Ep 164- Shutting Down Dangers of Wearing All Hats: Trust Your Office Manager

Hello, hello and welcome back. It's a great day to have a great day and a fantastic Tuesday. Joe loves it when I use his lines. Welcome back to the Electric Preneur Secrets, the premium service electricians podcast. You're on episode 164. This topic, technical versus business and office challenges, and going a little deeper with this office manager who we should hire. First, the problems with trying to do it all ourselves or putting all our eggs in one basket. And this, actually speaking of eggs in a basket, is a little bit of that which came first the chicken or the egg talk isn't it Joe?

Yes, it is how you doing today brother. Man, I got to admit normally I'm really good. Today I'm even more so because when you start off by saying it's a great day to have a great day, really it's one of those things that I really want to bring front and center to every person we work with, and then if they know that they can control their mindset, they can control their days. I love that. We're starting on a positive foot, so thank you for that, brother.

I appreciate that. Okay, ask me how I'm doing Always, Okay, how are you doing? There we go. I'm going to use one of our great clients. We're very proud of him. I'm going to use his word and say fantabulous.

Okay, I do remember. I remember the meeting the other day where everyone was fantabulous.

Yeah, that was funny that was funny and we're just here trying to have a good time with you guys. And, of course, joe and I are here five days a week to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Great question for you. Would it be wrong of us to keep showing up to help you do that?

No, sir, it would not. In fact, I would strongly encourage you to be kidding me showing up, because I'm pretty sure if we stopped, someone would actually start missing us.

We're not always on time, but we're always here. We just keep showing up. Man, it's like the Energizer Bunny. I've just got that little drum in my head Dush, dush, dush. We can't quit. We got to keep going, and today is no exception. We got to kick this thing off. Here's the big challenge. I just want to present this. We all went to school. We've all got this in common or you're in the wrong place. Are you an electrician? Check, check, right.

Everyone in the room checks off. All right, cool.

There's some master's licenses in here. Check Check Any business degrees in the room. I started one, joe, I didn't finish it. My post today was actually a bit of a joke at this. I stopped adding letters to my name and I started adding numbers for my family.

I love that. I was actually going to ask you about that because I thought it was really really well said that, if anything, people chase the titles because it's something that they're trying to improve in themselves that others can see, whereas what you're doing is improving the numbers at the end of your name so that your family can have generational wealth, and that is really what creates a lasting impact both for you and everyone following you.

I'm so glad you took that. You had that takeaway because I wasn't sure for sure. You know if sometimes in those short punchy ones you just don't know if the message is being conveyed. But I'm glad you took that away, brother, and I hope that our listeners take that away as well. Don't try to be something you're not, which is actually I think that was a movie quote guy speaking to kids. But anyway, guys, it's just not worth. At this day and age. I really feel you know we're trades people. We don't necessarily need an academic education. That is in itself a business. Take it from me. I went to an MBA program. I did half of it. I got tired of learning from caterpillars, as Robert Kiyosaki says, and what he means by that is people that have doctorates and business that never went and actually did a business. All this knowledge, all these books and no experience what good is that?

It's a scary thing because, when it comes to taking advice from people, yeah, there's tons of gurus some who are literally our gurus, with the long beards and the heavy hats but at the same time, we have to say, if you haven't done it and you haven't been there, how can we really trust the experience, how can we trust where you're coming from if you've never actually picked up the rock and thrown it?

Speaking of throwing rocks and exactly what you're saying. I hope no one takes offense to this, because I don't mean to be. I just think it's actually was a pretty good sign that some people are looking out for that. Was it yesterday someone actually asked for a value piece and then asked for a P&L from you to prove that? You have the credibility to give them that free value piece.

I know it was actually pretty hilarious. I don't mind and, like I said, whoever it was, I'm not speaking ill of you. I'm happy that you wanted to question what we're doing, but it was just one of those things where it's like I apologize, we're giving free advice. I don't need to back anything up if I'm giving you free advice. If you want to be a paid client, I can understand, but it's literally free. I'm just a guy in the corner saying, hey, do this. Who goes to that guy and be like hey, where'd you get your certification from? It's like you don't like it. Just keep walking 100% man.

It was funny, though, to hear this all wraps up. It all comes back full circle. We were on to technical. We all agreed the business, we all agreed hey, limited experience there. So often we get on calls with great guys who have great hearts and great intention for their great clients running electrical businesses and they say the same common thing we're just not trained business, and maybe that's our real calling. Maybe it's not this podcast, maybe it's not helping all of you achieve this in your business and be a part of the 2 million plus that we've seen in reported client wins in the last nine months. Maybe that's not even the calling. Maybe the calling is actually to integrate with business schools or sorry, not with business schools. We're not integrating with business schools and teaching electric, just to be clear, but the obvious of that to integrate with electrical schools and actually offer some base business training, seeing that, like 70 and 80% of trades, people will at some point endeavor on their own to some degree. Major thorn in the side, joe. What are your thoughts on that?

