Ep 173 - Your Biggest Premium Service Sale

Hello and welcome back. Happy Monday, happy Canadian Thanksgiving and happy Columbus Day. I don't know much about Columbus Day, but I'm wishing you the best south of the border Columbus Day we possibly could. On this episode, episode 173 of Electric Pernurse Secrets, the Electricians Podcast. For myself, the pleasant peasant Clay Neumeier and, of course, my esteemed co-host Joseph the Salesbot Lucani, go live with you five days a week to help you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium-level electrical service. We're going to continue that this week with a third week on hiring, if you can believe it or not, because this is so important and we haven't got ultra tactical with you guys yet. And that's what this week's about with your biggest premium service sale. This is massive, joe. It's a holiday, but we're here nonetheless. Episode 173, can you believe it, brother?

You know it's weird because if you think about where we were previously, if you were to be told a year ago, hey, you're going to have 174 episodes and you won't even meet through the year, at that point I would just have to be like, wow, it's really impressive and I'm proud of both of us for what we've accomplished.

We got Justin McKibbin with us. He says hello, hello, hello, Welcome back, Justin. That's so funny. When I get on calls with people I'm like, do you remember what I say every episode? And they're like hello, hello, hello. Yep, I love that I've got energy out there. Hey, if that's all we got to do, if that's my catch line, like Bart Simpson, I didn't do it. I'll take it, man, I'll take it because I know there's a great energy behind it, especially today. Can I express some grace, some gratitude? I don't need it. I think we should Canadian Thanksgiving. My turkey grace is this I'm just grateful to be here and be part of this movement, be part of this partnership, be part of service superelectrical. I don't have to lead it to be proud of it. I don't need to have anything more to say that we've done something truly special here and that I'm grateful for.

Amen to that. Yeah, it's one of those things where you think about what we've built and where we've come and how we've grown as professionals. It's not about us, but it's about the people we serve. I'm glad that we're constantly refining each other so that we can serve better.

Totally, totally. I had no idea what Columbus Day was. Do you know, do I?

know the actual reason? No, but I do know there's a whole lot of controversy around it.

Oh is there, Uh-oh, we should play cautiously here then.

Play cautiously, depending on what side of the line you stand on. Columbus was either an absolute hero or he was an absolute madman. Either way, regardless, we appreciate the holiday, but I think we should focus more on Canadian Thanksgiving, because that's when we can actually celebrate.

All right man. I don't know why they have to be different times. All I know is yesterday we had a feast, we had some family. It was a great time. Why don't we get into the topic of today and just move forward from this so we can get back to it? I'm ready for that. All right man, your biggest premium service sale. I said it loud, I articulated it heavily, I added a little oomph to that, because it's your biggest. It's the biggest one you'll make, joe. I don't think many people see it that way but, as we mentioned, we're still on the topic of hiring and getting the right people to run the play with you. Why is that? Your biggest service sale?

Premium service sale, joe because the person you work for isn't always you. Let me explain what I mean by that.

That was confusing, please.

A lot of business owners think that they're the boss, right. But it's actually the opposite way. You think that you usually are like oh, I work for my customer, I'll take care of my customer, then my customer will hire me back. But there's a middleman between it. You need to take care of your employees so that your employees take care of the customer, who is your actual boss. I like that. You work for everyone. You work for your employees, you work for your customer. That's why it's your biggest sale, because if you don't go about this the right way, you end up filling your ranks with the wrong kind of person and then, when it's actually time to serve, you realize you're surrounded either by a bunch of yes men or by a bunch of people who really don't know what they're doing, but new enough to get on your team.

Hmm, really powerful. Yeah, there's this iterative process of I take care of my staff, my staff take care of my clients, my clients take care of my customers, my customers then take care of the business and that business should then take care of me. Yep.

You're the last. How could it be any other way? I mean, it can be in other ways if you change your business model. Like our goal is premium residential service, we're going to go in, we're going to serve at the highest level. We're not going to be the cheapest, we're not going to be a quantity sale, but we're going to build lifetime, long term relationships with our customers and have a great local relationship and reputation. But if we were like a new construction firm that was like I just need to get this build done by this price by this time and my team only needs to be just good enough to get them across that finish line and pass inspection, your hiring process is going to be super different because you're going to be focused on can they stay for the season compared to can they stay for the next five years.

