. I I had a marketing company that I merged with a company that professed to do a manual J, basically heat load calculation, within a minute or less. And I thought, man, that's amazing. That is incredible technology that our industry needs. And I thought, let's do this. I thought we were gonna go game busters. It was gonna be amazing. And it wasn't. It was awful. The company went bankrupt in in five months. It was a long time ago. I'm over it, Alan. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, good. I'm I'm glad. But uh it it was, it was difficult. It was hard, lost everything. But as I started picking things up, I hit sales books and self-help books and religious books like never before, and just read and studied and read and pondered and prayed my guts out. And in fact, that's how I created the first version of this, the the Pattern for Excellence, a little tool that I use to help you book calls and wow customers over the phone as well as inside the customer's home. When I drew it out, it looked, it looked somewhat like this. When I first drew it out, it was just a a drawing.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

I was I was a broker. For folks who are listening, you see sewing a picture of a circle with a couple lines in it.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Yeah. Maybe some words in between each line, but you know, it was all drawn out, like, you know, just on a piece of paper. And I was just kind of thinking about it as I was going through and studying, and and I was a broker at the time trying to make ends meet for a company called Oozle, right? So my company went under. A marketing company went under and and uh I started working with Oozel, and they said, if you bring a lead, this is 2008. So they couldn't afford to employ me. Oh they said, if you bring us a customer, we'll pay you for that customer. All right, cool. This is how I'm providing for my family now. I'm a broker for an SEO and paper click company. So I started doing that. One of my clients, Nearings, Troy Nearings of Nearings Plumbing Heating and Air. He gave me a call and he said, Hey, I need you to come in. We need to talk about your SEO. And so I came in, sat down, and he said, You know what? Your SEO is no good. I said, What do you mean it's no good? He said, Well, they're calling in. The homeowner's just calling in, they just want to ballpark price, they just want to know what you charge to want to a technician. And we're not able to book these calls. We don't know how. So let's put this on hold, this SEO pay-per-click on hold until we figure out how to book these types of calls. Uh the fact of the matter is, is that his entire team was used to being order takers. People would call in, they'd book an appointment, right? They weren't used to people saying, hey, I want a ballpark price, or I want to shoot charge come out, or I want to talk to a technician. And so I said, look, those are opportunities, those are leads. If if they can fog a mirror, it's a lead. I mean, as a marketing professional, that's it, essentially that's I would that's what I'd say. Hey, I did my job. If the phone rings, all right, it's on you, right? And and so he's like, Okay, cool, but I don't know how to book these calls. And I said, Well, I do. I could train them myself. I basically said, Look, I I used to be in their shoes. I used to answer phones for a company called the Arctic Air in Chico, California. And he says, Well, what will you train them on? And then I pulled out this piece of paper and I said, This. So he looks at this piece of paper with you know circle and lines on it. You're like, okay. Cool. And he said, What specifically do you have in mind? I said, Let me teach them. We'll get the call conversion up, we'll teach them how to book these calls. It'll be amazing. Of course, I was just trying to keep the account because I got four kids and a wife. I gotta make something happen. I started training him, his call conversions go up. His team's call conversions go up by 20%. You know, when you do the math, you know, your average ticket's 500 bucks. You know, you're you're booking four or five more calls a day per person, you know, four people answering the phone. That adds up real quick.

SPEAKER_03 6:09

That adds up very quickly, yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

A month later, I got a call from his buddy Tom Robashot in Boulder, Colorado. He calls me up and he says, Hey, I hear you're training choice team. And I said, Yeah. I'm also doing his marketing, his SEO on paper for click. And he's like, Okay, but I have that cover. I don't I don't need you for that. But I'll I'll pay you to train my CSRs, my people who answer the phones. I said, Okay. So I I booked a flight to Boulder and It was interesting because I'm gonna give you a side story. One of a uh a friend of mine, somebody very close to me at the time, not close anymore, but at the time she calls me up and she says, How long do you plan on doing this? And I said, What? Doing what? Well, training people, whatever your ideas, you know, without getting paid, really. And I said, Well, I am getting paid. He said he's gonna pay me. And she said, How long are you gonna do this without a paycheck? And then finally I just said, as long as it takes. As long as it takes, it's gonna work. You know, everybody needs this, everybody needs to know how to book the call while the customer. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it for as long as it takes. So as a side note, for anybody who wants to start a business out there and they feel in their guts that it's right, don't let anybody stop you, especially the ones that are closest to you. I vividly remember that conversation. Vividly remember it. Tom and and Troy got together because his call conversions went up too. Tom and Troy get together and they go, you know what? Brigham's crushing it for us and our co-handling team. Why don't we get him uh over to this guy by the name of Mike Gugliero in New in East Brunswick, New Jersey? He owns a company called Gold Network.