So I personally believe that the youth of the generation we're in right now has the best possible opportunity, because, if you think about the amount of aged tradespeople in our industry at least when I was in it I remember when I started, when I was 22, and most other business owners were in their late 40s by the time I got out of it those same people there weren't any new ones. I was the youngest in like in my 30s, and yet you had other people where the oldest were in their 60s, and yet there's this huge gap, because as we grow older, if people aren't replacing us, that's not a good sign, and trades are one of the most reported things that people are getting a lot of success from. You don't need the college education to make a really amazing salary. So I do really think that we should be focusing on encouraging children and the younger generation from taking part in this advantage and an amazing opportunity that we all took advantage of.

I love that man, I love that you said that and it inspired me and it reminded me of this dilemma. There's trades people out there that keep on saying it's just hard to make ends meet, and there's trades people out there who are absolute millionaires, building a legacy. Sure, one side has trouble acknowledging the other. What's the difference?

I mean, in my personal opinion, what's the difference between the two? It's really the mindset that one has, as well as the experience and the network that you have as well. Like, let's say, sake of argument, you're the smartest guy in your circle, right? Everyone around you looks to you and you're like Clay, you're the guy. If there's no one that you're learning from. Your experience is the peak of everyone around you, which means that if you're messing up, everyone's gonna look at you and say, well, hey, clay knows what he's doing, he's not messing up. But if you're the dumbest person in your network which I always preferred to be, every option that you do, every where that you look, there's someone doing better than you, so you have the means of growing and reaching their level. So I think the gap isn't that one isn't acknowledging the other, is that one isn't exposed to the other. Those who operate at the highest level aren't surrounded by people who are like I can't get people to take more than the bottom option. And the people who are like that aren't networking with the larger operations that are able to say no, focus on service unless on projects. Focus on service and not on new construction. Focus on service and not industrial. So it's not a knowledge gap, it's an exposure gap.

Everyone talking about the sales funnel and ignoring the fulfillment funnel. Amen, how do you re-sign your existing clients? Man, that was a mic drop moment. Do we just end the podcast Like there are some mic drop moments where I'm like Joe, do we even do an action item? Or just for, like full dramatic effect, you just hit in stream, done, take your leave it.

I think in some circumstances that would have a pretty interesting effect. But I know in this one there are people who are literally like I want, I want to hear more. And for those of you who are saying that, I will never stop showing up to help, support you, yeah, 100%, man, that's appreciated All right.

So I keep talking about getting back to the topic, but ultimately the question I wanted to ask is who's got office experience now? Not a ton Like, not years, of answering the phones or customer service? I never worked at Starbucks. I was a grocer for a while, had to face stock and talk, to engage with customers. In fact, I actually got fired from a grocer at one time because I had three jobs. I was working at one grocery store Walmart Night Shift, and then another grocery store and I had three eight hour shifts back to back to back. And the third grocery store was like Clay, you're walking around in the produce aisle like a zombie and the customers aren't engaging. I mean, they're afraid. They're afraid of you. We got to do that anyway. That's a tangent. No, I don't blame you If you don't have that experience. Are you the best person to answer the phone and even be talking to these customers? Off the hip, that's the thing.

If you don't have a process to ensure that you're always delivering the best experience on the front, then you'll often find that you won't have customers who are expecting a great experience at the end. I really and truly feel that the office position is one of the most important that you can hire, because it's the face of your company, it's the voice of your company, it's the smile you have. If your clients saw you and the first thing they saw was like just jacked up teeth and a crooked smile and everyone like, ah, it wouldn't look the same as having someone smiling, who's well put together and saying I'm here to support you. So what experience are we looking to give our clients? The same old hey, we're in project experience, or something different that focuses more on service?

I would even go ahead and insert this little term here a three dimensional experience. Let me help with this. There's a problem at Bay that we're really dancing around, and it's the intuition of the average electrician, which is if me and my client Joe could just have a great relationship, that's pretty easy. I don't want him to have a partner involved. That keeps the sales simple, that keeps our relationship simple, and I don't want him to have to talk to anyone else. Joe can just call me, I can just serve him Money's in the bank. Done Really easy, right, so you think. But it's a super flat relationship and in fact it represents a ton of risk, because if Joe has a bad day doesn't like the way you looked at him, or you had a dip in your lip and you spat on his front lawn, and now he's choked. That was a terrible example, by the way, but it came to me. It actually happens. It happens.