Interesting. So kind of a difference in hiring approach is what you're suggesting here and for this tiny corner of the world, not just serving electricians also in residential service specifically, where we're trying to take care of homeowners who need to feel safe when we're in their humble abodes, when we're in their space, when we're really encroaching on their schedule, their time, their values. How important is this? I mean, it's massive right. If you have someone on your staff that's making your clients uncomfortable in their home, how well is that going to go?

The thing is it's actually a funny story that you bring that up, because if they're making your client uncomfortable, if you didn't build a good relationship, you would never know until they stopped calling you. That's the interesting thing about all of this. If you build a good relationship with your team and you build a good relationship with your client, your team should be able to come to you and say there's discrepancies going on with this customer. And your customer should have enough of a relationship to say you know what one of your team members is making you feel uncomfortable. If either one of those can't happen, you cannot grow your relationship further.

Wow, yeah, no, that's impactful, just to re-center us here and re-ground this. Here's why this is so important. You guys, if you're watching, if you're listening, hello, hello, hello again. This is so important because, sure, it might seem to fall outside of that mastering sales, simplifying pricing, delivering premium level service but your greatest success will be realized through the leverage of other people. We've been talking about that and who to leverage, where and when, but ultimately, we see this time and time again that we're just, we're zooming past it for a moment here, really three weeks of a moment to say look, we recognize that people come in, they adopt our process, our offer framework, our marketing framework and our sales process, and the next thing that happens is their sales skyrocket. They have record months and then the next thing that needs to happen is they need to hire. They need to hire, they need support. You need help. One person can't do this. Whatever size of your team, they won't be able to maintain what's about to blow up for you. Once you nail these few topics down, that fourth leg of the stool, this operations piece, and getting people to take these hats for you is a massive, massive piece. Would it be wrong of us to spend this much energy trying to help people with that piece so that we can get to hiring and getting qualified people into the right places.

Not only what I say is not wrong for us to do that. I'd say we're almost encouraged, because if you think about what the average contractor complains with, it's usually I can't find people, no one wants to work, I can't get someone. But now we're just going to give you a path to not just get a body like you've probably been attracting, but instead the right person looking for a career, job 100%.

There's really a couple of things I want to touch on with this. One is the negative bias that takes hold and causes us to take the wrong actions. I think that's really important. The second, for me, is that this is a game of numbers. Actually, here's what I mean by that the negative bias. There's actually been studies done about this, more specifically to client experience, but we see it everywhere. In 2016, there was actually a survey done that examined how much a disgruntled or low satisfaction client will spend with you versus a neutral, versus a high satisfaction client, someone who's a raving fan of yours. Just from neutral to high satisfaction, there's a two to three X spending difference. When we examine that against the low end, a lot of us take this negative bias. If you get a bad review, how much energy do we sink into trying to correct that relationship?

The amount of calls that you have to deal with, where people are like how do I handle a bad review? It's like you're going to spend six hours stewing on it and trying to figure it out and hashing out and having these internal shower arguments with your client about why they shouldn't have wrote what they wrote, compared to okay, address it, acknowledge it, use our framework to reply to it and they move on from it.

Essentially, the next mistake that we make from that is to react internally from it Very quickly, trying to fill voids in our business based on some negative bias which doesn't necessarily have really enough oomph behind it to require us to do something. So here's another an opposition to it, and Jim Collins talks about this in his book Good to Great, which is a really important read for anyone looking to seriously scale their business. But here is how Focusing on taking the people from neutral or good to great could be upwards of 10 X more profitable for your business. Let's zoom back out so we understand this. Yeah, focusing on the people that don't like you, trying to get them to just somewhat like you, is not a very profitable interest, invested, worthwhile focus or effort. Focusing on taking your people who are already into like with you. They already rate you highly and making more of them is in your best interest and will be massively more profitable. Does that make sense?