SPEAKER_03 7:47

I know East Brunswick.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

I grew up in New Jersey. Mike calls me. He basically gets my services for next to nothing. And he says, Don't worry, because I'm gonna refer you to everybody if this works, right? He he knew. He just knew I heard that before. He knew he was getting a steal. I took his word for it. He referred me to probably 27 different companies over a two-year period of time. Oh, so he was good to his word. He's good to his word for sure. And he referred all of his friends. And of course, I was hiring all my friends. They're all paid relationships now, Alan. The rest is history. I have over 400 companies in the home service industry that we work with. It came down to realizing that it's not, it's not the phone call. It's not. If they can fog a mirror, it's a lead. Stop blaming your marketers when the lead coming in isn't just ready to book, right? That's your job. Your job is to book that call while that customer, right? Their mindset when they get on is is this the right company? So it's the person answering the phone that actually answers that question, creates that emotional connection uh and makes sure that, you know, this is the last call that homeowner makes. If they're shopping, it's to create trust.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

Yeah, you're bringing up so many things right now. My head is exploding because I've always said, you know, when I when I work with companies, you know, they they'll most of them say, Hey, can you come in and train my sales team? Yeah, that's great. I'll come in. I'll train as many sales teams as I want. But I said, if you just come in and have me come in once and that's it, you know, two-hour workshop, I'll take your money, but you know what? After three weeks, it's it's all you're gonna be doing the same old thing. I said, let me look at so I like to look at everything that they're doing because it all has an effect on the sales. And I've always said, I've always asked every single loaner that called me, I said, Who's the most important? Ask this question, who's the most important person in your company? And they'll they'll always say, Well, the me or the sales manager or the whatever. And I'm like, no one ever says the person who picks up the phone. That is the initial, and and now, even as we evolve, all the research that's being done before they even pick up the phone, that person on the phone is hugely important because they're solidifying everything they're finding online and they're converting those marketing leads that are coming in. So you hit you hit the nail on the head way back then when you started this 17 years ago. And now people are realizing that I can't have Joey from the warehouse pick up the phone uh during lunch when when Shirley's leaving because that's just not gonna work. You got to have a system. So, and then you created that, correct?

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Yes, it is a look, it is a high-touch industry. It is a people business. So let's say that we get to the point where we have AI booking the call. Awesome. If that call is booked, essentially you've been given as as much permission as any to call them back and say, hey, how was your experience with the AI? Now, two things are gonna happen with that question. I didn't know it was AI. Isn't that amazing? Or number, or number two, yeah, it was AI and it was super glitchy and it annoyed me. You know what? I appreciate your patience and your feedback. I'm so glad you told me. I'm definitely gonna get that to those who who need to know about it, the powers that be, and and uh really appreciate your patience in the interim. Now, we do have an appointment for you on Tuesday between two and four. Is that a time that works for you? The only reason why I bring it up is because I have a technician that's in your area right now. If you want it, we could have him out sooner. Now, the technician I'm sending out, he's amazing. He's gonna come out, he's gonna look at the situation, he's determined exactly what you need to fix, and he'll give you a price before he starts. You're in very good hands. You certainly called the right place. Is there anything else I can do for you? Any other needs that that uh have come up that you'd like to get taken care of? Perhaps there's something you didn't know that we provide. Anything else going on inside your home that we need to know about? Nothing. Okay, well, thanks so much for choosing us. We're very excited to work with you. Technician will be on his way in a couple hours. Thank you so much for choosing us. Have a wonderful day.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

Why would we do that? Boom. You just you just set that. Yeah, you just set that like I'm feeling great as the person on the other end of the line. I'm feeling tremendous because here's the thing. I wasn't expecting a good call like that. I was expecting a typical sales call or voicemail or whatever. You just completely gave me a pattern interrupt, and that that right there is the beginning of a sale.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Yeah, exactly. It is a high-touch industry. The minute we leave it to AI is the minute we have a very hard time justifying our price. The last thing we want to do to this industry is to make it like Amazon or McDonald's. Okay, it's it's it's a check, it's a Chick-fil-A industry. If you want to keep it at the price that you're at currently, or the price you should be, some of you who are listening, right? The price that where it should be, you've got to have a Chick-fil-A model, right? You've got to have a very high-touch model. And we use AI to the point that it makes sense. We we want to be able to the biggest problem we've had in our industry is when it gets uh really busy, the phone doesn't get answered. Well, A solves AI solves that problem. Okay, great. Your high performers are on the phone. Awesome, fantastic. And the AI picks it up and books it now. That's amazing. You should be using AI for that. Right. But the last thing, and the reason why I call them high performers, the last thing you want them to do is to go, huh, and the AI will pick it up. Yeah. And that's why you're going to be replaced. Yeah. That's why you're gonna be replaced because of that mindset. Okay. Instead, if the AI picks it up, okay, you didn't get to it. You still gotta create that touch, that emotional connection over the phone so that they choose us. So they stop calling people. Because trust me, the AI goes to the opening that's available, regardless of how regardless of the nature of the call, regardless of what's in what's available, regardless of how 911 it might be, the AI opens up the times that are available and puts it in that time. Now, if the homeowner doesn't like that time, that homeowner is gonna keep calling around. They're not done shopping, is the point. So the longer you wait to call them back as a high performer, this is what high performers do, they're shopping around. What's your job as a high performer? Get on that phone and get them to be done shopping. You're 911, there's no 912, help us on the way. You connect with them on an emotional level and you get them to trust you so that they're done shopping.