It's not a terrible example, because I've actually seen that happen. I remember I had an apprentice who was spitting sunflower seeds on the customer's driveway once. So like, yeah, like you're not too far off reality.

You know what? Let's go a bit deeper with that, because I can still see it. After a few of the salts kicking in the mouth gets dry, he's got a couple of cracked seeds stuck to his lip, nasty. Anyway, point being, that's a flat experience and it's what we all want, because it's simple and it seems easiest Talk to. Less amount of people have to overcome less value objections, price objections, like we talked about last week, but it's actually to your benefit that their partner is there. It's another person to triangulate that relationship. Now, if Joe doesn't like you for some reason, he's still got to talk to Sue. He can't just fire you. He can't just say you know what we're done. We've been working together for a while but we're done. Joe, I don't like your sunflower seeds. I'm a little pissed off today. I don't want to work with you anymore. If you're listening or watching us right now, tell me you haven't had a client that just kind of ended your relationship abruptly for some emotional reason that no one understood. Yeah, yeah, I'll put my hand up for that. It's happened so many times, right? So, having that third party involved? Now add a partner to your side, this office manager, someone who answers the phone with a smile on their face. Wouldn't that be nice to add to this three-dimensional experience. Joe, help me go a bit deeper here.

I do. I actually do want to help you go deeper, because some people say you know someone who can see a smile, but I prefer something a little different. I learned how to hear a smile, and that is a far more important skill to translate, because if you know the other person is smiling, regardless of whether you can even see them, now you can understand even in further what would a smile communicate? If someone is smiling on the other side of the phone, what does that mean that they're doing?

Great. Well, they're happy, they actually enjoy what they're doing and they're happy to talk to you.

Okay. So if someone's happy and wants to talk to you, what does that say about their company? Who are they working for? If they're happy to be there, what does that say?

At the bare minimum, somewhere that treats people nicely, sets them up for a good day, maybe has a great culture.

Treats people well, and if you're working with someone who's happy to be there for a company that takes care of them, doesn't that mean that you're more likely to want to work with them as well?

100%.

So all that was communicated simply by just hearing a smile over the phone. And the thing is, I can speak from experience here because I did answer a lot of phones when I ran my company. That was the first thing we had to do, which is why I'm so insistent that we say hire your office manager first. I can tell you, being the guy who was installing panels with a headset on having to stop making splices to answer the call and hopefully I was doing it in a positive way to then having someone else answer them for you so that I could focus one-minded on a task. The quality went up, the service went up, the customer relationship went up, all from one position. So I know this will hold weight with what you guys are trying to do.

Definitely man and the value piece we're giving away this week to compliment. This is a little bit of a dialogue that you can use in your business when you answer the phone, but in our experience, most electricians don't want to say it and in my experience, the reason why is because they're not happy when they answer the phone. This isn't the kind of thing you're like oh, yeah, yeah, welcome, yeah, welcome, this is a brighter day. Call, hello, hello. It doesn't work. You have to be smiling, you have to be happy, you have to be enthusiastic about serving someone, and I'm just not enthusiastic about serving anything than what's directly in front of me. When I'm out there on the tools, when I'm out there trying to speak to a customer, build rapport right, go through your sales presentation. Please join in.

I was going to say. You mentioned something how some people wouldn't be happy. Imagine the last time you were in a PLC cabinet. Imagine you're trying to figure out all the ladder logic. You've got 2,000 connections and suddenly the phone rings and it's some customer who wants to get a quote on something. Could you imagine what kind of mental and emotional lift it would be to reset? I was going to put my fist through one of these PLCs and now I've got to be like, oh no, everything's great, I can't wait to serve you, whoever you are.

Yeah, it doesn't happen. You don't pick it up and then the phone becomes heavier and heavier every minute that you don't pick it up and call them back. And guess what? They're not getting service from you and they're likely not getting service from anyone else in your market, because no one's answering their phones, because they don't have an office manager, unless they're big. And now we see why there's always a big three in every market and why they control 80% of the revenue in that market and everyone else is fighting for the scraps because they don't have an office manager. You see it all boiled down to this, didn't it? I love it. This is fun. Okay, let's say we get that office manager in position. What are some of the benefits we can experience from this, joe, if we didn't point it out so blatantly already?

Sure. So, realistically, the main thing I think needs to be discussed as to what is actually being gained from this right If, in order to do that, you kind of have to see the inverse of it. If you were a customer or you are a contractor and you're saying you know what, I'm going to hire an apprentice. I'm a journey person is the first person I got to hire. They're just doing what you already can and want to do. Right, we got into the trade because we knew how to turn the tools. Usually, you worked for someone else. You said I can do all of it anyway. Why am I making you money? I'll just do it for myself. So we step out, hire the tech and now we still have a job to do. The tech makes our physical job easier, but no one is helping us on the office side. No one's helping us with all the stuff that happens after the job is done. You've got calls to catch up on permits. You've got to file, inspections need to be done, utilities that need to be coordinated with. You can start to see how it adds up right, it's feeling reactive, as you say it.