It does. It almost reminds me of the situation of those you surround yourself you become a mirror of. So imagine if your employee was surrounded with customers. They were always complaining about your price. That employee eventually is going to have price objections internally. But that same employee was surrounded by people who are like you know, clay, I love working with. I know your pricey man, but damn, do you do good work. I hate having you do the painting. I'm glad you do everything. And they just got that constant positive reinforcement from their clients. Now you've got a guy who'll be undefeated when it comes to price objections. So just the right atmosphere can define the tech.

Absolutely so, just knowing that negative bias is actually a tool for you, even in attraction, as we say. How are you presenting yourself at the supply house? Right, you have a smile on your face. You're eager to go out today. You know prim and prop, clean shave and like your facing clients. That's what you should look like in every environment where you're facing potential prospective hires.

I want to touch on that for a moment because I realized a lot of times, when we actually give ourselves that appearance break, it's never in front of our customers, but it's always in front of our peers. So the time when you're like you know what, I didn't have my uniform button down on, I got my t-shirt, or you know what I have, you know I'll get into my uniform when we're on a way to the site yeah, I don't have my coffee ready, I'm just smoking the cigarette in the back You're actually being seen by all your future employees or the future network relationship you're going to have. So instead, like we're mentioning right now, you should treat all of those interactions like they're important. If you showed up to that office or you showed up to the supply house dressed in the nines and ready to go, anyone who sees you is only going to think different. So why wouldn't they want to join your team when they're looking for work?

Definitely I believe in them, and it's huge. Again, that relates perfectly back to our topic of the day, which is this is your biggest premium service sale. So something you said prior to this call that really lit this up for me. Joe was speaking to. You know. They have other prospective companies to work for too. Yes, they don't need you and they can't need you more than you need them, correct?

Can you use my name a bit on that? Sure, I'd be happy to touch on that. So I remember back in the day when a lot of hiring was happening like, let's say, back back to 2009, 2010, 2011, right after the recession happened people were just taking on bodies. It didn't matter who it was, it was just your working body. Finally, someone wants to work Great, you can join us. And it didn't matter what it was residential, industrial, commercial, people just took on bodies. Now it's a little bit different. People are talking about all the quiet quitting that's happening, or the fact that we're willing to do constant job hopping in order to get better jobs and I don't blame my generation for willing to do so, because we don't need the job more than we need our sanity. And finally, we can realize that if I'm going to take the time to look for a job and a real job somewhere I'm going to invest and grow my family with, I better be happy there. If I'm not happy, I'm not going to join you For $2 more. I'm not going to join you. So, knowing that, you have to convince them that what this is isn't just an opportunity for money. It has to be an opportunity for them to say this is where you can niche into. We have a place for you. This is where you can improve both yourself. You'll have more time for your family, this is a place that you want to invest yourself into, and then they'll choose you because they don't need the job, but they do need their own commitment to themselves.

Really powerful stuff and so by treating it like at this sale instead of just an entirely different thing. Oh wow, I need to hire again and here's a list. I'm gonna call a couple of people, I'm gonna interview them and really scrutinize and see what's wrong with this person, that negative bias comes through again Instead. I mean, we're deep diving into this all week, by the way, but we are looking for the different qualities, for their value alignment, for what their unique abilities would be, as per Dan Sullivan strategic coach another strong reference unique ability but finding where their passionate position is that they'll show their own ambition and work for you and represent you wholly, really congruently with the values that you have Important stuff. The other piece that I mentioned before to tie into this is this is a numbers game and it perfectly fits this, so I think a good reference here is like Tommy Mello's book Elevate I believe he said it this way, I don't wanna misquote it but ultimately, hire fast and fire quicker, meaning always be looking, always be hiring A-B-H, as we say in our program. By always being hiring, what you're gonna do is always be expanding your network. You're always gonna be qualifying the next individual, the next potential Apex player. And when we talk about Apex players, we can romanticize this a bit and get to this place where we think, hey, there's a unicorn out there for me. But, as we spoke to this last week, this person would still need to learn your ways. They still need to become accustomed to the way you execute, the way you run the play. There isn't really many situations where you're gonna be able to find someone, bring them in and just unleash them and all the magic that they contain. But what defines an all star player is their ability to self-evaluate and recognize. Are they following the play, Are they upholding that, and how closely and to what level? Go ahead, joe, I saw you put your hand up there.

