Ep 177 - Playing For Keeps

Hello, hello and welcome back to another Friday episode of Electricpreneurs Secrets, the Electricians podcast, where me and the sales bot here come to you live five days a week to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. Should we be updating that intro, joe, or just keep it the same forever?

I'd say I like it. It's not broke, don't change it.

I feel like we do more than ever. I feel like we just keep helping and expanding this horizon of what it takes to become this premium service provider. Yet it's still the same old focused stuff. You ever get that feeling it's like we're doing more but we're still doing the exact same thing.

I feel like there's a lot that we're doing, and I think it's more that we are improving and refining an edge. That's really what it comes down to. We have a single targeted focus, and that focus is getting more and more refined and sharper and sharper, just allowing us to serve at a better level.

I like that man. That's nice, that's really nice. If you didn't get this already, if you didn't get the memo, this week we gave away our hiring secrets. That guide is complete. It's being sent out today. There's a couple more posts on Facebook. If you're with us engaging, live in the Facebook Electricpreneurs Secrets Group and that is yours to have. All you're going to do is throw a hand up in one of those posts or type hiring secrets anywhere. We'll get that to you. Nitches is something that's going to be addressed there, because, once again, even when we're looking for people speaking to a specific audience, knowing who and where, and even when they're going to be there, feels like it's detracting from this formula. But it's actually this superpower that very few are utilizing. Take it from us. Don't listen to what we say, watch what we do. We're not only just speaking to electricians being one of the first companies to really do that Electricians only. We said no to other trades many times, but then take it a step further and say service electricians. Take it a step even further. We're talking about playing for keeps today on episode 177, which is all about these hiring secrets and niching this down to the final, the finest details, so that you can really speak to someone, because Joe, as we've said before, speaking to everyone is speaking to no one.

You know, and if we can speak to the people we want to. Right now, I just want all of the electricians out here listening to know that we want to be on your team, Because I remember when I was coming up, it didn't feel like you had anyone that was an actual electrician on your team, someone who did the things you're trying to do and grow where you're trying to grow. And there's two kinds of people. There's those who say I didn't have it, so you got to go through it too, or I didn't have it so I'm going to do everything, so you won't have to go through it too. I think it's pretty obvious which one we want to be.

Totally, totally. And just to make this ultra obvious, if you didn't know already and I say obvious, but honestly it couldn't be obvious enough just want to state how could you work with us. This is how by engaging on the Facebook group, by engaging wherever you're listening to the podcast, by putting your hand up, by reaching out, by grabbing one of these value pieces, we have a quick discussion. You can grab a casual call. We'll offer that to you if it feels like we could really help you with something. And from that call, there's a no pressure situation where we just try to serve you and at some point, if you say you know what I'm interested in your program, then we tell you all about it. That's how simple this is. You believe in that no pressure situation? It's the exact same thing that we teach. We really follow our own protocol. It's that simple.

I love it. It's really the concept of an ethical offer. If you could say, I would hire this company myself. That's how you know you're in the right direction. So if you guys want to know if you're in a similar direction, would you hire your own companies right now to do electrical work in your homes? Because if not, let's help you. Just find ways that we can make it so you can truly have an ethical offer that you could put your head on the pillow at night, Totally.

I love that we're a little bit fired up this Friday because we just had an absolutely fire class this morning About what a dozen and a half in attendance, great people, some of them been with us for most part of the year, some of them just started this week. But everyone agreed wow, that was a power session this morning. They're feeling it. We've got like Eric and Mandy, who we just uncovered the triple five factor here. Oh my God, they've been with us five weeks and they just made how is that? Five panel or service upgrade sales this week Plus a generator, plus a generator. And what was the other five factor? It's alluding me now.

They'd been here for the period of five months and there were five weeks Been here. Five weeks my apologies, they are five weeks and that they sold five things in that one week. Now cancel out everything.

Yep, yeah, that's what it was Okay. So congrats to them, obviously, big praise for them. But it's just evidence, and this keeps happening in our classes, where it just gets stronger and stronger and the group comes Together tighter and tighter. And one of the things that Mandy said last week in their first progress call that I wanted to really bring To attention is this concept of what we talked about with this full immersion, and what I mean by that is when you're part of the inside track, then you're also getting a class five days a week. You're getting our content five days a week, which you're probably already seeing, right, you're getting the podcast five days a week, and then you're getting the direct chat support five days a week, and so what happens is it's a total immersion. You're fully into this. Next thing, you know you start actually maybe sounding a bit like us. You start seeing the results that our people see. Next thing, you know you have a five-day streak of five big sales and you're like, holy shit, this is real, this, this actually works, and it's almost something we're getting used to hearing by now, isn't it?