SPEAKER_03 14:18

There's there's two companies I'm seeing here. There's the companies, the larger companies, I'm assuming, are the ones that can afford the AI to pick up the phone. And then you got the smaller companies who maybe have one or two people who pick up the phone and maybe do various other things who can't afford AI who haven't looked into it or don't even think they're they're afraid of it. So for the company that has the AI, I'm assuming you're saying after the AI books it, they still have to follow up with a human phone call. But then when the when when there is no AI, what are you telling those companies and how they should be answering the calls? I mean, is there is there two different conversations there? How would you how would you go about that?

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Ideally, we want a high performer always answering that phone. So the customer gets on the phone, and even if they want something like a ballpark price, hey, I just don't know how to handle that right now, right? We want a ballpark price. Oh, yeah, we don't give price to you with a phone. Or they, if they're smart, if it's programmed properly, it'll send it to a high performer as quickly as possible. Hey, looking for a ballpark price, great. Tell me more about your situation. What's going on? Well, I've got this air conditioner, it's blowing hot air. Let's call it air conditioned, let's call it plumbing, let's call it electrical, whatever it is, right? Uh, it's blowing hot air. My gosh, that's terrible. How long has it been doing that? Oh, last couple days. So wait a minute. You've been in this heat for the last two days. Yes, it's terrible. Wow. Well, we can't have that. No, we can't. My wife, she's you know, four months pregnant. She can't go without AC. No, she cannot. Okay, well, look, you've called the right place. We can absolutely help you with that. Let me get your contact information. We'll look at the schedule again. Right? We're rolling. I'm not gonna even ask for the appointment at that point because they want it. They want it and they want it now.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

So my objective now is just get the contact information and roll. Let's say they call and they say, hey, what do you charge to come out? You know, it really depends on your situation. And by the way, it does depend. If they want to just replace everything, we'll go out for free. If they want to fix it, there might be a there might be something associated or a cost associated there, right? So it depends. Can you tell me more about it? Well, I've got this air conditioner. It's blowing hot air. My gosh, that's terrible. How long has it been doing that? Sound familiar? Oh, it's been doing it. Oh my gosh. We can't have that. No, we cannot. Okay, well, look, you've called the right place. We can help. When would you like us out? Oh, this afternoon would be good. So now we've got them, right? In the back of your head, you're going, it couldn't possibly be that easy. Well, it is that easy as long as you're able to connect with them on an emotional level and connect to the point where the logic doesn't need to be there. You see, you know, and I know that emotion drives logic. And so it's just a matter of connecting with them, showing them that you're listening, showing them that you care about their situation, reassuring them that they're called the right place and making that happen. So, our goal, take them from shopping to trust. Shopping to trust. That's the job of a high performer over the phone.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

Love that. And what you're doing, and like I mentioned before, it's a pattern interrupt because I talk about this all the time, especially from a sales appointment. When anyone has to do anything with they need to buy something or get something fixed, whatever it is, they have to make that phone call, they're never expecting a good experience. If you have to make a customer service call, are you expecting that to be a good call in your brain? You're picking up the call like, oh, I gotta call, I gotta call my I had to call my electrical company three weeks ago. It was a nightmare. And I dreaded it. I I postponed it for two days because I knew it was gonna be a nightmare. And of course, they exceeded all my expectations. It sucked. And that's what everyone's doing. So you're when you're creating that high performer that completely changes that, as the caller, I'm like, oh my God, this is great. It's just like the sales rep coming into the house and not doing a dog and pony sales show. It's like, oh my God, this is great. I wasn't expecting this. So that's that's what you're proponing here. And it's brilliant because I don't think so many companies don't even think about this.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

Yeah. And if they think about it, they don't know how to do it.

unknown 17:54

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Chick-fil-A, you'll pay an extra what, $1.50 at Chick-fil-A than you won at McDonald's. And you're gonna wait longer. Pay more, wait longer. Where where else is that the case? Disney. Pay more, wait longer. So it is a high-touch, experiential business model, which cannot go away from this. Is the reason why PE groups started coming our way? It's because the margin. It's because the margin. And the minute you start trying to fast forward the process in any way, shape, or form with AI, without AI, or what have you, it becomes very transactional. And with transactions, you lower trust, and it's very hard to justify your price. You know, we all ran from new construction years ago, you know, where you have to put in 15 units a day in order to make money. We ran from that because it's exhausting. And we go into the residential industry where we're working with homeowners. We try to follow the same model, the new construction model where we slap it in and move on, right? In the heating cool industry, we we run to a thermostat, run to the condenser outside. Hopefully, we take the time to really diagnose it, right? Because if we switch out a part, leave and it's not working again, now you're in trouble. Right? Yeah, right. You're in trouble because they call you back and they're like, hey, you were just out here and it's not working again. Right? Trust down. And you having to go back out there, cost, right? This eats into your margin. And it's because we cause we cause our own problems by not following the Chick-fil-A model. I mean, essentially, you and I were talking about this uh before the podcast even started. Our goal is to prevent problems from even occurring. The the bottom line is if they like us, they are inherently more amiable, more flexible, easy to deal with. Let me just give you one example. Say you've got a neighbor and you don't like that neighbor. I know this is totally unrealistic, right? Nobody has a neighbor they don't like. Let's say that this time, you know, you have a neighbor you don't like, and that neighbor knocks on your door and he says, Hey, I need to borrow a shovel. You might not like them enough where you you might say, Well, what shovel? Right? Well, the one that the one that you were using yesterday with the red handle. Oh, that one. Sure. Yeah, I I let another neighbor borrow it. You know what I mean? Sure, you know, you reluctantly let them borrow the shovel, but you're peering out the front window, watching them use the shovel. Every time he leans it on the side of his house, you're wondering, hey, once he can return the shovel. I may never get the shovel back, right? And you might think to yourself, you know what, I think when he goes in the house, I'm gonna run over there, grab the shovel, bring it back. If he ever needs it again, he can knock on the door, but he's just leaving it there. I don't want to it could rain, right? Sun's bearing outside, and you're like, it could rain out there, you know. You have all these things. That's if you don't like him. What if you like the neighbor, right? And and not just like the neighbor, but I'm saying you guys go to each other's house on weekends, your kids go there, their kids go to your house, right? It is a great relationship. That person may not even need to ask to borrow the shovel. You might already know the garage code. Go in, grab the shovel, borrow it, put it back, nobody cares. Right. Nobody cares. Why? Likeability changes everything. Everything. And so our price, yeah, our price doesn't matter as much if they like us. Uh the time that it takes for us to get out and get it taken care of doesn't matter as much if they like us.