I'm feeling the pressure build and I'm sure there's people listening right now that are boiling over because they have those exact things waiting for them when the work is done.

It's the worst feeling because even if you think about like, oh, I want to order material but I can't because I got to physically go drive to the shop. And then I want to go get this job done but I can't because I have to go and pick up the permit, and I can't do that because I also got to contact Orange and Rockland and they are. So you see how it builds. The thing about an office manager is that they take a much larger amount of load off, which actually improves the service that you both can give. Their job is to serve the client at the highest level, with a smile, so that they're setting the service tech up to come in the door looking like a 10 out of 10. That's their whole goal. Get it on the calendar, make them feel like they've made the right choice and ensure that, once they're on the calendar, that they have a good impression of who's going to be arriving. Your job as the business owner or as a service technician is to do the thing you're already really well trained at, which is serving the client on a technical level with whatever customer service training you already have. So the benefit to round this large conversation out and forgive me for going around about way of answering it. The main benefit that you get is that they're taking off an emotional and a mental burden that you have that would otherwise be very, very heavy without the assistance.

Definitely. That's huge man. And if you're not quite getting it, let me pull out the crystal ball and help you with a vision. If we go for the electrician or the apprentice higher first because here's the big poll that we feel I want to get out of the field, the logical solution is just to A to B direct. I'm just putting electrician in play and I'm out Wrong. It's wrong. They're going to cause problems for your customers, they're going to take shortcuts, they're not well equipped for you to be able to step back and all of that list that Joe mentioned, that reactive list, is going to add up on you and what's going to happen is you're going to fall back to the field even more frustrated than before, and you're going to start to wonder if you'll ever get out of the field. And through that additional frustration of trial and error, trial and error, no progress, you'll eventually feel like I got to go work for someone again. Mm-hmm because this doesn't work for me. I don't have the formula. Guess what guys? Here's the recipe cash it in, go to the kitchen and start baking. This is the cake I'm telling you. It will help you if you just focus on listen. My queen b-roll is the field still and I'm gonna rock that Until it's a written storybook about how to rock it and buy a story. I don't mean we need all these filler lines in a chapter book. We're talking bullet points, actionable bullet points, just like the action items we do on every episode that it's actually time for Joe. What do you think? What do you got in store for an action item today?

Okay, so the basic is actually gonna sound kind of silly, but if you let me take both actions, it would make sense, would that be okay?

I get it. It's a little selfish, but I'm alright with it.

So you're me out. So the most basic possible action is we're just gonna say present over perfect. Now, what I mean by that is so many people don't hire the office manager. Like, let's say, you think you know what I'm listening to this podcast. I want to hire an office manager. Oh, I need to develop all these systems in place before I get the office manager, and I need this before I get them, and I need this before I get them. You're still adding more problems without actually taking them off. When I say present over perfect, I mean sometimes just starting in building as you go gives you more momentum than saying I'm gonna build everything first and Then put the person into place. Everyone wants to do that and I don't blame you I'm an OCD guy as well. I get it. You want to have a plan, but if you don't actually take action on anything, you're just adding more tire spinning to the truck. That's already not going anywhere. So that's the basic Okay. The all-star action ties directly to that, where what I suggest you do is not only just train them, but you want to train them with the end goal of what you want the customer to experience. So you're reviewing them from actually the opposite spectrum. Instead of saying when they answer the phone, you do this. You're gonna go backwards and say start with the customer having an amazing review with you, they left you a great review and they want the call. How did you feel after getting on the phone with them? All right, let's recommend that feeling. What were the things that you said? That in order to make you feel different? All right, we need to have a differentiast in it. What can I do to communicate that everything's great? All right, we need to have a sales process, and the bonus action is that's literally something we already have. All you got to do is have the hand up for it. So, basic action present over perfect. Just start all star action. Think of the area you want them to go and Build from there, rather than starting to build and not know where you're going.

Wow, man, great action items. Where you focus is where you grow, guys. So don't look away. We're here all week helping you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical service on this office Manager edition of electric printer secrets the premium service electricians podcast. This has been episode 164, and tomorrow we're back for my favorite day of the week action Wednesday. Joe, I can't wait, brother. Thank you so much. Thank you, guys, for listening and watching tuning in. We will see you tomorrow.

Cheers, looking forward to it. Y'all take care.