You know, although no matter how many times we hear it, it never, it never makes me feel less humbled and less honored to hear it, because I Want everyone I work with to be better than me, every single person. I want them to walk out of this training better than what I could be and Hearing that people are getting close to or exceeding in different ways, just I couldn't have asked for better. I really couldn't, because the legacy isn't to say how good we are. The legacy is to say how good we can make others. So, I'm just, I'm beyond honored to be this part.

Yep, there's a quote I used to have written in my in my project journal that I would have day to day for tracking my notes and what's going on with staff etc. And I I'm gonna struggle to remember who said this, but it was like a guru quote. You know what I mean. And it was basically when the vision is reached, when the job is done under a great leader, that people will say we did it ourselves mm-hmm I. Have to find the detailed structure of that one unless you know it, but no.

I know the cold, but I don't know who said that either almost shippers, when you hear it right, mm-hmm.

Not agree, the point of leadership is to be there and to support and give guidance, but ultimately the activity should feel almost like you didn't help at all, because when they're done they just know that they did it and they know how to.

I Think that's more important than anything else is that we're in. We're giving people keys but they get to keep them. That's the funny thing. It's not like you're renting a service from us. You're making an investment, and that investment is something you keep every day. Every day you show up, you pick something. If you walk away with it, you put it in your pile. That's yours. Yeah, every bit of knowledge we give you, that's yours. We can't take it away. I so use it for good.

And we can bridge that perfectly into this topic today, joe, and get right into this, because this playing for keeps idea. Really, what we're talking about is bringing people in, bringing people on to your team in a way that allows you to retain them. And what I really wanted to highlight with this topic, joe, if we could, is that the shortcuts we take in recruiting will later bite us in the fucking ass. Anyway they will, and that's where we start to see these kind of less than ideal unpleasantries like okay, we shouted, we yelled from the top of the mountain, we need some help, I need someone to come and work for me, I need installers, I need sales techs. We need to be able to have someone help me do this, because I'm overwhelmed. That sound familiar.

Yeah, a lot of people are going through that, especially nowadays where you're trying to figure out where are the techs and they're all working for someone else.

Yeah, and by the time you get someone actually lined up who actually wants to interview or whatever is going on, you're feeling the push, the rush that I need to get this person into play as soon as possible. So we skip over a lot of the stuff we've talked about this week and we just put them into play, into position to start doing. Well, what happens then?

It's one of the biggest mistakes you could make, because how can you ensure that they're going to do quality customer service and quality work that maintains your reputation? Reputation is long, hard road to build and very, very quick to dismantle. So if you're a premium service provider, your goal is to provide turnkey white glove experience. But if you put the wrong people into position to be customer facing, that white glove service seems like a false. It's not real. So you need to make sure that they understand really the gravity of what they're trying to do and then, once they understand it, then they can be customer facing again.

And I even want to go a step further and say sometimes it's not the wrong person, it's the wrong person at that time, the wrong person. With that level of training it could be the right person. You could still set that person up for failure and be short-handed in the end. So exactly what you're saying. What happens next is you feel the need, the gravity, to then micromanage this person. Right, because everything they're doing doesn't line up with everything you want them to do. And you're sitting there going okay, well, kind of shitty trades person is this. They can't even mount a conduit straight, they're not plumbing, they're not, they're spacings off, they're staplings off Whatever the beef is. You're noticing little things, the expectations aren't really set, and so you start micromanaging it. But that drives a wedge for it too, because next thing you know they're losing respect for you. You're losing respect for them and you're having this thought Gosh, it's almost like it was easier, it was less work before I had this person. Now I'm going over everything twice, plus I'm paying them. What's the point? They're feeling that gap and next thing, you know, they wrap up on you. They walk out. Now you're pissed because they feel like they've got the upper hand. You're upset because they think their shit doesn't stink. And you're sitting there with your hands tied on redoing the work that they did that didn't meet your expectations. That sound familiar.

It does. But at the same time, we've got to figure out where the finger needs to be pointed, though, because a lot of times we want to blame the employee and say, like you didn't do what you were supposed to do and you don't know what you're doing. And really, what my opinion is is that there are no bad students, there are only bad teachers. So if you were to say, this person doesn't know what they were supposed to do, who authorized that? They could then go do it. Did you inspect what they were trying to do? Did you understand their level of capability before you put them in the van? Because you can't blame them for being the people they are with the skills that they have currently. If you had an disproportionate expectation of their ability, whose fault is that enough?