SPEAKER_03 21:45

I've spoken to marketing companies. I always thought marketing companies always shortchanged most of their clients because they get a lot of leads, but then they say, Hey man, you gotta sell them. It's up to you. It doesn't matter how great the leads are. And they never really help the company figure out. How to set up the appointment, how to sell it. Do they have a sales process? You can you can spend a thousand dollars a lead, get the greatest leads in the world. If you don't have a good sales process, it doesn't matter. You're throwing money out the window. So I always thought that that was a bad way that marketing companies went about it because they just threw all the leads on the lap in the laps of all their customers and said, Hey, your problem, and then all of a sudden the customer then turns around and say, Hey, your leads suck. I'm changing companies, and that and and it's a vicious cycle. So it is took care of that. You got the leads and then you helped them set them. So that's great. Hey dwellers, quick break. Hey, did you know that the closing percentages for in-home sales has been dropping consistently over the last 10 years? It's really crazy, and there's a lot of reasons for it. But one of them is reps have so much to do in the house because there's so many different platforms that you're jumping back and forth all the time. Well, my title sponsor, Paradigm Vendo, takes care of that. In one digital platform, you can go from initial appointment right to final sale and signatures by visiting just their platform. It's amazing. You gotta check them out. It's paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling, P-A-R-A-D-I-G-M Vendo.com forward slash dwelling, because your reps need to give the homeowners a great experience in the house, and jumping around doesn't do that. Visit paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling and take care of the experience your reps are giving in the house. So let's talk about now. You do this pattern erupt, they're liking you. This the call is great. Now the technician goes over. Are you helping these companies with what the technicians do when they get to the house and how to continue that likability and trust?