You know I almost wanna make a reference here that I think some electricians and business owners get confused on Like. Have you ever heard someone say like, oh, if I had the best person from another company and I brought him here, we'd be unstoppable? Right, but if you think about it, just what you said previously is gold, Because if you had the best electrician who worked over at Jimmy John's Electric and then you brought him here at Service of Electric, he may be a good tools guy, but how could he mirror your values without being exposed to it? They're get in, get out, and he's great at that. So the best guy on another team may not even qualify to work on your team, and we have to be okay with that.

Really powerful? Definitely, man. It seems all industry experts agree with this. It's not reliable to go out there and hope for an all star, to recruit for the all star. What is reliable is to be able to take good people and, above average systems, great systems, and actually promote Apex players, promote all stars, create them by your systems, by your values, by the air of your company, the very thing we talked about in the supply house. By building that up and living up to it and by focusing on them as your biggest premium service sale, you'll give it that value and that attention that it requires. Just to bring that back full circle, joe, we're running out of time here. We gotta launch a couple of action items. What do you say if we do? I got one. Do you got one?

I got one ready already on the holster. All right, man, so you might have to take the basic first let's go. Okay. So the very first thing that comes to mind is that a lot of times, people will be like well, what does this person look like and what does that person look like? That's too far in the future. Instead, what do you look like If you were to stand in front of a mirror? Would you be the person that you would want to hire? If you're not, what would you change Like? For me, I was very, very big on personal appearance with the uniform, Like our boots were always very clean, our belt matched our boots, everything was pressed, everything was clean. You wore clean, shaven. Even if you had a beard, it was tight. So if I were to take that person and say this is the model and any one of my employees matched that model, does this person match what we're trying to do? You don't know whether you have the standard, so be the standard in which you would hire, and then people can look up to you as well as base what they do based on whether you are.

Love it. Yeah, really good, man as an all-star. I'll add this Forget playing a single ticket to win the lottery, Right?

You know anyone like that, Yep there's going to go in and be like yeah.

They're like this is the one, that's the powerball, that's the 50 mil, right there.

Usually, whenever that happens, it's like you know what? Hey, how much change. I got five back. All right, give me powerball.

Yeah, forget catching the biggest fish with a single line. I really believe that this all-star action will serve you. Make sure you've got a complete strategy to find and meet and play the numbers here, your odds of keeping, of attracting, getting and keeping good players on your team. Here's what I mean by this and how you can take action on it. Make sure you've got three tactics in place to attract and initiate conversations with viable electricians or whatever position you're hiring for. Here's an example Give you the actual tactical information Applicant Pro. Something we highly suggest is a service that can take you in a single point of contact and reach out to upwards of 3,500 plus channels, and giving you a single area to manage this. They'll actually help you create the recruitment ads and put them out on places like Indeed, monster Glass Doors, zip Recruit or all of the above. They'll help you qualify those applicants as well and set you up for interviews with the qualified applicants. That's just one tactic. It should not be solely relied on. Here's why If all you do is rely on them and they don't come through, it doesn't get you what you need, then that's a waste of effort and there's no guarantee on that. I've seen a lot of evidence that they bring a lot of applicants forward, and so we continue to use them and suggest them. But where else it's the supply house like we talked about today? Who are you encountering every day? Who are you having conversations with currently that those conversations could just go a little bit deeper. Treat that like a sales process. Treat it like an offer you're gonna make. And thirdly, what about your social media? Are you putting forward some messages? If you're hiring right now, are you putting messages out that are conducive to bring people in? Are you messaging your current clients? This list can go on, joe. We got all week to talk about this, so I'll stop, but make sure you've got a few lines in the water if you wanna catch the big fish and from today's episode, I would say that big fish is just the right person to take this right seat with you. Big episode, big week. Joe. We've got tons to talk about. I wanted to thank you guys for joining us for another episode of Electric Preneur Secrets Episode 173, your biggest premium service sale. As we said, the whole week's gonna be getting tactical with you guys on finding. Bring in that right, hire that right next hire, as you should always be hiring while you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium-level electrical service. Thank you, joe, thanks everyone. Happy Canadian Thanksgiving and happy Columbus Day.

Y'all have a wonderful day.

Cheers.