Yeah, you got to pull out that big, fat, heavy mirror. And this, as we've said before, we'll keep saying it, keep reminding you guys like Playing above the line with ownership, accountability and responsibility. Why? Because everything below the line with blame excuses. Denial also relinquishes control. We can't do anything about that, joe, if I blame you here today for stuff that you've done and say that I have no part in it, mm-hmm, that means I can't do anything about it. That just leaves it us, leaves us at a standoff where we're clearly in difference, with no possible solution.

There's gotta be a other hand.

If I look at it and go well, joe, I you know what. Internally I think you know what I wasn't happy with what happened there with Joe, what was my part in this? Mm-hmm, how can we adjust the input to create a different output? That's that accountability we're talking about right now, the communications entirely different. That's being more set up for success and I think, to your point, that's something that needs to happen. With the example we've given, I would agree with you.

Let me take this a step deeper now.

In this value piece hiring secrets that we're absolutely giving away. All you got to do is put your hand up and say you want it Hashtag hiring secrets. You're also going to see how we compare the sales process to the recruiting process and what that sales process really does. As we've said all week, this is your biggest sale. So what a good sales process does is actually identifies experience. It identifies a current reality, right where people are today, what their experience is currently and what they have experienced. It identifies their current reality. It identifies their current pain points. It identifies their current view for themselves, for their vision. Thus, it also identifies the gap, the difference between that vision where they are today and what's in the way. That's what every good sales process really does. And along that journey and those questions I mean those are deep, open-ended questions so we get to know someone and develop rapport in that time to the recruiting process is no different. And if you've skipped those, then you're missing a massive piece of this in building that staff journey, building something that is, as Tommy would say in his book, or again to reference the seven Habits of effective people, steven or Covey that win-win situation when you can literally say, okay, here's your needs, here's your desires, here's your constraints. Here's how we could help gosh. This does look like a fit. Here's you at your best, and here's you at your best with us. Wouldn't that be important to have that roadmap?

I Agree, because if you just give people an image, that is what they could achieve, but there's no string connecting a to b. They may go a backwards through z all the way, reverse the alphabet to get where they need to go, just they'll end there, but with a lot more struggle, a lot more confusion. Definitely, that's why it's so important to have the roadmap.

I think it all begins with that treating it like a sale, keeping in mind the market has shifted. Gone are the days where you just put a help wanted sign in the front window and you got a line up of people who'd be lucky to have you. That's not the market we're in. I haven't seen that in ten years, ten plus twenty years. That's been in a shift, and a lot of people blame millennials. They blame the new generations, useless. You could blame whatever you want. The reality is just human psychology, and where we're at today is there's a shortage of people, technically skilled people but they all want the same thing they want a better life for themselves, they want more autonomy, they want a place where they belong. You quickly start to see how this all relates back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which was developed in early 70s. It hasn't changed. If anything, it's just people are looking out for themselves more than ever before. So our strategy has to adapt. We've just got to look out for our people, and if you truly get that information, if you're truly able to create those win-win situations for people where you win and they win, then why the fuck would they leave?

Realistically they shouldn't, because if you think about it, if it's truly in their best interests, even on the days that they don't like you, they'll see the benefits of staying and then, if you are a good person with a good system, they won't have the bad days forever. Every one of us are going to have a bad day, Like I know. I'm not always the best boss. I try my best, but there are some days where I lose my chair-blank demeanor as well. The benefit is is that the bad days are drastically offset by the good ones. So if they have that trust, like and respect with you, they're going to be willing to stick it out for one bad day to see you rally the next.

And, I would add, willing to just talk through it when there is a value shift, when they do feel they need more, they'll remember you as that mentor, that person they trust to help build a future that works for them. So, even if it stops working for them, at least you get the decency of a good conversation around it. Where the gaps are, you'll have an attempt at trying to reconcile it, or at least you'll know how much longer you have with them and they'll be willing to help you reconcile that. In terms of training someone up for their position, in terms of replacing them Gosh, there's so much on this show that we could keep going forever and ever on this topic, but ultimately, that's what I would consider playing for keeps, at least as much of keeps as we can play for these days. If you'll look at their future as much as you'll look at yours and give that the due respect, concern and continued mentorship, I truly believe that you can find the right people, keep the right people and build a business even in 2023, 2024, 2025, and into the 2030s, which is, I think, what we're all trying to do here. A sustainable, scalable operation that runs with you or without you, without a doubt is going to require some good people and it's going to require some good to great people, some Apex players and a team that actually expands your horizon, doesn't minimize that, doesn't bring cancer into it, but actually helps attract more people from their networks to you. Does that make sense, joe?