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Yeah. Okay, so it's set up perfectly by the high performer over the phone. Now you have a high performer that goes out to the house. Homeowners' mindset when you first get there is I need you to fix this. It was a surprise. I wasn't planning on it. Fix it so that I can get by, right? That's the mindset. I want to just get by. So that high performer's job, as soon as they get into the customer's home, is to help them realize that they actually don't have to live the way that they're living. They actually can do better. Right. So our goal is not to just go in and maintain quality of life. Anybody can do that. Our goal is to enhance quality of life. All right. So the way that we go about that is we go in and we slow it down. How do we slow it down? We simply get inside that front door and we start talking. Okay, so the person that you were talking to initially with our company said that you had an air conditioner that's blowing hot air, for example. Let's say it's on the plumbing side. They've got a water here that's leaking out the bottom. Yeah, it's been leaking out the bottom. Okay, so that essentially means you haven't been able to take a shower for a while. Yeah, I haven't been able to take a shower for a while. How long has that been going on? Last three days. So wait, you've had no shower for the last no, it's been a cold shower. Oh, cold shower against your will? That's not good. Right? Yeah. Yeah, it's been awful. Uh I can't imagine what you're going through right now. Look, you've definitely called the right place. Why don't why don't we do this? Why don't you take me around? Show me what you've got going on. If uh anything else comes up, you just let me know. Anything else you want to bring to my attention as we as we go around, kind of uh make sure that we're we're crossing all of our T's, dying our I's or bring it to our attention. Who knows? Maybe we've got a solution for it. Sound good? Oh, sounds great. And the next thing you know, he starts taking us around. See, our goal is to earn the tour. When we earn the tour, there's certain things that we notice, right? We might walk past the kitchen, we see something leaking out the faucet, and we can talk about it. Hey, I notice that faucet's leaking. Is it just not shut properly? What's going on there? Oh, yeah, it just leaks. It just leaks. You know, you don't, you know, you uh once again, you don't have to live this way, right? We can fix that while we're here. It it might not even take another part. It might just need to be tightened up or what have you, right? Maybe it just needs to be washered. It's not a big deal, right? We might walk by um a bathroom and notice something there. Let's say we and we notice a ring around the toilet or even around the sink, the the bathroom sink, right? You don't have to live that way. Right? And so we simply talk about the fact that, you know what, this is this, we discover the way they're living and we talk about how they can live better. Uh, we even check water pressure outside. Hey, want to make sure that you've got the right water pressure. If the water pressure is too high, it might ruin your appliances. And the last thing we want is to, you know, you've got a this nice bosch dishwasher. And if you've got too high washer pressure, it uh it could it could ruin the the dishwasher. You know, and you're making me worry about my water pressure in my house right now. So it it look, it does come down, every technician has a certain amount of knowledge, and they would love nothing more than to teach people all the things they know about what's going on inside their home. And so all we want to do is create an environment where they can use that knowledge, they can disperse that knowledge, they can share that knowledge. So there's five things I like everybody to do. First thing is just connect with the homeowner on an emotional level, number one. Number two, earn the tour. Get them to walk you around the entire house so you can see everything that's going on. If it's heating and cooling, you might see an inhaler on the coffee table. Hey, I noticed there's an inhaler on the coffee table. What's going on? Who has asthma? Oh, it's my son. He's had asthma his entire life and so on and so forth. Well, we we actually have ways to clean the air that you breathe inside your entire home. Or we notice something like an air purification system that you can buy from a Costco, right? And it's just to purify the air, you know, in like in a in a five-inch radius around the machine. Okay. Well, you you have the ability to purify the air throughout your entire home with UV lights and air scrubbers and so on and so forth. And we can just talk about it, right? And it's an option. It's an option. So we connect with them on an emotional level. We earn the tour, get them to walk us around the house, and we're looking for ways to enhance their quality of life. Not just maintain it, but enhance their quality of life. Okay. Then we then we do a thorough inspection. We make sure we pull out all of our tools. We don't just guess what it is within the first five minutes. Don't do that. We go through, we do a thorough inspection. In fact, if the homeowner can hold the tools and help hold different parts of whatever it is that you're looking at or inspecting, beautiful. Okay. Funny thing, when you watch somebody switching out a tire, you feel, I don't know what else to call it. You start to feel warm and fuzzy, right? You don't know, you don't have all the right tools to switch out the tire. You're just kind of looking at it like, great, I'm stuck here. How am I gonna? And somebody jumps out of their car, pulls out all the right tools, switches out the tire for you, and you're like, that's amazing. I've got I got 20 bucks. Can I give you 20 bucks, please? Can I give you see? That's that's where you want them, right? That's where you want. And so then you sit down after that thorough inspection, and they've seen it, right? Let's say that they can't get to wherever the inspection's being done. Well, you have this really cool tool where you can say, okay, this is where I'm doing stuff, and this is what's happening here in the attic, or this is what's happening here on the roof, or this is what's happening here on the backyard. And you do it in in just short minute videos, and you just airdrop it onto their phone. You simply say, Hey, I'm done with the inspection. I want to give you some context for what we what we noticed up there, okay? Some context for the options that I presented to that I'm gonna be presenting to you. If you'll watch those videos while I'm putting together the options, I would really appreciate it. All right, cool. So now they've watched several videos of you changing their tile. Okay, modifying, changing, looking, inspecting, taking notes. They're watching you do the work, right? So you come back in with all these options based on your findings. Now they saw the findings. You talked about the findings, they already know what you're talking about. So they have all this context for the options that you're presenting, right? You present all the options, hopefully, it's at least four in your back your head. You're going, geez, four. It's a lot of options. The more, the better. Your goal is to for them to choose which one, as opposed to yes or no, which one. Okay, and I don't care how long it takes you. You know, if it takes you 20 minutes to create the option, I don't care. You have look do you want the job or not? Okay, do you want to do the work or not? Our goal is to never leave empty-handed. Let me repeat that. Never leave empty-handed. Okay, if you ever watch Moneyball, you know what I'm talking about. Our goal is to get on base. We get on base. Okay. We get on base with one of the options. The way that we get on base is we get to the point where we're able we're able to handle whatever pitch they throw at us. Okay, whatever pitch they throw at us, there's an option, option, option, option, which one? But I don't care which option you choose, just as long as you choose one. Choose the option, cool. I've got the parts in my truck. And we get on base, right? We get rolling. So anyway, I keep interrupting myself. Connect on an emotional level. Earn the tour, inspect, thorough inspection, at least four options, including financing. Get on base. Have them choose one of the options and move forward with the work. Those five. If you can remember those five, you're gonna be very successful.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

You just reminded me. I have a car which is paid off, so I don't use dealerships anymore. I have a mechanic that I that I trust. But you know, when I bring it in, it's an old car, but I love driving, it's an FJ Cruiser. And, you know, he tells me this has got to be done, this gotta be done. And I trust him because I've been using them for years. But my girlfriend has a Mazda who's still under the maintenance thing. And she had an issue a couple months ago. She tasted a dealership and she says, she goes, Look what the dealership just sent me. And just like you just said, videos of what was wrong with her brake. And he went under the car and he said, Okay, look at this line here. This line here is clogged, that's why your brakes are a little blah, blah, blah. And this is here. And I went, Holy crap, this is amazing. Like, he just went through, he didn't just say, Hey, we got to fix your brakes because, and then trust me, because I'm the dealer. He literally showed what was wrong with it. And I thought it was brilliant. And, you know, I'm like, well, don't take your car to a dealership, they'll rip you off. But I was like, shit, pay for it, pay for this. This is great. Like, they're literally like showing you exactly what they're doing. So yeah, it's it's psychologically, it's just it's the trust and the comfort that you're building. And again, they're not expecting it. I wasn't expecting it. It's a mechanic. Like you, you know, the bar's pretty low. And in and in this industry, and all the home improvement trade industry, the bar's pretty low. You start doing what you're talking about, you're gonna fly right to the top of the list. So good stuff right there.

SPEAKER_00 32:37

It is a high-touch industry. And the minute you commoditize it, you're hurting yourself. It's gonna be very hard for you to justify your price.

SPEAKER_03 32:46

Yeah, absolutely. Do you think, now you just said stuff when you said high performing rep. Now you got a high performing person picking up the phone. Not a lot of reps are high performing. Do you think this is trainable for everyone? All the technicians that are out there, can they be trained to do this? Do they, or do they have to be, when you're hiring, do they have to have a certain mindset to get them to understand this is how they need to be in front of a customer?

SPEAKER_00 33:11

Yeah. So training and incentives, continual training incentives is how you keep them performing at a high level. Power Selling Pro is the company that I own is a coaching company. There's a difference between trainers and coaches, right? Um, I would say that trainers is it and training in general is like a pre-season strategy where you get your technician or your CSR ready to perform at a high level. Whereas coaching is in-season type one-on-one uh accountability coaching, right? So um what what we do at PowerSelling Pros is we listen to a phone call after it's booked, and we make sure that they are performing a high level over the phone and we hold them accountable to that. We have them listen to their own phone calls and coach them for a half hour twice a month. We do the same thing for the technician. We have the AI record the entire conversation inside the home. We listen to that phone call. We're looking for very specific things. We mentioned five things there. And when they miss one of those five things, we hold them accountable. We have two coaching sessions a month and we coach them and hold them accountable to that performance. So it's it's in-season coaching. We coach them one-on-one, twice a month, using their own phone calls, which is why we work very well in tandem with training organizations. We don't do boot camps or trainings or summits. We leave that to the professionals that do that type of pre-season type work. What we like to do is go in after the fact and say, hey, you learned all this amazing stuff, right? The business owner spent $25,000 on you and that training. Yeah. Why aren't you doing it? Right. Now you might think, oh, why don't why don't we leave that to the service manager? It's a great question. Okay, so the service manager that was the question I was just about to ask you. I literally was gonna ask you that. Yeah, so service manager, say they have 10 technicians. Each of these technicians, if everything's going right, they have four appointments a day. Each of those appointments is two hours long. Even if we have AI where we're pinpointing specific things for one service manager to handle all that and provide accountability to all of them, good freaking luck. Okay, yeah, exactly. It's not gonna happen. It's not gonna have, he's not gonna have time. All he has time to do, really, is to hire, right? He's gonna hire, he's gonna set the expectation. And if the expectation isn't being met, he's gonna make sure that there are accountability and training and coaching there. And he has to have the ability to fire if they're not going to perform. His his plate is full. His plate is full. So we come in and we report to that manager. And we simply say, hey, we'll provide the accountability, we'll provide the coaching, we'll make sure that they're doing it, and we'll report to you on their progress. You'll get a report as a service manager, you'll see who's doing a good job, who's not. And you know who to go in and say, hey, the freak's going on, and who to go in and say, hey, good job, and who to say, you know what, this isn't working, we got to let you go. Right? It's it's a there's a place for all of us, and and right now we are putting way too much responsibility on a service manager. It's not fair. Uh, which is why we come in and provide coaching.

SPEAKER_03 36:30

Which you should, and and I I talk about this all the time because like like we talked about pre-call. I get many companies calling me to do the preseason stuff, to do the training and everything, and I'm like, I'll do it. So, but if you really want to move the needle, you need me to come back and do some, you know, virtual trainings after this and follow-ups and and and things because nothing's gonna stick. You can have the greatest two, three hour training in the world. Everybody could be all rah-rah when you're done. Two weeks later, they're back to doing the same thing. So, but how how how difficult is it for you? I've I'm an owner of a company. I've got two, I've got 25 reps, I've got two sales managers, and now I got to hire a coach to handle this, what I think the sales managers should be doing. Do you run into owners giving you pushback, say, why should I hire you? I got two sales managers.

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Yeah. So here's essentially what we say to them is you've got how many technicians say you've got 10. Even with those two sales managers, uh, they likely do not have time to listen to every call that comes in, especially if those calls are two to four hours long. And even with the AI where you're pinpointing specific parts of the call, you know, what'd they do with this part of the call? What do they do with this part of the call? You still got to type into the AI. Hey, I look for this in the call. Right. Okay, cool. All right, now look for this. Okay, it's it's way tedious. So what do I have? Well, I have a team of call monitors that listen to those calls and they comb through with the AI's help and pinpoint the specific things that that technician or that CSR needs to perform to do better immediately. Then they take those specific parts of the call and they send it over to the coach. The coach pulls up those parts of the call and then calls the CSR or the technician. Okay, so they're getting feedback the day, maybe two days after the call occurred. So now they're able to listen and listen to it and they're going, Oh, you're wow. I didn't follow this part of the process, that part of the process. You know what? I'm I I agree with you. Let's practice real quick. So now we're practicing how to handle the next time that occurs. So now we're not going two, three, four weeks where that behavior continues, right? We're actually able to pinpoint it and fix it. It's speed. It's speed. Your service manager may get to this in a couple weeks, but not maybe a month. Okay. Exactly. We're there every we're there twice a month, hitting everything we possibly can as quickly as possible. So yeah, your service managers could do this, you're paying them to do this. But let's say you wanted to hire another service manager. You're paying your service manager what, $120,000 a year? Okay, you're paying us $50,000 a year. Right. So yeah, you can get another service manager, or you can just get us to do that part. And we'll report back to the yeah. And if nothing else, the service manager has an out if something's not working. Ah, it's power slate. Probably.