God, I love what you're saying because I feel one. You're on a roll today and I just want to keep. I'm going to keep rallying behind it and then, the day you're right, the people you surround yourself with become your reflection, and vice versa. So imagine you surrounded yourself with texts that truly believe in your vision, or those that, if nothing else, had the ability and the emotional intelligence to have a conversation about where they had their gaps. If you had nothing else, were surrounded by people who could have a conversation with you when they don't feel satisfied. You'd still be better off, and the fun thing is is that as you're exposed to that, that becomes the normal. So the people who are like you know what I'm just going to keep myself, get my head down. They see themselves out, because the culture is now emotional intelligence.

Definitely. I think you brought that. That's really important too. They will see themselves out. If it's not a fit, they'll see themselves out. That's important too. We can't guarantee the fit for every person, but in this value piece, we're giving you all the tools to make sure that you're creating as much of a fit as possible for the great people that you hope to put into your ranks. Joe, we got to crank out a couple of action items here. I've got some ideas. What do you got on your mind All?

right. So I'd say, on the very most basic, I mean it should be almost like a pretty, pretty easy one. As a gimme we're giving a tool away, like, if you guys have listened this far into the episode, clearly there's a reason why you're still here and we're telling you that we will literally give you a 15 page guide that helps you step by step through this. Bare minimum action is just taking something that's free. It doesn't get more basic than that, right?

Yeah, all star, can I take it If you want? Yeah, I'll crush them off the G. Okay, here's the harder piece and this is where it all goes fucking down the drain. Man, if I can just be the devil's advocate here for a minute and see what's really going on is we love to listen to shit. We got a lot of listeners, not a great deal of action takers. We all struggle with this. You're already overwhelmed. There's already shit going on. I mean, the chances are that since I've said that people have already logged off or stop the episode, I find attendance goes down at the action items. Everyone's overworked, everyone's underpaid. I get it. We've been where you are. What you focus on grows and so if you put some effort into this, you will find someone and you'll be able to build longer, lasting relationships, because we actually didn't fucking make it up. We just tailored it for you. We did not make this up. I've had people say to me don't, don't talk to me like one of your clients. I'm not talking to you like my client. I'm talking to you like a person. This is just human psychology. Don't shoot the messenger. Where does here to help you take action on this? So please take everything we give. Just promise you take action. Pull out this big, fat fucking mirror and ask yourself Is this the kind of place that people want to work to become their best selves? If the answers no, then use this value piece, reflect along the way and look at what can I do today To improve this atmosphere, to improve this environment. Who is it that I want on my team and how can I give them the kind of place that they actually want to work at? By using our thing as a guide, by reflecting on yourself in that way, playing above the line, I guarantee you there are steps that you can take today, next week, the week after. If you just make time for it and just take those steps, even an hour at a time, joe, that's, that adds up the compound effect I saw you put your hand up to do you want to add to this?

I did it one point, but I'm just smiling ear to ear now because I'm like everything I wanted to say you're saying, and a little more eloquently than I could but I just wanted to add. I want to do one thing that I feel would help, and when people say, don't talk to you like you're talking to a client, I want to say that if you truly adopt a process and this is your way of living, you recognize that talking to people in a way that gives you good answers and treats them with good customer service is a better way of talking to people in general. This is become my way of speaking. The reason being is because I know that I can talk to you with integrity, I can show enlightenment and I can also show compassion without getting overly emotional about the outcome.

If that's not a state of mind, you want to be in the netherland place you know, I love what you said there and it makes me think immediately the threat of going over time here a bit how most I would say like eighty percent of our action items Involve a hard question. If you guys haven't noticed, we don't just give good answers, we don't. We don't try to give you all the answers, but we do try to give you all the hard questions so that you can come up with those answers on your own as well. I think that's really important. Mentorship I think that's really important in playing for keeps, I think that's really important for each and every one of us as we consider where we're at, how we're accountable for where we're at and how we get to our next place. That place we're all trying to go, what that gap is and how to beat it. Joe, if that's not a mic drop, I don't know what is. Brother, let it go. Thanks for joining us. Guys are another week of electric penner secrets. This has been episode one hundred and seventy seven of helping you master your sales, simplify your pricing and deliver premium level electrical service. We're taking the weekend off. You should to go be with your family, go be with yourself and let's come back to business on monday. Join us for another episode right here. Live for you guys. Cheers to your success.

Look forward to seeing you soon.