SPEAKER_03 39:22

Yeah. I told you to hire them.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yeah. You're welcome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:29

So for ever for everyone listening, hire me for the preseason training and then hire Brigham for the for the coach for the in-season coaching. We'll we'll make a good tandem right there. You got it. All right. You just heard the the angels singing, which means it's the ask Allen segment of the podcast. We're flying by. We're almost running out of time, but we've got a great question. This is from a gentleman named Damon. And I love the Ask Allen segment because now I'm getting a bunch of questions in and I get to pick and choose the questions for the upcoming guest. And this one actually came in this morning and it was like bang, this is made for Brigham because I just know we would be talking about this. So the question, he's from Minneapolis. When the prospect is generally in a rush and trying to lead the appointment, that never happens, right? The prospect is generally in a rush and trying to lead the appointment. How do I take control and slow the appointment down? I am the owner and the only salesperson in my company. We sell interior painting and dry roll repairs, and almost every prospect expects to walk me right to the area as soon as my shoes hit the floor. I want to sell the value of working with us, but it's tricky when they view us as simply a commodity. Please help. So great question for Damon. How would you answer that, Brigham?

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Yeah. So the first thing I'd want to do is listen to that call. I'd want to listen to a few of the calls and figure out why he's not able to slow it down, why he's not connecting. And uh we'd also talk about appearance. Um, you know, great point. First impressions are everything. Making sure the first impression is where it needs to be is is important. So I'd look at hairstyle, I'd look at the way he's dressed, I'd want to see how easy it is for him to smile. And and all that would take is a quick little face call. Hey, how's it going? How you doing? How you feeling? And see how quickly he responds to my positivity, you know, my my energy, so on and so forth. So I'd want to work on that first. If we can get through all of that where his energy is good, there are gonna be some times where homeowners are like that, but it is your job to slow it down and to slow every one of them down. And I've been in, look, I've done hundreds of ride-alongs. Hundreds. Where I get in a technician uniform, I'm knocking on that door, I'm throwing on my floor sabers. Uh, let me just give you one example. I'm I'm with the the son of the owner, his name is Braden. This is in Scottsdale, Arizona, with reliable heating and cooling. Brayden's really good. In fact, I was teaching him a few things that morning and he was rolling his eyes because he's like, There's no way this is ever gonna work. And that's my favorite kind of person, right? You know, one who's just skeptical. The owner's name, the owner of the house, his name was Brett. And uh he wasn't even the owner of the house. His dad was the owner of the house. He was there just as a caretaker. Uh, but he was there with his wife and he worked from home. Okay, so there's some context. Knock on the door, and Braden uh speaks up first. He says, Hey, Brett, I'm Braden. And he points at me and I say, And I'm Brigham. And together we're the three B's. Right? And we just start laughing. Next thing you know, we are inside the house. We're talking about the office where he works. And I'm going, hey, if you got a bunch of equipment in there, computer equipment, because that's where you work, chances are that that room's warmer than the rest of the house. He's like, Yeah, it really is. And we start talking about how to mitigate hot and cold areas inside the house. And uh he said, you know what? I've got this uh this um webinar I've got to be on. And I said, Cool, how long is the webinar? It's about 30 minutes. All right, also. Braden and I are gonna jump on the roof. Don't worry though. As we look at your package in it, we're gonna we're gonna do some videos and make sure you know exactly what we're expecting and and what we find up there, so on and so forth. Why don't we meet back here in 40 minutes and we'll talk about everything that we find? How does that sound? So we're on the roof, and Braden's looking at me like, what the freak just happened? Right? You just you just booked an appointment in 40 minutes with this guy, Brett, and you guys are acting like you've known each other for years. And I said, Exactly. Exactly. So towards the end, just tell you one more story, or one more part of that story. We get back, present all the options in the kitchen, in the kitchen, and and he says, Well, I don't even own the house, you know, I can't afford any of this. And I said, Yeah, don't don't worry about it. Feel free to take the options that we present, take it back to your dad and decide which one you want to go with. And he's like, Yeah, that sounds good. You know, my wife also, you know, she she She doesn't want me to make a decision without her. And then I I uh used one of the things I I talked about in the morning, right? One of the things that he was skeptical about, that Braden was skeptical about. I simply said, Hey, look, hypothetically speaking, if you were to choose one of the options I presented today, which one would it be? And he started thinking, he started thinking, he started thinking. Of course, Braden's looking at me like, oh, here he goes, right? He's using the silly stuff. And he goes, you know what? Brad says, You know, I you know what, I feel like this is a good option. I could probably talk to my dad about lowering the price of the house when I buy it if I pay for this. So chances are we could just do it. And I said, Okay, and and your wife? He said, Well, you know what? It's not that much or as much as I thought it would be. I'm sure she'll be fine. Let's just go ahead and do it. I said, Great. Awesome. Got the parts on her truck. Ray and he's looking at me like, what the freak just happened here? What just happened? So he texted me afterward and he's like, dude, what kind of sorcery was that? And I'm like, What do you want? Sorcery. It wasn't sorcery. I just simply asked. Hypothetically speaking, if you choose one of the options I presented, which one would it be? And and he talked himself into it. Right. And so the goal is to take the pressure off and let them decide which one we want to go with. But the the the bottom line is this if they like you, it changes everything. So even with those guys, right? Even with those guys that are in a hurry, they're in a rush, if they like you, they'll make time. Okay, so we've got to really focus on likability and presentation. So if even with those guys, I would want to watch, watch that video, listen to that call, find out where where the hiccup is, because it's not them, it's probably you.

SPEAKER_03 45:41

That that's tremendous, tremendous advice. I love the story. And here's how I would add to that and answer Damon's question. Going back to what the customer's expectation of the sales appointment is or of the service, you know, that they have he painting and drywall. So usually that's not gonna be an emergency. They want to they want their house painted, they want the interior paint, whatever. So it's not a plumbing emergency. Sounds like what you're trying to do, Damon, is set up the sales appointment. And the customer is afraid of that. So what the customer wants to do is they want to take control and they're gonna go, here's the living room I want painted. Let's go take a look at it. And what most sales trainers do and sales reps do is like, well, wait a minute, I'll go look at that in 10 minutes. Let me tell you about this. And all of a sudden you're putting them into a sales process, the customer has immediate sales resistance, and they're now they're not listening to you. You don't have any likability. You're exactly the expectation that they saw coming. So instead, I actually train people. If they say, let's go take a look at the problem as soon as you walk in the door, go look at the problem. Work on your rapport during that time because that's what they want you to do. No one else is doing that. Everyone's like, well, wait a minute, we got to sit down. I got to tell you about my company first. I got to tell you about how many years we've been in business and all our features and benefits, and then we'll look at the problem. It doesn't work anymore. Let them, let them control that beginning of the appointment because they'll like you more. And then you can work on what you need to get them to understand that you're the better choice. So that's how I would answer that. Like, don't be afraid of having them take you somewhere. Let them do it. But then say, great, let's go take a look at it. But this is what I'm gonna do after I see it. And then you lay it out. I'm gonna, this is how we work. I'm gonna, I'm gonna look at this. I'm gonna give you three options for your living room. Uh they're they're gonna include include fixing the drywall, not fixing the drywall, three different levels of paint, whatever it is, and you lay out what you're gonna do, and they'll be like, oh, this is great. Again, it's not what they're expecting. So that's how I would answer that. So hopefully, Damon, you can take both of those answers and and get a little help and reach out to both of us if he needs some more help going forward. So great, great answer.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

But I completely agree. Yeah, once you once you get into that room, on the way in, you can simply say, Hey, uh, oh yeah, we could totally do this, this thing that you want. Absolutely. And by the way, have you thought of this? Have you thought of that? Have you thought of this? Which is exactly what Alan's talking about.

SPEAKER_03 47:58

I even had, I may have told this story on a previous podcast, but it's worth telling again. I I was in a uh an appointment. I went on a ride-along. I was doing some training with the company, and I I part of the training was I went on five ride-alongs with the reps. And we went in. I won't obviously name the company, but we went in and we were in the house maybe three minutes, and the homeowner said to the rep, I want to know about how your installation process works. You know how the you know what the rep said? I'll get to that in 40 minutes. I'll get to that in 40 minutes. But let me talk about this first. And I was like, oh my. I just knew the next hour and a half was a waste of time because the guy wasn't buying anything. And it's because they're trying to impress you.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

Yes, right. That does that happens to me as well. It's like, oh, you he he went over a process this morning, and I gotta follow it, and I'm so concerned about it. Oh man, what a disaster.

SPEAKER_03 48:53

What a disaster. So it's like so many companies train the process and they don't train how to adapt within the process. And that's yeah, that's where the good sales reps live. So anyway, Brigham, this has been amazing. I can talk to you for hours, but um, we don't have hours. I think people will start turning us off after about 45 minutes. So terrific. Uh, tell people if they want to get in touch with you and take advantage of your awesome coaching and training. Where do they go?

SPEAKER_00 49:16

Powersellingpros.com. So P-O-W-E-R, S E L L I N G, P-R-O-S.com, powersellingpros.com. There's a demo link right on the front page, really big and beautiful. Click on it, schedule a time with us, and let's see if there's a fit.

SPEAKER_03 49:32

And if you mention selling in the dwelling, you get 75% off. No, I'm just kidding. We'll work something out.

SPEAKER_00 49:39

We'll work something out for sure.

SPEAKER_03 49:42

No, this has been great. Brigham, thank you very much for joining me. I had a good time and really a lot of great golden nuggets for my audience. So, and I want to thank my audience for joining today on Selling in the Dwelling. Remember, visit paradigmvendo.com forward slash dwelling. That is my title sponsor. They actually will help with all the stuff that Brigham and I talked about today because they have a single platform to do the entire process in the house. Thanks again for everyone for joining, and we'll see you next time on Selling in the Dwelling. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

Selling in the Dwelling.